3 days ago
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
The American Middle Class Isn't Out of Reach
Mike Haugen is correct that we shouldn't subsidize stagnation and that policymakers ought to expand opportunity so all Americans enter adulthood with the skills to ensure their families live securely (Letters, Aug. 16).
But all evidence is that Americans live better materially than almost ever before. It is true that by one commonly used measure, child poverty in 2023 was higher than it was between 2019 and 2022. But in 2022 the rate was the lowest in history, save the Covid years of 2020 and 2021, which featured a flood of safety-net expansions that contributed to the inflation that hurt poor families well into 2023.
