MILWAUKEE, WI — Seven in 10 adults older than 18 consider themselves part of the middle class, according to new findings from Northwestern Mutual's 2017 Planning & Progress Study.

The report, released this week, compares to analysis of government data by the Pew Research Center showing that the number of middle-income households in the United States has been dropping for four decades and made up only 50 percent of the U.S. adult population in 2015, down from 61 percent in 1971.

Use this calculator to find out where you and your family falls.

The key to that discrepancy may lie in the way Americans perceive what it means to be part of the middle class. According to the Northwestern Mutual study: