Today's @BV post is about how the U.S. middle class hasn't actually lost ground since the 1970s: bloomberg.com/view/articles/…
After adjusting for inflation - which means taking into account the rising costs of health care, housing, education, etc. - the median American has seen real income gains of 30-45 percent since the mid-70s. 
That median income increase includes government transfers! America has been getting more generous, not less; real transfers have been going up and up.
Also, non-wage market income (pension contributions, asset income, etc.) has gone up.
Also, non-wage market income (pension contributions, asset income, etc.) has gone up.
Even though women joined the workforce en masse, the median income rise mostly hasn't come from people working more overall. Americans are working only about 9 or 10 percent more hours, on average, as they were in 1977.
In fact, until the Great Recession hit, real median personal income was approximately keeping pace with Total Factor Productivity.
So while inequality has increased, redistribution has also increased. We can and should increase redistribution even more, but in the long term the middle class needs the economy to keep growing if it's going to keep seeing living standards rise.
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