The new report found that by 2010, just under 50-percent of Californians were living in families considered middle income. In 1980, it was 60-percent. Sarah Bohn with the P.P.I.C. says she examined survey data from the Census Bureau for the report.
"I was most surprised to find that even at high levels of income families saw sizeable declines during the recession, but it was low income families that took the larger hits in their income through 2010."
The report found that incomes for the poorest California
families dropped more than 21-percent between 2007 and 2010.
Top earners saw their incomes fall five percent during that
time. For the middle class, incomes dropped five percent
between 2007 and 2009-and another six percent between 2009 and
2010.
