15 Food Items That the American Middle Class Can No Longer Afford

The middle class is being wiped out as the cost of living outpaces wages, and a host of formerly secure professions, such as teaching, can no longer offer a stable enough income to clothe and feed a family.

"Middle-class life is now 30 percent more expensive than it was 20 years ago," Quart says, listing housing, education, health care, and child care as examples. "In some cases, the cost of daily life has more than doubled in the last 20 years."

According to a Pew research, "Before the 2008 crash, only one-quarter of Americans viewed themselves as lower class or lower-middle class," Quart writes in one of her book's many surprising discoveries. Not any longer. Following the 2008 recession, a whopping 40% of Americans saw themselves as being at the bottom of the pyramid."