It seems that as income inequality rises the middle class is shrinking. according to this article data shows that middle class household incomes remain stagnant at a near 25 year low, and the share of the nations economic gains going to the middle class has fallen to near-record lows. Also costs of  living have risen make this problem even worse. I think that income inequality is becoming more of an issue in the U.S. but that what happens when you have economic freedom. Average income of the top 20 percent of earners rose by 42.6% in inflation-adjusted terms between 1979 and 2012 but the average income of the middle 60% only rose by 9.5%

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/news/2014/12/18/101790/as-income-inequality-rises-americas-middle-class-shrinks/

This article talks about how the wealth gap holds back economic growth. The west’s leading economic thinktank on Tuesday dismissed the concept of trickle-down economics as it found that the UK economy would have been more than 20% bigger had the gap between rich and poor not widened since the 1980s. The OECD said that the richest 10% of the population now earned 9.5 times the income of the poorest 10%, up from seven times in the 1980s. It seems that the theory of trickle down economics has been proven to not work, or it at least causes more income inequality


http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/dec/09/revealed-wealth-gap-oecd-report