Measuring Middle Class Economic Security

Christian Weller () and Amanda Logan

Journal of Economic Issues, 2009, vol. 43, issue 2, 327-336

Abstract: Economic security is the protection from hardship causing economic losses. Such losses can occur due to unemployment, medical emergencies, and other unforeseen events. To measure how well prepared families are for these events, we calculate a series of middle class security indicators, specifically the share of families who have enough financial wealth to weather an unemployment spell, those who can cover a medical emergency, those can handle both unemployment and a medical emergency and those who can sustain an emergency that requires three months of income. Based on data from the Federal Reserve, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, we find that economic security steadily improved in the 1990s, but sharply declined after 2000. Within 2-3 years, all gains of the 1990s were erased due to a debt boom fuelled by weak income growth and sharp price increases.

Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.2753/JEI0021-3624430205 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mes:jeciss:v:43:y:2009:i:2:p:327-336

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/MJEI20

DOI: 10.2753/JEI0021-3624430205

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Economic Issues from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().