43% Expect To Earn More A Year From Now
President Obama on Wednesday declared that growing income inequality in the United States is "the defining challenge of our time." The number of workers who consider themselves poor is at its highest point this year, but help may be on the way: The number who expect to be earning more a year from now matches its highest level in four-and-a-half years.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that most Employed Adults (68%) still consider themselves to be middle class, with another 15% who say they are upper middle class. Just three percent (3%) consider themselves wealthy. Fourteen percent (14%) now say they are the working poor, up from 13% in October and the highest finding of the year. This finding was at its highest in May 2010, when 22% of workers classified themselves as poor. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
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The survey of 600 Employed Adults was conducted on December 3-4 2013 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
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