"A lot of people think the middle class is dead, dying, hollowed out," says Russ Roberts, an economist at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and host of the podcast Econtalk. "And that's a view that's held now increasingly by not just the left…but by conservatives, Republicans, [and] economists across the spectrum."

But is it true? Roberts says that many of the leading studies that support this claim offer "a misreading of the data, or at least an incomplete reading of the data, [ignoring] a much fuller story of opportunity and progress."

In this video, Roberts offers some examples of the assumptions that economic researchers have made, leading them to offer an incomplete picture of American prosperity. He argues that the middle class has fared much better since the 1970s than most people think.

Produced by John Osterhoudt. Camera by Todd Krainin.

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