Plus, don't forget to see your place in America's Midterm Map. 

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** How is the middle class changing?
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While people can have varying personal definitions for “middle class,” USAFacts has a more numeric approach: take all American households, then divide them into five brackets based on income. The middle 20% of income earners are the nation’s middle class. Forty percent of income earners are above them and 40% are below them.

With that definition in mind, how has the middle class changed since 2000? USAFacts has updated a popular article ([link removed]) with the most recent data available. Here’s what it reveals:
* As of 2019, there were about 29.9 million households in the American middle class.

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* From 2000 to 2019, the share of middle-class families participating in the labor force decreased from 67.2% to 62.9%.

* Middle-class workers earned less in 2019 than in 2000, with the average wage income falling about 7% from $39,000 to $36,000 in 2019 dollars. Meanwhile, the average hours worked per week dropped from 42.9 to 39.5 hours per worker.

* The middle 20% of income earners also receive various support from the government. For example, the average Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payment, often called food stamps, more than tripled from 2000 to 2019.

How did Medicare and Medicaid spending change for the middle class? Did employer-sponsored healthcare grow or decline over the same time? Click here to find out ([link removed]) .

How do non-English speakers vote?

About 8.3% of people nationwide speak English less than “very well,” according to the Census Bureau. Many non-English speakers have been historically excluded from the electoral process. With the midterm elections coming up, here are some quick facts ([link removed]) on a Voting Rights Act provision that mandates non-English ballots in some parts of the country.
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* Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act aims to make voting more accessible for people who primarily speak something other than English and have historically been excluded from the voting process. The section mandates Spanish ballots in three states and 194 other US counties, the most of any language. The next most common non-English ballot languages are Chinese, Vietnamese, Navajo, Choctaw, and Filipino.

* Populations must meet specific census-based criteria for Section 203 to apply:
+ Over 5% of voting-age citizens in a state, county or municipality must be “members of a single language minority group” and have limited English proficiency. For example, Hispanic people with limited English skills are 5.8% of California’s population. All statewide elections must include ballots and election information in Spanish, even if an individual county or city doesn’t meet that population threshold.

+ The language minority must also have depressed literacy rates, meaning the share of people in the language minority with a fifth-grade education or less is higher than the national share.

* Twenty states do not have federally-mandated non-English ballot requirements. Of those states, Oregon and Delaware had the highest proportion of residents who spoke English “less than very well,” according to the Census Bureau, both at 5.4%. West Virginia had the lowest: 0.5%.

Section 203 does not cover every US constituency with limited English skills. Visit USAFacts for a full explanation ([link removed]) of how Section 203 applies.

Get to know America's Midterm Map
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Election Day is just over two weeks away. Do you know what’s on your ballot? What offices will have the most direct impact on your life? Get these answers and more with America’s Midterm Map ([link removed]) . Be sure to watch this TikTok ([link removed]) for a preview of how the map works.


Data behind the news

Last week, a federal appeals court temporarily blocked President Biden's student loan forgiveness plan. See the data ([link removed]) on the type of people most likely to be affected by this turn of events.

Election issues are all over the news. Visit Vote Facts 2022 ([link removed]) for nonpartisan metrics on crime, abortion, immigration, and much more.

Crude oil prices, voter turnout, how Americans use their time: the newest weekly fact quiz is here ([link removed]) .

One last fact
The average age of Senators and Representatives, both new and incumbents, has risen during the last four meetings of Congress. The 114th meeting started on January 3, 2015. The current meeting (the 117th) began January 3, 2021.

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