ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer traveled to more than a dozen cities across the country over an 18 month span to explore issues of opportunity and income inequality for a 20/20 special set to air this evening.
Sawyer and her team of producers connected on social media with thousands of Americans, and traveled to document their everyday lives. They met with everyone from firefighters and fast food workers, to Silicon Valley employees and college professors – and reporting on their hopes and difficulties. The group set out across the nation to bring these stories into focus, and better understand what it means to be the first generation of middle class Americans in over 50 years who are more likely than not to earn less than their parents.
“We spent a year and a half with so many hard working people, who feel the middle class is shrinking, wages are stalled and the American media hasn’t really been paying enough attention to this story,” Sawyer told TVNewser. “This is their reality – holding on to the American dream.”
Sawyer will continue to follow these people during and through the presidential transition, and she will also report on solutions to this crisis proposed by American workers, and the difference some companies have made when their leaders actually reach out to create change.
My Reality: A Hidden America airs tonight at 10 p.m. ET on ABC.