What is Middle Class....Really?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's more than comfortable.

If you're busting your ass billing 2000+ hours per year, "comfortable" isn't exactly the word I'd use.

It's definitely a lot of income, but there's no freedom if you can't walk away from your job.

Comfort would be having the $350k in passive income from investments. That level of wealth (as opposed to income) is difficult to achieve. You need about 25 times your annual spending in investments to achieve it.

Yes we shouldn't talk about income we should talk about net worth. A $350K income household is worse off than a $50K income household if they have the same net worth because the higher income household probably has more financial commitments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's more than comfortable.

If you're busting your ass billing 2000+ hours per year, "comfortable" isn't exactly the word I'd use.

It's definitely a lot of income, but there's no freedom if you can't walk away from your job.

Comfort would be having the $350k in passive income from investments. That level of wealth (as opposed to income) is difficult to achieve. You need about 25 times your annual spending in investments to achieve it.

Right? We're at $330k, two income household. DH drives 1.5 hours each way every day to get that paycheck. And yes, he could look for another job, but he just started this job 1/2 year ago after leaving a job that required him to travel 100%. Are we thankful every day for the opportunities we've been given? Yes. Do we feel like we're living the life of luxury? No.

That's the thing though, all households have to bust their butts to get a paycheck. Yea, you're working hard for that check but isn't everyone? If anything lower income people have to bust their butts even more because they have limited opportunity to get ahead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That's the thing though, all households have to bust their butts to get a paycheck. Yea, you're working hard for that check but isn't everyone?

The great thing for those in the Top and Upper Classes is that their income comes from passive investments. The Top Class gets it based purely on inheritance. The Upper Class usually gets it from being a successful entrepreneur, investment banker, etc. Neither has to work whatsoever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's more than comfortable.

If you're busting your ass billing 2000+ hours per year, "comfortable" isn't exactly the word I'd use.

It's definitely a lot of income, but there's no freedom if you can't walk away from your job.

Comfort would be having the $350k in passive income from investments. That level of wealth (as opposed to income) is difficult to achieve. You need about 25 times your annual spending in investments to achieve it.

Right? We're at $330k, two income household. DH drives 1.5 hours each way every day to get that paycheck. And yes, he could look for another job, but he just started this job 1/2 year ago after leaving a job that required him to travel 100%. Are we thankful every day for the opportunities we've been given? Yes. Do we feel like we're living the life of luxury? No.

That's the thing though, all households have to bust their butts to get a paycheck. Yea, you're working hard for that check but isn't everyone? If anything lower income people have to bust their butts even more because they have limited opportunity to get ahead.

PP here. Sorry, I have little sympathy. I grew up on free lunches in the boonies in the south. Immigrant and immigrant parents that didn't speak English. Started working before I could drive. My family considered the chance to come to the US an opportunity and didn't expect anything else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's more than comfortable.

If you're busting your ass billing 2000+ hours per year, "comfortable" isn't exactly the word I'd use.

It's definitely a lot of income, but there's no freedom if you can't walk away from your job.

Comfort would be having the $350k in passive income from investments. That level of wealth (as opposed to income) is difficult to achieve. You need about 25 times your annual spending in investments to achieve it.

Right? We're at $330k, two income household. DH drives 1.5 hours each way every day to get that paycheck. And yes, he could look for another job, but he just started this job 1/2 year ago after leaving a job that required him to travel 100%. Are we thankful every day for the opportunities we've been given? Yes. Do we feel like we're living the life of luxury? No.

That's the thing though, all households have to bust their butts to get a paycheck. Yea, you're working hard for that check but isn't everyone? If anything lower income people have to bust their butts even more because they have limited opportunity to get ahead.

PP here. Sorry, I have little sympathy. I grew up on free lunches in the boonies in the south. Immigrant and immigrant parents that didn't speak English. Started working before I could drive. My family considered the chance to come to the US an opportunity and didn't expect anything else.

And now that I read this, I realize I sound like a hypocrite! We did have free lunch in elementary school. By expecting anything else, knew that we would have to bust our ass to get the lifestyle we wanted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's more than comfortable.

If you're busting your ass billing 2000+ hours per year, "comfortable" isn't exactly the word I'd use.

It's definitely a lot of income, but there's no freedom if you can't walk away from your job.

Comfort would be having the $350k in passive income from investments. That level of wealth (as opposed to income) is difficult to achieve. You need about 25 times your annual spending in investments to achieve it.

Right? We're at $330k, two income household. DH drives 1.5 hours each way every day to get that paycheck. And yes, he could look for another job, but he just started this job 1/2 year ago after leaving a job that required him to travel 100%. Are we thankful every day for the opportunities we've been given? Yes. Do we feel like we're living the life of luxury? No.

That's the thing though, all households have to bust their butts to get a paycheck. Yea, you're working hard for that check but isn't everyone? If anything lower income people have to bust their butts even more because they have limited opportunity to get ahead.

PP here. Sorry, I have little sympathy. I grew up on free lunches in the boonies in the south. Immigrant and immigrant parents that didn't speak English. Started working before I could drive. My family considered the chance to come to the US an opportunity and didn't expect anything else.

No one is asking for sympathy. You are the one talking about how hard you work to get 300k. This thread is talking about how ppl with your income that feel like they aren't getting by. So it actually appears that it's lower income ppl telling higher income folks to get the hell over themselves because they are doing just fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is talking about how ppl with your income that feel like they aren't getting by.

This thread is about an utter misunderstanding of income and class.

A married prole couple could easily make $100k or more. They're still not middle class.

A married middle class couple could easily make $200k or more and not be upper middle class.

Until you don't have to work because of your wealth, you're not upper class.

And unless you inherited your wealth, you'll never be at the top class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Not PP and I agree it's not struggling, but you forgot about student loans, utilities & house maintenance, car & life insurance, and medical care, among other things. All of this adds up to more than $1,000 a month. My student loan payment is $1000/month alone and I'm in the public service loan forgiveness program. And to keep that "middle class" lifestyle after retirement, most people would need to save more than the minimum $18k/year/person in 401k's.

I can definitely see some of those things being additional expenses, but not all of them, and certainly not at a deal-breaking level.

For car insurance you're looking at $200 a month extra at most. That's a rounding error in this kind of budget. And I would assume (or at least hope!) that by the time you are on your second child and have bought a million dollar house you have paid off your student loans. But hey, we are also talking about people who can't figure out how to make ends meet on $350K a year, so who knows, maybe they couldn't figure out that 2 or 3 more years in that 1BR without child expenses would have paid off their loans!

A quick quote from state farm says $2,000,000 in term life insurance is $253 a month for someone in good health. Assuming you are in good health and you're around 40 years old your medical bills shouldn't be too much, especially with the kind of insurance you can buy at $350K/yr.

You're right, there is more than meets the eye with regard to expenses, but the point remains that anyone with a modicum of common sense could easily run a middle class household on $350K a year, and it would not require much more financial savvy than that to figure out how to run it while affording a trip to Europe.

You think it takes 2 or 3 years in a one-bedroom to pay off student loans?

No shit...a lot of people in this area have taken on a ton of student loans to be able to make that 350k salary. Not 50-70k but 200k for the household. And spare me the crap about "well they shouldn't have done that, I didn't do that" because the reality is that most people making that much have a ton of student loans. The question was also whether or not a family with 350k hhi could afford a FIRST class trip to Europe, which will cost at least 15-20k. Does anyone really think this family can comfortably afford to lay out that much while paying for the additional expenses which another poster's dumb budget conveniently didn't account for?

I'm not sure what a first class trip has to do with anything. 350k is still a lot of money. You can prioritize it however you want.

Read the rest of the thread about the "first class to Europe" thing. 350k is a lot of money in Tennessee, not here.

It's a lot of money everywhere. Really.

It is, but the context was that this $350k family lives in $1M home, flashy cars, and taking first-class trips to Europe. That's really not the representative lifestyle of people making $350k/year in this area. Yes, $1M homes, but usually they're spending $ on childcare, private schools, and saving for retirement and investing (hopefully).

In my opinion that still makes them pretty well off -- but YMMV.

Exactly. The fact that you're saving money for retirement and investing doesn't mean it's not income. People seem to be calling their "net" income the amount of money they have left after taxes AND retirement savings, but that's... not how it works, if you're talking about income inequality and class. The median U.S. household has a total of $5,000 in savings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's more than comfortable.

If you're busting your ass billing 2000+ hours per year, "comfortable" isn't exactly the word I'd use.

It's definitely a lot of income, but there's no freedom if you can't walk away from your job.

Comfort would be having the $350k in passive income from investments. That level of wealth (as opposed to income) is difficult to achieve. You need about 25 times your annual spending in investments to achieve it.

Right? We're at $330k, two income household. DH drives 1.5 hours each way every day to get that paycheck. And yes, he could look for another job, but he just started this job 1/2 year ago after leaving a job that required him to travel 100%. Are we thankful every day for the opportunities we've been given? Yes. Do we feel like we're living the life of luxury? No.

See no one is saying its the life of luxury. But if you don't think you are well off at that income --- well I just don't know what to say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is talking about how ppl with your income that feel like they aren't getting by.

This thread is about an utter misunderstanding of income and class.

A married prole couple could easily make $100k or more. They're still not middle class.

A married middle class couple could easily make $200k or more and not be upper middle class.

Until you don't have to work because of your wealth, you're not upper class.

And unless you inherited your wealth, you'll never be at the top class.

If they are not middle class - then what are they???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is talking about how ppl with your income that feel like they aren't getting by.

This thread is about an utter misunderstanding of income and class.

A married prole couple could easily make $100k or more. They're still not middle class.

A married middle class couple could easily make $200k or more and not be upper middle class.

Until you don't have to work because of your wealth, you're not upper class.

And unless you inherited your wealth, you'll never be at the top class.

If they are not middle class - then what are they???

Middle class. Married couple, no kids, 450k mortgage, 2 Hondas, no debt, net worth is 2.5MM (home equity is 500k of that). We're definitely middle class in this area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is talking about how ppl with your income that feel like they aren't getting by.

This thread is about an utter misunderstanding of income and class.

A married prole couple could easily make $100k or more. They're still not middle class.

A married middle class couple could easily make $200k or more and not be upper middle class.

Until you don't have to work because of your wealth, you're not upper class.

And unless you inherited your wealth, you'll never be at the top class.

If they are not middle class - then what are they???

Middle class. Married couple, no kids, 450k mortgage, 2 Hondas, no debt, net worth is 2.5MM (home equity is 500k of that). We're definitely middle class in this area.

I agree -- but it seems like PP is insinuating that they are not even middle class. We make around 100k and definitely consider ourselves middle class....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is talking about how ppl with your income that feel like they aren't getting by.

This thread is about an utter misunderstanding of income and class.

A married prole couple could easily make $100k or more. They're still not middle class.

A married middle class couple could easily make $200k or more and not be upper middle class.

Until you don't have to work because of your wealth, you're not upper class.

And unless you inherited your wealth, you'll never be at the top class.

If they are not middle class - then what are they???

Middle class. Married couple, no kids, 450k mortgage, 2 Hondas, no debt, net worth is 2.5MM (home equity is 500k of that). We're definitely middle class in this area.

I agree -- but it seems like PP is insinuating that they are not even middle class. We make around 100k and definitely consider ourselves middle class....

I think the consensus if you are working for your income, which could be anywhere from $100-$450k HHI in this area, you are middle class to upper middle class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is talking about how ppl with your income that feel like they aren't getting by.

This thread is about an utter misunderstanding of income and class.

A married prole couple could easily make $100k or more. They're still not middle class.

A married middle class couple could easily make $200k or more and not be upper middle class.

Until you don't have to work because of your wealth, you're not upper class.

And unless you inherited your wealth, you'll never be at the top class.

If they are not middle class - then what are they???

Middle class. Married couple, no kids, 450k mortgage, 2 Hondas, no debt, net worth is 2.5MM (home equity is 500k of that). We're definitely middle class in this area.

+1. Middle class is a large category.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This thread is about an utter misunderstanding of income and class.

A married prole couple could easily make $100k or more. They're still not middle class.

A married middle class couple could easily make $200k or more and not be upper middle class.

Until you don't have to work because of your wealth, you're not upper class.

And unless you inherited your wealth, you'll never be at the top class.

If they are not middle class - then what are they???

They're the proletariat.

The proletariat differs from the middle class by education, clothing, neighborhood, leisure activities, etc.

One example is with regard to legible clothing; clothes and accessories displaying words or logos. Proles wear sweaters emblazoned with, “Ask me about my grandchildren”, or hats and t-shirts carrying advertising for automotive products or sports franchises. The middle-class, anxious to separate itself from those below and desiring to emphasize their aspirations to climb higher, carries tote bags from NPR with Beethoven’s image, t-shirts with university names or logos, and bags touting expensive shops.