Nate Cohn

And that adds up to something really big.

Sixty five percent of people said that a middle class life was out of reach for most people.

And more than three quarters say it's gotten harder to achieve that middle class life than a generation ago.

So making this problem worse is a really big deal.

It means putting what people ordinarily expect out of their life and out of the life of most Americans out of reach for them.

I think the thing that struck me most about it was that there was a really deep generational divide.

Young people were just much more concerned about affordability and the ability to achieve a middle-class life than older people.

Only 24% of our 18 to 29-year-old respondents said that they thought they could afford the life they thought they should be able to afford compared to 63% of people over age 65.

It's a big difference.

Only 27% of young people said they had achieved a middle-class lifestyle compared with two-thirds of older voters.

So those are really big differences.

And I think it's pretty easy to explain why young people are much more anxious about this.

They haven't yet bought.

That middle class life.

They don't own a home.

They haven't raised their kids.

They haven't sent them to college or retired.

Older people, in contrast, bought all those things.

Right.

They've purchased a home many years ago.