The State of the Australian Middle Class

There is a widespread view that the middle class in Australia is doing it tough, that they arefinding it increasingly difficult to maintain a decent standard of living and are suffering frommortgage stress. Indeed, some media reports have announced the end of the middle classdream.This paper tests a number of these popular views against the statistical data. It asks whetherthe typical Australian family can be said to be struggling? Are mortgages creating severeproblems for middle-class families? Is the middle class shrinking? Are families copingfinancially only because wives are going out to work?