So, I heard that the financial strata of Americans is a diamond...

[Freeky]

So there's this guy who's a friend of a friend of mine. He said that the economical situation in America is like a diamond; there's the 1% at the top, the very rich; there's the middle class, which comprises the most people; and then there's the poor, at the bottom, another 1%. 

Your friend is ignorant.

Not my friend, although he's okay when he isn't spouting such obvious bullshit.

[Freeky]

It's a diamond only if you accept an arrow-shaped object as meeting the definition for "diamond" http://www.businessinsider.com/the-tax-debate-about-5-of-us-households-2012-12

This is helpful as hell...

Not a shape, but this should give you a better idea of what shape it would be:

...especially when paired with this.

[Freeky]

So, the argument is that the majority of Americans are middle class, and the very poor and very rich have a low population?

I did some poking around, and it turns out to be a fairly tricky question to answer accurately.  First off, there's no commonly agreed-to definition of what "middle class" means, in regards to income.  Because of this, your friend's friend can shape his argument however he pleases.

Also, lots of people like to call themselves middle class, which means the range could be anywhere from $25,000 to $100,000.  So it seems the actual question itself may be meaningless, because "middle class" appears to be a social construct, rather than an economic one.

Then you have the problem of families.  A $50,000 income is pretty good for an individual.  But each added dependent changes how we see that income.

But let's go on.  Let's say in 2002 (where I'm getting these numbers) an individual income of $50,000 could widely be agreed to as "middle class" in most parts of the country.  And let's top it out at $100,000.  That sounds fair, right? Ok, let's go to the numbers:

http://commadot.com/income-breakdown-in-us/



Looks to me like there are 92.5 Million people living below middle class, 26.6 Million firmly in the middle class, and 10.8 Million above middle class.  Which ain't no diamond, it's a pyramid.

Definitely a pyramid.  That 1-50k is awkward, though, since they lump poverty with working and middle class.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

So, the argument is that the majority of Americans are middle class, and the very poor and very rich have a low population?

I did some poking around, and it turns out to be a fairly tricky question to answer accurately.  First off, there's no commonly agreed-to definition of what "middle class" means, in regards to income.  Because of this, your friend's friend can shape his argument however he pleases.

Also, lots of people like to call themselves middle class, which means the range could be anywhere from $25,000 to $100,000.  So it seems the actual question itself may be meaningless, because "middle class" appears to be a social construct, rather than an economic one.

Then you have the problem of families.  A $50,000 income is pretty good for an individual.  But each added dependent changes how we see that income.

But let's go on.  Let's say in 2002 (where I'm getting these numbers) an individual income of $50,000 could widely be agreed to as "middle class" in most parts of the country.  And let's top it out at $100,000.  That sounds fair, right? Ok, let's go to the numbers:

http://commadot.com/income-breakdown-in-us/



Looks to me like there are 92.5 Million people living below middle class, 26.6 Million firmly in the middle class, and 10.8 Million above middle class.  Which ain't no diamond, it's a pyramid.

Definitely a pyramid.  That 1-50k is awkward, though, since they lump poverty with working and middle class.

It's a very poorly labeled graph; ideally, how it would be labeled on the x-axis would make it clear that it's a continuum with 0 = 1k, 2 = 25k, 3 = 50k, and so on.

[Freeky]

Yeah, that would probably have been a much better way to plot the data.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

It's a diamond only if you accept an arrow-shaped object as meeting the definition for "diamond" http://www.businessinsider.com/the-tax-debate-about-5-of-us-households-2012-12

This is helpful as hell...

Not a shape, but this should give you a better idea of what shape it would be:

...especially when paired with this.

The following video expands on that visualization in a way that is somewhat surprising, even for cynical asshats like myself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM