A large and prosperous middle class has been America’s enduring hallmark.

But over the last generation — and especially during the deep recession — “more and more of the middle class have fallen off the cliff into poverty,” says AARP CEO A. Barry Rand. They’ve been “pulled down by a lack of job opportunities, rising health care costs, inadequate savings, declining home values, a lack of consumer protections and stagnant wages that have not kept pace with the costs of meeting basic needs,” Rand told an audience at AARP’s Life@50+ event in Los Angeles on Sept. 22.

How can the nation rebuild its middle class?

Watch Rand's speech in full above.