The American Enterprise Institute hosts a lunchtime program today on Are the Poor and Middle Class Actually Getting Poorer? Reassessing Prosperity Trends Since 1980 (webcast begins at 12:30 p.m.):

Our current “Great Recession” has hit the poor and middle class hard, but does this short-term downturn in prosperity characterize the last three decades? Bruce Meyer from the University of Chicago and James Sullivan from the University of Notre Dame take the long view and argue that things are not as bad as we think. In their new paper “The Well-Being of the Poor and the Middle Class Since 1980,” they present research showing a significant rise in prosperity for the poor and middle class over the last 30 years. Contrary to popular conceptions, they found that median income of those groups rose by more than 50 percent and that poverty as measured by consumption has rapidly declined. At this event, Meyer and Sullivan will argue that proper assessment of long-term prosperity trends will have significant value to policymakers trying to get the country back on its feet. Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institution and Alan Reynolds of the Cato Institute will respond. Lunch will be served.