The United States has the world's poorest middle class

Yes, but is anyone here really surprised?

The Washington Post is out with some important charts incorporating data from the Credit Suisse Research Institute, which releases an annual report on global wealth.

First, the United States has a lot of very rich people.

At the same time, it has a large middle class that likes to think its the most prosperous in the world.

But, well, this isn't true.

Look at these two charts and you realize that the United States has a massive income distribution problem. And, well, that Bernie Sanders is pretty accurate when he says taking down the "billionaire class" a notch or two is essential to rebuilding our middle class.

From the Washington Post:

North America is the only global region where the middle class’s share of wealth does not exceed its adult population share, making it the only region where the middle class has less than average wealth.

This distributional challenge is particularly problematic when one is forced to grapple with the fact that not only is the U.S. middle class -- in relative terms -- quite poor, but also that it benefits from almost zero public goods present in other advanced countries, like free-at-use health care, subsidized (or free) college tuition, reliable public transit, or subsidized child care.

Again, is anyone here really surprised?

It isn't rocket science. The United States is a big country with a lot of social welfare needs. It has a lot of (extremely) rich people who fail to pay the taxes necessary to finance a modern welfare state. As a result, we have the highest child poverty rate of any rich country, tens of thousands of people dying prematurely each year for lack of health care (including lots of infants!), and young people burdened by so immoral levels of debt for the crime of educating themselves at so-called "public" colleges and universities.

Hillary can be glib and state, "We are not Denmark!" But she's flat-out lying when she says we would be turning "our backs on what built the greatest middle class in the world" if we adopted more tax and social policies like those in Denmark, or even those in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, France and Italy. Because it's the government intervention in distribution of income in Western Europe that leads to their middle class citizens being more prosperous and secure. When we had more government intervention in income distribution -- and new welfare programs like Medicare and Medicaid -- and under the leadership of Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson, our middle class grew, but when that stopped, it began to shrink.

In short, Hillary, no, we are not Denmark, because Denmark -- and the rest of Western Europe and Canada and Australia -- has a stronger, wealthier, more prosperous middle class than we do here in the United States. Full stop: we do not have the greatest middle class in the world.