Americans Can’t Believe How Rich They Are

How much does an American family of four need to earn to avoid poverty? According to the Census Bureau, $32,130. But what if it were really $140,000? Late last month, the investor and Substack writer Michael Green advanced this attention-grabbing claim, which implies that a majority of Americans are living in poverty today. He argued, further, that families earning $40,000 to $100,000 were stuck in a “valley of death” because “benefits disappear faster than wages rise.” These figures have launched a thousand subsequent takes—most of them skeptical but some sympathetic. Chris Arnade, the author of the book Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America, wrote that “the core of its argument is correct” because too many people in “the ‘aspirational bottom’ are being squeezed.”