Jay Leno says the US has ‘no middle class anymore.’ The top 10% now drive nearly half of spending. Where do you fit?

He said Porsche is moving upscale to mimic Ferrari, selling fewer cars to wealthier buyers. In his view, the same split is happening everywhere: Hotels are either budget or luxury, restaurants are either fast food or top-end, with the in-between chains getting squeezed.

Leno’s evidence is anecdotal, but economists have been tracking something similar in the numbers.

The top 10% are carrying the spending

According to analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, research from Moody’s Analytics estimates that the top 10% of U.S. households by income now account for more than 45% of spending, while the bottom 60% account for just 23%.

That figure is an estimate, though. The Minneapolis Fed analysis explains that Moody’s works backward from financial and wealth data to estimate savings, then counts the income left over as spending — so it isn’t a direct measure of what households spend.

In the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2024 Consumer Expenditure Surveys, which asked households what they spend, the top 10% of households accounted for 23% of spending and the top 30% for more than half.

Moody’s argues that high-income households systematically underreport spending in that survey.

A recent Federal Reserve Board analysis adds another angle. Based on the 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances, the top 10% of households by income accounted for about 28% of non-housing spending.

The top 10% of luxury spenders, measured by spending on restaurant meals, vacations and new vehicles, accounted for about half of that category’s spending. These are the kinds of purchases Leno was talking about.

Is the middle class shrinking?

The Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan fact tank, found that 51% of Americans were in the middle class in 2023, down from 61% in 1971.