A lament for the shrinking middle class

Levittown (Pennsylvania and New York) was a community concept I am old enough to remember. Thousands of homes, built in the 1950s for an emerging middle class, set the stage for a chicken — perhaps a capon or a lobster — in every pot.

People enjoyed modern appliances, two cars, modest vacations and, most of all, the opportunity to send their children to college. Many of those children subsequently entered the professions and, in turn, saw their children participate in protest marches before settling down in Ivy League dorms.

Today, perhaps for the first time ever, people do not expect their children to do better than they did. Indeed, many of their children, having graduated from college but with few or no job prospects, are still living at home.

Let me share a few statistics. According