KANSAS CITY, Mo. — America's middle-income families are caught in an unprecedented financial crunch, according to an economic analysis released yesterday by two worker advocacy organizations.

Since 2001, rising healthcare and housing costs have erased nominal income gains, causing the "typical" two-income family to take on more debt and neglect savings, the report said.

Economists for the Center for American Progress and the Service Employees International Union collaborated on "Middle Class in Turmoil: Economic Risks Up Sharply for Most Families Since 2001." The report is online at www.americanprogress.org.

The report analyzed families in the middle three income quintiles, defined as annual income between $18,500 and $88,030 in 2004.

These "middle-class families are struggling to pay for a home, health insurance, transportation and their children's college education," the report said.

They are "borrowing record amounts of money, leaving them unable to put away hardly any cash for a rainy day."

This trend has made more families vulnerable to financial crises in the event of unemployment or a major medical expense.

Among all American households, "less than a third of families boast accumulated financial wealth equal to three months' income," wrote authors Christian E. Weller and Eli Staub.

That was a decline of 6.3 percentage points, from 38.9 percent in 2001 to 32.6 percent in 2004, the most recent year for which data was available.