Is "Chained CPI" a 50 year plan to put the former American middle class in chains?

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10. I understand why you're saying that -- but there are problems either way

There was a point when unionization had raised the pay rates of many blue-collar workers to the point where they could enjoy a middle-class lifestyle -- moving to the suburbs, taking vacations, buying a new car every few years. That sort of thing.

When that happened, it seemed to make perfect sense that the middle class would consist of people between, say, the 25th and 75th percentile of income -- people who had decent jobs but weren't rich.

The definition you're using seems closer to what used to be called the bourgeoisie. It starts at roughly the 50th percentile and goes upward from there. From what I've been finding online, it may not even be considered to include all white collar office workers, but only those with some sort of managerial position.

I understand that this more upscale definition is widely used. Nut all I can say is that if you'd told my parents and their friends back around 1960 that they weren't middle class, that would have stared at you incredulously -- and because they'd been brainwashed. They had middle class tastes, enjoyed a middle class lifestyle, and expected that their children would be better educated and have better paying jobs than they did but that they would be identifiably of the same class as their parents.

At that time, and in that place, the lower class was the people who lived in the projects and were clearly poor. But perhaps it was a New York thing and matters were different elsewhere.