US News & World Report money  An Inside Look at the Middle-Class
Squeeze  From retirement to health, how the struggle plays out
in everyday life  Trina Dopp Photography  "The most pressing
worry is the diminished economic security of middle-class
families. The long-term unemployed have completely drained their
savings," says Kristen Lewis, co-director of Measure of America,
a project of the Social Science Research Council that explores
the distribution of opportunity and well-being in the United
States. "Those who are working have jobs without healthcare or
sick leave. They have no retirement savings plan. There's no end
in sight to that."  [Read: The Real Source of Middle-Class Money
Woes.]  Lewis adds that the economic state of the middle class
takes its toll on their health. A series of recent reports found
that life expectancy for whites without a high school
diploma—once the backbone of the middle class—has dropped faster
than for other groups. The reports linked the decline in large
part to the lack of