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A new report shows that middle-class Americans are the hardest hit by medical debt.

Left-leaning think tank Third Way estimates that nearly 1 in 4 , or 17 million, middle-class Americans have medical debt. They define the middle-class as earning between $50,000 to $100,000.

They say 23.5% of wage-earners in this bracket are saddled with unpaid medical bills. That compares to 22% of wage-earners under the $50,000 mark and 13% of those in the three-figure range.

The group says the middle class doesn’t have the disposable income or better insurance of higher wage earners. At the same time,  middle class workers are cut out of charity and aid that lower-income earners access.

But the gap is more pronounced in Black and Hispanic Americans. For example, 37.5% of the Black middle class is estimated to have medical debt. That’s 8.5 points higher than the lower-earning Black Americans.

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