The Pew Research Center, a nonprofit think-tank in Washington, D.C., released a major report Monday on America’s shrinking middle class. Peter Schiff, the chief executive of Euro Pacific Capital, and a market pundit who often espouses what critics describe as a bearish outlook for the equity market, says the middle class has been gutted by over-regulation, an escalating cost of living and stagnant wages. This interview has been condensed for space:

MarketWatch: You’re not exactly optimistic. Is that a fair assessment?

Peter Schiff: The American middle class used to be envy of the world. It was a byproduct of economic freedom. We had a very dynamic free market economy and limited government. People were out there pursuing their own self-interest and creating employment opportunities. We had a very upwardly mobile economy and that peaked around the 1950s when the typical middle class American family consisted of a father with a job and stay-at-home mom who took care of the kids.

Generally, middle-class American families had help at home. They didn’t necessarily have two cars. But they owned the one they did have. They didn’t have credit-card debt. They had ample savings. This was true even if the husband didn’t graduate from high school. Even if he had a blue-collar job, he could support his wife and family. And they paid off their mortgage.

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MarketWatch: It’s hard for even dual-income families to make ends meet in many U.S. cities. Even people making six figures in New York have a hard time making ends meet. That would be an absolute luxury anywhere else, right?

Schiff: By the time people retired 50 years ago, they were out of debt. Not today. A school teacher would go to America and be a big shot because he had a lot of money. The cost of living wasn’t as high. Today, it’s changed dramatically. The bar has been lowered dramatically. The middle class today would be poor by the standards of the 1950s. Today, with two people working they would still live paycheck to paycheck.

By the time they pay for day care, it wouldn’t make any sense for both parents to work. Half of the money goes on taxes. Most women want to be with their kids, especially when they’re young. Today, you don’t even come home from school because you go to after-school as both your parents are working.

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MarketWatch: What do you believe is driving the pressure on today’s middle-income families?

Schiff: Today, people have lots of consumer debt, auto loans and student loans. Not only do people not have savings, they’re loaded up with debt. They have no real chance of retirement. People have more TV sets and cell phones. They don’t travel as much as they did. They don’t have as much leisure time. A husband would usually come home to a cooked meal. Now he has to help make the meal.

Families are smaller. They can’t afford to raise their kids or send them to college without taking out a lot of student debt. It’s too expensive. People are getting married later in life and many don’t get married at all. We’ve lost the free-market principles that gave us the free market in the first place. We have lots of regulation, higher taxes, much bigger government and a much smaller middle class.

Remember “The Brady Bunch” TV show? That 1970s family had a full-time live-in housekeeper called Alice. Mrs Brady worked at the PTA and did community work. She didn’t clean her own house. That was middle class. Now you have to be very rich to employ a housekeeper. Everything it meant to be middle class has changed dramatically.”