The report by Pew Research Center found that the share of the middle class fell in 203 of the 229 U.S. metropolitan areas examined from 2000 to 2014, including major cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, which saw a relatively sharp drop in its middle class.
For many areas, a big culprit in the declining middle was the falloff in manufacturing jobs during that 14-year period, when factories shed about 5 million workers from their payrolls nationally.
“The 10 metropolitan areas with the greatest losses in economic status from 2000 to 2014 have one thing in common — a greater than average reliance on manufacturing,” the Pew report said, referring to places such as Detroit; Rockford, Ill.; Springfield, Ohio; and the Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton area in North Carolina.