OPINION: What Middle-Class Families Want Politicians to Know

They all want to help “everyday Americans.” But do leaders really understand what it takes?

Being middle class in America used to come with a certain amount of leisure and economic security. Today, it involves an endless series of trade-offs and creative workarounds, career reinventions and an inescapable sense of dread.

We asked readers to tell us what it’s like, and more than 500 people, with widely varied incomes, submitted responses. They described not just their financial worries, but the texture of daily life. Even those with very good incomes...