America, the land of equal opportunity and a robust middle class, is an illusion facts can no longer support. In the past 25 years, the median income for the average family has grown by less than 1 percent, while the median income for the very top tier has grown by 200 percent. Not since the Great Depression has there been such a divide between rich and poor. Middle class? What middle class? Life in the U.S., increasingly, is a matter of extremes.
