The shrinking middle class

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The U.S. economy is recovering, but you wouldn't know it from looking at the country's middle class. That group continues to suffer from "dissavings," which occurs when spending is greater than income.

A recent paper from a New York University economics professor puts the middle class into a dissavings rate of 9.9 percent relative to median income. In other words, the group is going further into debt and depleting assets to maintain their lifestyles.

The middle class is on the wrong side of the widening income and wealth gap in the county. Incomes at the top are growing sharply, propelled by gains in the stock market, but since the 1970s the income gains for the middle and lower rungs have slowed.

Economist Thomas Piketty hit a nerve earlier this year when his new book on economic inequality stirred a wide-ranging debate on the wealth gap and the diminishing opportunities for upward mobility in America.