What’s the different between upper middle class and upper class?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ha my sister married into a UC Bostonian family - you would never know it when you look at them.

The parents have a house in the NE for the summer and in the SE for the winter.

Will fly commercial but as they have gotten older prefer to fly on private jets.

Daughter married into finance and her HHI is around $10 million a year.

Son (my sisters husband) and my sister do well but are not as insanely wealthy as the daughter. Their HHI is around $1.5 million a year.

The family trust is around $20 million and nobody touches the principal it just gets passed down through the generations.

This is a tiny family trust for this level of HHI. I created a $7m trust for my child a single mother making $300k/year

Sorry, what are you saying? how does one create a $7 million trust from earning $300k a year? That's like 30x your gross pre-tax annual salary.

Leveraged investing in real estate, efficient taxation and several jobs between age 25 and 45. Beginning salary was 100K

I have done better than that. I created a $10 million trust. I have never earned more than $210k a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ha my sister married into a UC Bostonian family - you would never know it when you look at them.

The parents have a house in the NE for the summer and in the SE for the winter.

Will fly commercial but as they have gotten older prefer to fly on private jets.

Daughter married into finance and her HHI is around $10 million a year.

Son (my sisters husband) and my sister do well but are not as insanely wealthy as the daughter. Their HHI is around $1.5 million a year.

The family trust is around $20 million and nobody touches the principal it just gets passed down through the generations.

This is a tiny family trust for this level of HHI. I created a $7m trust for my child a single mother making $300k/year

Sorry, what are you saying? how does one create a $7 million trust from earning $300k a year? That's like 30x your gross pre-tax annual salary.

Leveraged investing in real estate, efficient taxation and several jobs between age 25 and 45. Beginning salary was 100K

I have done better than that. I created a $10 million trust. I have never earned more than $210k a year.

This thread has devolved into a circular jerk o**

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Upper Class: This is the realm of traditional blue-blooded elites who, although they lack the almost mythical wealth of their higher counterparts, still wield considerable influence. Think of families like the Kennedys and Roosevelts — families who, according to Fussell, are obviously extremely elite but too “public” to be placed in the higher “top out of sight” tier.

Upper Middle Class: This class represents the backbone of educated professionals who, while not possessing the lineage or heritage wealth of the ‘Upper Class’, nonetheless hold significant sway within society. If the ‘Upper Class’ is defined by heritage and wealth, then the ‘Upper Middle Class’ is defined by education. Here, you’ll find a plethora of Ivy League degrees and advanced qualifications. Universities are seen not merely as gateways to professional success but as indispensable institutions for cultural enlightenment and social bonding. As for professions, expect a broad spectrum. They’re your accomplished lawyers, seasoned doctors, university professors, and successful small business owners. Their careers offer more than economic comfort — they command societal respect and intellectual satisfaction. Culturally, the ‘Upper Middle Class’ champions meritocracy and the pursuit of personal growth. They place a high premium on cultural literacy, aesthetic refinement, and intellectual curiosity. In essence, the ‘Upper Middle Class’ values are rooted in achievement through dedication and education rather than inherited status. They are the embodiment of the American dream, where one can rise through the ranks via hard work and intellectual acumen.

Note class is what you're born into, not the money you have. A blue collar plumber who wins the lottery or happens to sell his business for $20 million is still High Proletarian. Now, his kids might level up. That is, no matter how much sheen you put on it, you will find your class markers betraying you even if you become successful and wealthy. For instance, I know some very wealthy and successful people who grew up poor and their very nice and tasteful house is packed with food. Like ridiculous and wasteful amounts of food -- because it's a sign of comfort and of the trauma due to food insecurity that they experienced as children. That's a sure sign that they were born lower middle class or lower.

Most of this sounds straight out of chatgpt, with all the attendant lack of understanding.

Oh please enlighten us on what is misunderstood. This was pulled from notes from Paul Fussell's book, "Class" along with personal anecdotes and recognizing it's a wonderful, albeit dated guide to class distinctions in America. Or perhaps I struck a nerve because it hit too close to home? If it did, then it's probably because you're decidedly middle class and insecure.

PP here. Lol, I've read that book, in fact I recommended it here a couple of years ago. I bet that is how you knew about it.

That book is old, and most of it is tongue-in-cheek. It literally has funny drawings in it.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Upper middle has at least some income through a w-2 and actually needs to work to maintain their lifestyle/savings.

Upper class can fully sustain themselves with investments.

Plenty of FIRE people “sustain themselves with investments.” But they are living on $100k a year in a LCOL area. That doesn’t make them upper class.

But many upper class people are cheap as hell.

For sure. But that doesn't have anything to do with whether or not they are UC.

My mother wouldn't let me order sour cream on my baked potato at Ponderosa because it cost 25 cents extra. Drive up the road from that Ponderosa (just about the only place we ever ate out, unless you count BK, which was also rare) a ways and you would come across a uni building with our name on it. Lol. She was a money hoarder -- it's a mental illness and had nothing to do with how much money there actually was, or the fact that she had grown up the way most UC people do. She was just nuts. I remember one evening at the Country Club we were having dinner with my grandparents and my grandfather looks up from the menu and says to my grandmother "Larla, we can't afford this!" and she just shook her head at him annoyed -- they could afford every dinner in the place and the building it was in to boot, and more. People have weird relationships with money and get very controlling around spending and sometimes having a lot of money doesn't really matter. My grandfather's dad jumped off a building in NYC in 1929 though (yeah, not a myth, it did happen) -- so we will allow him his trauma and controlling feelings around money.

Sounds like my FIL. UHNW and almost had a heart attack when he thought we weren’t covering the entire $100 Carrabba’s bill at dinner. It’s a sickness.

I’ve noticed this too. It’s the wealthy families we know who will invite one of our kids along to an activity and let us know the amount so we can Venmo them. And I don’t mean expensive activities, I’m talking ~$30 when they live in a $2M house and own vacation properties.

Meanwhile my family your typical DCUM UMC earning about $300k and we definitely need our incomes. Yet I refuse to let other parents reimburse me if I’m the one inviting their child somewhere. I always give 2-3x the suggested contribution amount to the room parents. We generally tip 20% as the default for things like going out to eat, hair cuts, etc. We give generous holiday gifts to our biweekly cleaners, teachers (well as much as the gift limit allows throughout the year), adopt an angel tree kid and try to get everything on the list we reasonably can, etc.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in a working class neighborhood and feel so fortunate to now have the disposable income we do even if it’s not enough to quit our jobs and live a life of leisure. We are good savers and lucked out on buying a home with a sub 3% interest rate, so I don’t want to spend our lives fretting over relatively small amounts of money. I’d rather err on the side of generosity.

Conversely I think having a lot of wealth creates this scarcity mindset where you must protect that wealth and worry about people taking advantage of you.

Getty who was one of the founders of Standard Oil along with Rockefeller had a pay phone in his house that guests had to use if they wanted to make a call. Admittedly, phone calls back in the day were really expensive (in the 1950s you had to pay like $10 for a 10 minute phone call from NYC to Boston).

Don't you remember the commercial where they were serving boxed wine at some massive estate and the tagline was "how do you think I got so rich?".

Didn’t he also refuse to pay ransom when his own grandson was kidnapped ?

[Anonymous]

I think the upper class in 2026 is $15m in net worth or more. Upper middle class is $3-15m. Also, HENRYs (High Earner, Not Yet Rich) are UMC if they are under 40, but above that, if they haven't accumulated $3m, they are just high earners who overspend.

[Anonymous]

I have $16 M and I wouldn't consider flying private, owning a house in Aspen/NYC, a yacht or any other kind of UC thing. Not that its not a lot of income each year but I don't think its UC money nowadays. Its basically a regular/nice close-in house, a vacation house, restaurants and business class flights.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Upper middle has at least some income through a w-2 and actually needs to work to maintain their lifestyle/savings.

Upper class can fully sustain themselves with investments.

Plenty of FIRE people “sustain themselves with investments.” But they are living on $100k a year in a LCOL area. That doesn’t make them upper class.

But many upper class people are cheap as hell.

For sure. But that doesn't have anything to do with whether or not they are UC.

My mother wouldn't let me order sour cream on my baked potato at Ponderosa because it cost 25 cents extra. Drive up the road from that Ponderosa (just about the only place we ever ate out, unless you count BK, which was also rare) a ways and you would come across a uni building with our name on it. Lol. She was a money hoarder -- it's a mental illness and had nothing to do with how much money there actually was, or the fact that she had grown up the way most UC people do. She was just nuts. I remember one evening at the Country Club we were having dinner with my grandparents and my grandfather looks up from the menu and says to my grandmother "Larla, we can't afford this!" and she just shook her head at him annoyed -- they could afford every dinner in the place and the building it was in to boot, and more. People have weird relationships with money and get very controlling around spending and sometimes having a lot of money doesn't really matter. My grandfather's dad jumped off a building in NYC in 1929 though (yeah, not a myth, it did happen) -- so we will allow him his trauma and controlling feelings around money.

Sounds like my FIL. UHNW and almost had a heart attack when he thought we weren’t covering the entire $100 Carrabba’s bill at dinner. It’s a sickness.

I’ve noticed this too. It’s the wealthy families we know who will invite one of our kids along to an activity and let us know the amount so we can Venmo them. And I don’t mean expensive activities, I’m talking ~$30 when they live in a $2M house and own vacation properties.

Meanwhile my family your typical DCUM UMC earning about $300k and we definitely need our incomes. Yet I refuse to let other parents reimburse me if I’m the one inviting their child somewhere. I always give 2-3x the suggested contribution amount to the room parents. We generally tip 20% as the default for things like going out to eat, hair cuts, etc. We give generous holiday gifts to our biweekly cleaners, teachers (well as much as the gift limit allows throughout the year), adopt an angel tree kid and try to get everything on the list we reasonably can, etc.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in a working class neighborhood and feel so fortunate to now have the disposable income we do even if it’s not enough to quit our jobs and live a life of leisure. We are good savers and lucked out on buying a home with a sub 3% interest rate, so I don’t want to spend our lives fretting over relatively small amounts of money. I’d rather err on the side of generosity.

Conversely I think having a lot of wealth creates this scarcity mindset where you must protect that wealth and worry about people taking advantage of you.

Getty who was one of the founders of Standard Oil along with Rockefeller had a pay phone in his house that guests had to use if they wanted to make a call. Admittedly, phone calls back in the day were really expensive (in the 1950s you had to pay like $10 for a 10 minute phone call from NYC to Boston).

Don't you remember the commercial where they were serving boxed wine at some massive estate and the tagline was "how do you think I got so rich?".

Didn’t he also refuse to pay ransom when his own grandson was kidnapped ?

Yes, lol.

Clearly the dude was a bit ^%$#ed up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have $16 M and I wouldn't consider flying private, owning a house in Aspen/NYC, a yacht or any other kind of UC thing. Not that its not a lot of income each year but I don't think its UC money nowadays. Its basically a regular/nice close-in house, a vacation house, restaurants and business class flights.

This ^^.

[Anonymous]

Upper means you have no money worries middle class is one paycheck to paycheck

In Trump world middle class will be bread liners soon

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread really brought out the blue book / social register slops. Thank god they’re a dying breed.

Yeah, but now we’re stuck with PE vultures and their ilk, and they’re a literal cancer. They should be drawn and quartered in the streets. At least we got museums and libraries out of the old WASPs.

I feel this in my bones. We aren't even UMC and one year I joked all our vacations came courtesty of the Rockefellers creating the spots we traveled to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on these responses you can be upper class while earning $100k in investments, sitting on a not for profit board and living extremely modestly. But upper middle while earning $1 million.

We are borderline of UMC and UC. $3m HHI, few properties, can technically retire but cannot maintain current lifestyle without working.

Some people may say we are definitely UC. I consider ourselves UMC.

If you were born UMC your tastes will be - and that really define you. You are just rich UMC. Strivers here don’t get that.

Wait. Class has come up several times on this thread, and isn't that what that entire book is all about?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Upper middle has at least some income through a w-2 and actually needs to work to maintain their lifestyle/savings.

Upper class can fully sustain themselves with investments.

Ah, so most people change social class when they retire?

Or (more likely) you have zero idea what you’re talking about

I assume the PP was referring to people of working age. The goal, even for LMC, is to be able to retire (or at least cut to part time and collect some SS instead of working full time) in older age.

But in looking at 2 families in the thick of home buying, career decisions, childcare expenses, figuring out what level of outsourcing they can afford, etc. the UMC family is likely budgeting to some extent, making decisions on where to cut and where to splurge, dread expensive home repairs, and know in their minds their class standing could easily change with job loss or illness. UMC is much closer to MC or even LMC than they are the UC.

The truly UC aren’t scared about AI taking their jobs. They aren’t worried about future real estate being too expensive for their children to get on the property ladder. They aren’t worried about losing their health insurance if they get cancer and can’t work. It’s a level of security that most of us will never come close to because their money is doing all the work for them.

Have you ever encountered real UC people? They might not stress over the things you mentioned, but they definitely stress about the stock market and their return on investment. A lower ROI can push them to reduce their spending and change their way of living. That really worries them. I can assure you that they tend to be more anxious about certain issues than average people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on these responses you can be upper class while earning $100k in investments, sitting on a not for profit board and living extremely modestly. But upper middle while earning $1 million.

We are borderline of UMC and UC. $3m HHI, few properties, can technically retire but cannot maintain current lifestyle without working.

Some people may say we are definitely UC. I consider ourselves UMC.

If you were born UMC your tastes will be - and that really define you. You are just rich UMC. Strivers here don’t get that.

Wait. Class has come up several times on this thread, and isn't that what that entire book is all about?

Yes. That’s the whole point of the book and what a lot of middle class folks find so off putting. It’s also why they hate talking about class (ie, because they’re deeply insecure about their own class position with some even using threads like this as a crowdsourced “how to social climb” manual). No matter how much money they have, they’ll never live down their middle or lower class upbringing. It’ll manifest itself through various tells and behaviors. So folks should just relax a little stop striving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have $16 M and I wouldn't consider flying private, owning a house in Aspen/NYC, a yacht or any other kind of UC thing. Not that its not a lot of income each year but I don't think its UC money nowadays. Its basically a regular/nice close-in house, a vacation house, restaurants and business class flights.

So you're prudent. Maybe a yacht and a home in Aspen are still out of reach, but if you have earned income plus $16m, you could afford a NetJets account on top of your vacation account if you wanted it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on these responses you can be upper class while earning $100k in investments, sitting on a not for profit board and living extremely modestly. But upper middle while earning $1 million.

We are borderline of UMC and UC. $3m HHI, few properties, can technically retire but cannot maintain current lifestyle without working.

Some people may say we are definitely UC. I consider ourselves UMC.

If you were born UMC your tastes will be - and that really define you. You are just rich UMC. Strivers here don’t get that.

Wait. Class has come up several times on this thread, and isn't that what that entire book is all about?

Yes. That’s the whole point of the book and what a lot of middle class folks find so off putting. It’s also why they hate talking about class (ie, because they’re deeply insecure about their own class position with some even using threads like this as a crowdsourced “how to social climb” manual). No matter how much money they have, they’ll never live down their middle or lower class upbringing. It’ll manifest itself through various tells and behaviors. So folks should just relax a little stop striving.

A lot of truly wealthy people don't care about "class" - and why should they? They have enough money to buy a ranch in Jackson Hole to get away from classists. Also, money may not equal class, but it is a prerequisite to class. No one cares about your family of origin if you're broke or working in mid-level management.