What is the “upper” in upper middle class?
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Anonymous
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What differentiates the upper middle class from the regular middle class?
A lot of the people who claim to be upper middle class seem to be simply rich to me. What is the difference? |
Anonymous
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It used to be that lower middle class people were in the trades like plumber, electrician, nurse - ‘blue collar’ workers
And Upper middle class were college educated professional ‘white collar’ workers. At some point, people stated only associating in with income. So, upper middle class is wherever you draw that line. I do think many on here confuse UMC with lower rich. For example, private school is mainly a rich people thing that many on DCUM think is UMC- same for nearly yearly vacations to foreign lands. |
Anonymous
| Whatever is UMC according to DCUM constitutes rich to everyone else. |
Anonymous
| poor people think you are rich, rich people think you are poor |
Anonymous
I think that’s true. We recently started making about 500k (though only half in salary, the rest in annual bonus, so still have to watch monthly costs). I tell spouse never to say anything about income or about our house not being “that big” or “that ridiculous,” because it will just make us look like a-holes. That said, I don’t feel like we are rich, just well off and very fortunate. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
It’s upper middle because you can do all the things the middle class can’t but also not enough to put you in the ultra net worth category. You aren’t traveling by private jet. The foreign lands is still budgeted for. Assuming you haven’t saved enough, if you quit tomorrow, you’d be in trouble. You are not independent to just be wealthy. |
Anonymous
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I am genuinely middle class, not UMC. HHI is 130k for dual income family if 4. We can afford to own a home but have made lots of sacrifices to do so. We also still carry a considerable amount of student debt 15 years out of school (more than 50k). We can afford all our basic needs, including modest vacations and some leisure activities, while also saving for retirement and college, but that’s it. Our discretionary income is quite limited and we must adhere to strict rules about non-needs like restaurant meals (mostly casual family restaurants and not frequently), take out (almost never), clothes (shop consignment a lot, DH and I sometimes go year buying nothing but socks, underwear and necessary shoes), cars (one car, 13 years old, will drive until it dies), etc.
I consider upper middle class to include people who still do many of these things but it’s not all necessary. Like my current goal is to get our household income to 180k in the next 5 years. If we stay in our current home or something similarly priced, don’t alter our spending habits much, that extra 50k a year will allow us to more quickly pay down debt, save more aggressively, and even allow for slightly more extravagant travel on occasion. To me that’s the line between MC and UMC— the discretionary funds to CHOOSE where the excess goes, instead of having every penny accounted for at all times. We are both professionals and I have a grad degree. But having to borrow almost all of the money needed for our educations has kept us firmly middle class. Without our degrees we’d make far less money, but to obtain our degrees we had to go into serious debt. It’s such a catch-22 and I don’t know that I’d do it again. |
Anonymous
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Upper Middle Class - Real Housewives
Middle Class - Seventh Heaven Working Class - Roseanne |
Anonymous
Working Class-The Middle Upper Middle Class-Modern Family |
Anonymous
Love these examples. There are no shows to give a glimpse into lower upper class. Billions is more neurotic than reality. |
Anonymous
| Years ago somebody posted on DCUM a link to a story about an academic who studies class. I can't find it now, maybe somebody else remembers. The point was that money was only one element of class; he had sort of a grid or ladder to explain it that also encompassed profession and education and maybe other factors. |
Anonymous
Yep. Connections, access to certain resources and information, how one eats, hobbies.. they all matter |
Anonymous
Isn't Gossip Girl lower upper class? I haven't actually seen it but I think those kids are from rich families in private schools, but not Kardashian rich. |
Anonymous
I haven't seen the show, but I read the first book when it came out ages ago, and most of them were straight up upper class, no lower about it. Maybe not billionaire rich, but definitely like 20m UES townhouses, private jet, huge houses in the Hamptons etc. rich. Older money too, so pretty entrenched in the upper class. |