The American dream? Top 20% pulling away from the rest, study finds

Economics professor Richard Reeves says the upper middle are 'opportunity hoarding' - and pulling up the drawbridge behind them

Does the American dream exist? Or has the middle class ruined it by hoarding opportunity on a scale that makes even the infamous one-percenters appear harmless and ineffectual?

That's the question economics professor and Brookings Institution fellow Richard Reeves has set out to answer, and his findings are worrying: the top echelons of the US middle class - those earning over $120,000 - are separating from the rest of the US, and pulling up the drawbridge behind them.

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