I am surprised it is that high. I would guess more like 10% assuming we are talking about the 99%… maybe you would get this number among the 1%ers
It’s going to be far fewer than that thanks to Red Ink Republicans!
Republicans, climate change. I look at my kids and keep my fingers crossed.
Well, if young Americans needed another excuse to sit out voting, I guess this will do.
Wait until that half realizes their chances are even smaller and the half becomes an eighth.
Brush it off Dems, focus on getting women and minorities to the polls, no need to talk economics. Let’s get another moderate incrementalist with deep ties to Wall St!
Keep fighting for prep school graduates, undocumented workers and women in the corporate media, the country will follow!
This has always been a dumb metric about societal progress, as it sounds more like an entitlement than indicative of meaningful progress. It doesn’t bother me at all that my father made more money than I did. In important arenas I did better than he. Surely better statistical markers exist: life expectancy; literacy, falling death rates for certain self-imposed diseases; air/water/soil pollution levels; early child death rates; employment rates; min wage, etc.
The bigger societal problem is how the richest rich rig the system to get richer at the expense of everybody else. Creeping plutocracy is a big deal. An empty middle class slot will change our democracy into something worse.
Parents were slightly more optimistic: 60 percent think their children will do better than they did, a view that held true for parents across all income groups.
Tru dat! My parents had such high expectations of me, and look where i am now. 
50% number seems about right to me. The erosion of the middle class has been happening since the 70s at least.
As GenX’ers it’s already pretty clear to me that my spouse and I will not do as well as our parents in spite of being pretty similar in terms of educational attainment and career path.
For starters, by the time they are paid off we will have spent about $150,000 on principal and interest on student loans for our various degrees. That’s more than what our first house cost. Our parents’ student loans? $0. If we had been able to put that $150K into something else over the past 20 years we would have a lot more house or retirement savings.
My spouse’s parents are retired public employees. They have full pensions and since they had retiree health benefits they were able to retire at age 60 and not worry about astronomical health insurance premiums or running out of retirement savings. I would love to retire early but if the reality 10 years from now is similar to today it’s not possible. Paying for health insurance until I was eligible for Medicare would blow such a huge hole in my savings that I would risk outliving my savings.
…and the other half are paying attention.