INFO 202 Fall 08 Blog

This Pew Research Center article, entitled “America’s Four Middle Classes,” has little explicitly to do with IR technology. However, it does feature a new model for the categorization of the “American Middle Class,” which I think is a useful example for a discussion of the ways in which redefining data categories can provide new insights and sweep away widely held myths. This report describes how social survey data was used by researchers to segment people who self-identify as “Middle Class” into four new categories that describe financial stability – namely Top of the Class, Satisfied Middle, Struggling Middle, and Anxious Middle. The report demonstrates how within the self-identified category of “Middle Class,” there is a great variation in financial status, from relative economic comfort to the potential for financial hardship. I was personally drawn to this report because it demonstrates that simple recategorization of data can possibly lead to sweeping changes in social perceptions.

Here is an excerpt from the article: Life is considerably tougher for the Struggling Middle, a group disproportionately composed of women and minorities. In fact, many members of the Struggling Middle have more in common with the lower class than they do with those in the other three groups and actually have a lower median family income than Americans who put themselves on the lowest rungs of the social ladder. About one-in-six self-identified middle class Americans fall into the Struggling Middle.

Rest of article here. Full, 19-page PDF report of this project available here.

Relevant lectures: 5. CONCEPTS & CATEGORIES (9/15)