The key point, however, is not that the ratio doubled but why. Corrected for inflation, the median wealth of upper-income families has doubled since 1983, from $318,000 to $639,000. By contrast, the median wealth of middle-class families has stagnated during that period--$94,000 in 1983, $96,000 today. To be sure, middle-class wealth increased to $158,000 between 1983 and 2007 but the Great Recession reversed that gain, and the middle class has not participated significantly in the stock market surge that began in mid-2009.
While we should welcome the increased pace of job creation and early signs of wage gains, the middle class is unlikely to regain a sense of security until the nest eggs of average families reclaim the ground they have lost since the onset of the Great Recession.