31% of millionaires think they're middle class

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's because of inflation, especially in college and housing.

We have a high HHI and about 5 million in investments. Plus our house, which we own. We don't put that in net worth because you have to live somewhere and if we moved, it would probably be to somewhere bigger/more expensive. This all sounds good and it is right? We're mid 40s so we still have more time to build savings. However, about 1 million of that money is earmarked for our 3 kids' college educations and we intend to spend every penny and then some. If they go to grad school, we'll have to pull from other savings.

Then there's our house. It's a nice house and it is worth a lot of money but it would have been considered firmly "middle class" back when we were growing up. It's 4 bedrooms and less than 3k sqft. Our kids go to public school in a "good" school district and we live in a lovely neighborhood.

When it comes to more frivolous spending, we spend money on our kids' activities and vacations. They each do private lessons for their chosen activity (tennis, skiing, gymnastics). We go skiing once or twice a year, we always take one trip to the Caribbean over spring break, one bigger "splurge" trip to Europe in June or July, and one trip to the OBX in August.

I'm not complaining about our lifestyle AT ALL. It just blows my mind because I know how much money we make and I would have considered it "a lot" back when I was growing up. It's just that wages haven't kept pace with inflation. I just checked flights to see what it would cost to fly to St. Martin from NYC in February and it was 8k for 5 people!!!

Basically what I'm saying is, it's crazy that it takes > 500k to live a lifestyle that would have been "upper middle class" in the 80s and 90s with 3 kids.

Yearly trips abroad wasn’t an UMC lifestyle, even in the 90s.

+1 I grew up middle class in the 80s/90s and the UMC and rich kids at my school had the following:

- multiple vacations a year to places like San Diego, NYC, Florida. Sometimes a splurge to Mexico or Jamaica (not yearly). Then when kids were MS/HS age, a couple big trips to Europe. Probably London/Paris once and then maybe a trip to Italy or Germany with some traveling around in HS.

- nice used car at 16, usually a used Saab or Volkswagen

- did not worry about paying for college, whether state flagship or out of state, just not discussed, college was covered

- new clothes and electronics. Stuff like their own en suite bathroom

- public school but the best ones in town, tutoring when they needed it, expensive extra-curriculars if they wanted them

The problem, of course, is that these kids grew up thinking they were middle class because no one explained otherwise, and now they are adults who are millionaires and can give their kids even better than the above but, because they can't take multiple foreign trips a year or front the cost of private college for four kids simultaneously, they STILL think they are "middle class."

It's just a total lack of self-awareness or understanding of what the word is actually like for the average person.

The average person is working class but insists on calling themselves middle class.

One I continue to see you state this and I think you arent from the US. You must be from abroad, specifically UK.
Two, explain all of your tiers and what they mean
Three, in my experience and how most of us are discussing this topic: working class is a step above poor. they are hourly or pink professions. poor is poor- food stamps, etc. middle class are professionals- doctors, lawyers, teachers (previously), business, etc. upper middle is the upper middle of the middle class of professionals. wealthy is a >top1% or wealth created from investment/passive.

[Anonymous]

Our HHI is around 300K.

Our luxuries are 24K/year private school for DC, education enrichment activities and one nice vacation a year.

We don’t have a house cleaner or a lawn cutting service, we drive Hondas and Toyotas. We budget and there is nothing extra left at the end of the month.

We can’t afford to replace our patio door because we don’t have 10K lying around. We can’t afford to go somewhere nice for winter break because we already had an expensive vacation in the summer.

I don’t feel rich at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's because of inflation, especially in college and housing.

We have a high HHI and about 5 million in investments. Plus our house, which we own. We don't put that in net worth because you have to live somewhere and if we moved, it would probably be to somewhere bigger/more expensive. This all sounds good and it is right? We're mid 40s so we still have more time to build savings. However, about 1 million of that money is earmarked for our 3 kids' college educations and we intend to spend every penny and then some. If they go to grad school, we'll have to pull from other savings.

Then there's our house. It's a nice house and it is worth a lot of money but it would have been considered firmly "middle class" back when we were growing up. It's 4 bedrooms and less than 3k sqft. Our kids go to public school in a "good" school district and we live in a lovely neighborhood.

When it comes to more frivolous spending, we spend money on our kids' activities and vacations. They each do private lessons for their chosen activity (tennis, skiing, gymnastics). We go skiing once or twice a year, we always take one trip to the Caribbean over spring break, one bigger "splurge" trip to Europe in June or July, and one trip to the OBX in August.

I'm not complaining about our lifestyle AT ALL. It just blows my mind because I know how much money we make and I would have considered it "a lot" back when I was growing up. It's just that wages haven't kept pace with inflation. I just checked flights to see what it would cost to fly to St. Martin from NYC in February and it was 8k for 5 people!!!

Basically what I'm saying is, it's crazy that it takes > 500k to live a lifestyle that would have been "upper middle class" in the 80s and 90s with 3 kids.

Yearly trips abroad wasn’t an UMC lifestyle, even in the 90s.

+1 I grew up middle class in the 80s/90s and the UMC and rich kids at my school had the following:

- multiple vacations a year to places like San Diego, NYC, Florida. Sometimes a splurge to Mexico or Jamaica (not yearly). Then when kids were MS/HS age, a couple big trips to Europe. Probably London/Paris once and then maybe a trip to Italy or Germany with some traveling around in HS.

- nice used car at 16, usually a used Saab or Volkswagen

- did not worry about paying for college, whether state flagship or out of state, just not discussed, college was covered

- new clothes and electronics. Stuff like their own en suite bathroom

- public school but the best ones in town, tutoring when they needed it, expensive extra-curriculars if they wanted them

The problem, of course, is that these kids grew up thinking they were middle class because no one explained otherwise, and now they are adults who are millionaires and can give their kids even better than the above but, because they can't take multiple foreign trips a year or front the cost of private college for four kids simultaneously, they STILL think they are "middle class."

It's just a total lack of self-awareness or understanding of what the word is actually like for the average person.

The average person is working class but insists on calling themselves middle class.

You don't understand the word "middle" and "average" are equivalent?

They are not equivalent. In fact, the word “average” has various definitions depending on context (mean vs median for example).

The middle class means the “class” in the “middle”. So let’s say you have wealthy, upper, middle, working, and poor classes. Nowhere is it written that the “average” person must necessarily fall into that “middle” class. That’s a ridiculous assumption.

Let’s say there are monarchs, nobles, and serfs. Which class is in the “middle”? And in which class do you think you would find the “average” person?

You are just making up definitions to words though. You are right "middle class" doesn't mean "average." But you are wrong about literally everything else.

Working class does not mean "people who work." It refers to people who do manual labor or industrial jobs. Generally hourly wage jobs, especially anything involving shift work. Working class jobs, by definition, don't require college degrees. They may require some kind of technical or associates degree, but it must be a degree with few barriers to entry. Thus a medical technician with an associate degree is working class, but an RN with a degree in nursing is not.

So no, people who make 100k at white collar office jobs are not "working class" no matter how much you want them to be.

Upper class refers to people who control capital. Business owners, landlords, corporate C-suite. Also professionals at the highest end of their profession. So law firm partners are upper class, as are surgeons, obviously anyone working in the upper levels of finance. People who control their own fates and are not reliant on a specific employer's mercy. Upper class people hav not only high incomes, they have real wealth (as in assets) and also have high social status, and often political power.

Middle class is people in the middle. The middle class is the widest class and that's why it's divided into upper and lower middle class.

And what is the official source for these definitions? (If you have been keeping up with this thread you would know that there IS NOT an official definition. So we are basically arguing what our individual interpretations are.)

The entire employment landscape has changed. Jobs that may have once been considered middle class jobs are now working class jobs, regardless of what degree a worker has obtained. The proportion of white collar jobs is just going to increase, that doesn’t mean there are more middle class and less working class. It just means white collar is no longer as prestigious as it once was.

You can argue that class boundaries have shifted and you can argue that the nature of being middle class has changed. But the definition of working class has ALWAYS been: manual labor and industrial jobs, especially shift work, hourly wages, no college degree required. I don't need to cite a source other than the dictionary definition and its use in the media which has never changed. That's what it means.

Words can change meanings of time but this one hasn't. You keep repeating in this thread that people who think they are middle class are actually working class, but that is not the opinion of anyone but you. I dare you to find anyone using it the way you are saying it should be used. Anywhere. You can't. That's not what working class means.

Just because a job requires a college degree to be hired, doesn’t mean the job requires a college degree. There is not a single definition of working class. A half second google search will demonstrate this.

Many jobs that used to require intellectual skills no longer do thanks to computers and automation. Lots of office workers are essentially just warm bodies which are easily replaceable, and their compensation reflects that.

I am sorry this discussion and difference of opinion makes you so angry, though. I’ve clearly hit a nerve.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly. I feel rich, haha. And I'm sure there are people who have WAY more scoffing at me, but whatever. I do. I feel rich.

It's probably because I've gone through quite a large HHI income change in my lifetime. As a kid, I remember lay-away, seeing my mom cry about money, and knowing the exact date of my her next paycheck. But we still had more than a lot of other families. And, like many posters, I also grew up on the 80s-90s Midwest: it was a unique cultural place, haha. Most of my high school classmates never took a vacation out of the state, and even the "rich families" still drove a Chrysler mini-van and went to Disney World twice in fifteen years.

I was unmarried in DC for most of my 20s, working in nonprofit jobs that didn't pay more than $65K. I had roommates, carefully budgeted, and definitely felt like it was a splurge to get a massage or a pedicure. But it was still okay.

Fast forward to my late 30s: our HHI is $650K. We're not Logan Roy on "Succession"-rich, but so what? We have a house that has almost doubled in worth since we bought it. Retirement accounts look great. We can comfortably save for kids' college and retirement.

Every day, I think about all the stress I don't have because of the money. When things break, I don't panic the way my parents did. I'm annoyed, but I don't worry. I don't think twice about buying a "dry clean only" piece of clothing. I buy the groceries I want (yes, even the fancy blue tortilla chips) and I even go to Whole Foods, haha (THAT is my Nebraska talking: feeling rich for going to Whole Foods). When my neck has been hurting for a couple weeks, I schedule a massage. If I really want red lipstick the holiday party season, I go to Sephora and not CVS. I get to look like a "good person" because I can pony up for charity now in ways I never could in the first decades of my life.

It's amazing. So yeah, I feel rich. I know I'm so damn lucky.

It's great to read a post in which someone who has done well for themselves is able to feel pleasure and gratitude for what they have.

[Anonymous]

I think there is also evidence that most older people think they are not that old and are doing fine and that includes the current and immediately former presidents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in the Midwest. Because of a layoff 6 years ago, we make around $90,000 combined.

We are middle class here. We have a 5 bedroom home with a very low interest rate that is almost paid off. We also have lake rights, have a used boat, two older cars.

Because we saved a lot when we were younger, we have what for this area is good savings of around $1M. We also have pensions. Kids did public school and we had prepaid tuition plans. Vacations are mainly in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, the Carolinas, the Caribbean


This is a true middle class life.

No. In the Midwest you are rich. Middle class in the Midwest doesn’t have $1M savings or a boat. Stop it.

Or trips to the Caribbean- LMAO.

Middle class in Michigan, with good union jobs, absolutely means people with pontoon boats and second homes (basically cabins) up north.

And yes, we takes cruises to the Caribbean once in a while.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in the Midwest. Because of a layoff 6 years ago, we make around $90,000 combined.

We are middle class here. We have a 5 bedroom home with a very low interest rate that is almost paid off. We also have lake rights, have a used boat, two older cars.

Because we saved a lot when we were younger, we have what for this area is good savings of around $1M. We also have pensions. Kids did public school and we had prepaid tuition plans. Vacations are mainly in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, the Carolinas, the Caribbean


This is a true middle class life.

No. In the Midwest you are rich. Middle class in the Midwest doesn’t have $1M savings or a boat. Stop it.

Their boat is used, so clearly they are middle class.

The hilarity of having a 5 bedroom house almost paid of, multiple kids sent to college with no student loan debt, vacations to the Caribbean, and a boat as being middle class is why rich people have no sympathy for middle class struggles- they're middle class and everything is great.

What are "middle class" people allowed to have, exactly?

Our used boat cost us $4,000. Our cars are 10 and 17 years old. Our kids went to college with no debt because we had prepaid Florida tuition plans we paid on since the moment they were born. Our large house was $275,000, and we used the funds from our small first house to put a large downpayment because we sold that house during the housing boom, then bought in a different, lower cost area.

We have a lot in our retirement funds because we have been saving for 40 years.

Neither of us has ever made a six figure salary.

And yet the people here think they are poor with HHI of $ 250,000.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our HHI is around 300K.

Our luxuries are 24K/year private school for DC, education enrichment activities and one nice vacation a year.

We don’t have a house cleaner or a lawn cutting service, we drive Hondas and Toyotas. We budget and there is nothing extra left at the end of the month.

We can’t afford to replace our patio door because we don’t have 10K lying around. We can’t afford to go somewhere nice for winter break because we already had an expensive vacation in the summer.

I don’t feel rich at all.

Because you are paying $24k a year for private school. You could afford everything you mention and then some if you just sent your kid to public school. This is a CHOICE you are making. How you “feel” because you make that choice is irrelevant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our HHI is around 300K.

Our luxuries are 24K/year private school for DC, education enrichment activities and one nice vacation a year.

We don’t have a house cleaner or a lawn cutting service, we drive Hondas and Toyotas. We budget and there is nothing extra left at the end of the month.

We can’t afford to replace our patio door because we don’t have 10K lying around. We can’t afford to go somewhere nice for winter break because we already had an expensive vacation in the summer.

I don’t feel rich at all.

Because you are paying $24k a year for private school. You could afford everything you mention and then some if you just sent your kid to public school. This is a CHOICE you are making. How you “feel” because you make that choice is irrelevant.

Please stop commenting on this post. The OP asks how you FEEL not what you are by conventional definition. You’re a broken record and a smear on this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly. I feel rich, haha. And I'm sure there are people who have WAY more scoffing at me, but whatever. I do. I feel rich.

It's probably because I've gone through quite a large HHI income change in my lifetime. As a kid, I remember lay-away, seeing my mom cry about money, and knowing the exact date of my her next paycheck. But we still had more than a lot of other families. And, like many posters, I also grew up on the 80s-90s Midwest: it was a unique cultural place, haha. Most of my high school classmates never took a vacation out of the state, and even the "rich families" still drove a Chrysler mini-van and went to Disney World twice in fifteen years.

I was unmarried in DC for most of my 20s, working in nonprofit jobs that didn't pay more than $65K. I had roommates, carefully budgeted, and definitely felt like it was a splurge to get a massage or a pedicure. But it was still okay.

Fast forward to my late 30s: our HHI is $650K. We're not Logan Roy on "Succession"-rich, but so what? We have a house that has almost doubled in worth since we bought it. Retirement accounts look great. We can comfortably save for kids' college and retirement.

Every day, I think about all the stress I don't have because of the money. When things break, I don't panic the way my parents did. I'm annoyed, but I don't worry. I don't think twice about buying a "dry clean only" piece of clothing. I buy the groceries I want (yes, even the fancy blue tortilla chips) and I even go to Whole Foods, haha (THAT is my Nebraska talking: feeling rich for going to Whole Foods). When my neck has been hurting for a couple weeks, I schedule a massage. If I really want red lipstick the holiday party season, I go to Sephora and not CVS. I get to look like a "good person" because I can pony up for charity now in ways I never could in the first decades of my life.

It's amazing. So yeah, I feel rich. I know I'm so damn lucky.

It's great to read a post in which someone who has done well for themselves is able to feel pleasure and gratitude for what they have.

NP and I agree. And I’ll share a similar story. I grew up working in my family’s small retail business in a highly desirable resort town, where the disparity between the haves and the have nots is striking. I was always astounded by the amount of wealthy people that walked through our doors and the amount of money they dropped. Our business was back breaking work and the margins very narrow. We couldn’t always pay the bills, or the rent. I will never forget the nigh right before we were about to close after a really slow day of very few sales that a wealthy couple walked in and bought two wine glasses for $38. My parent and I exchanged glances of relief that we could take that cash straight to the store and buy groceries.

I came to the DC area years ago for my education and never left. I worked hard, as did my husband, and we now make a little over $450k. I feel rich. I don’t get to buy everything I want, but I remember what it was like to not be able to make ends meet for many years.

I think the people that earn a similar amount and still feel middle class don’t always have that perspective of what it’s like to hustle to buy groceries. They see everyone around them, their neighbors and friends and collegues who are more or less in a similar financial boat, and lump themselves into the “middle class” because they conflate it with “typical for those in my immediate environment.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's because of inflation, especially in college and housing.

We have a high HHI and about 5 million in investments. Plus our house, which we own. We don't put that in net worth because you have to live somewhere and if we moved, it would probably be to somewhere bigger/more expensive. This all sounds good and it is right? We're mid 40s so we still have more time to build savings. However, about 1 million of that money is earmarked for our 3 kids' college educations and we intend to spend every penny and then some. If they go to grad school, we'll have to pull from other savings.

Then there's our house. It's a nice house and it is worth a lot of money but it would have been considered firmly "middle class" back when we were growing up. It's 4 bedrooms and less than 3k sqft. Our kids go to public school in a "good" school district and we live in a lovely neighborhood.

When it comes to more frivolous spending, we spend money on our kids' activities and vacations. They each do private lessons for their chosen activity (tennis, skiing, gymnastics). We go skiing once or twice a year, we always take one trip to the Caribbean over spring break, one bigger "splurge" trip to Europe in June or July, and one trip to the OBX in August.

I'm not complaining about our lifestyle AT ALL. It just blows my mind because I know how much money we make and I would have considered it "a lot" back when I was growing up. It's just that wages haven't kept pace with inflation. I just checked flights to see what it would cost to fly to St. Martin from NYC in February and it was 8k for 5 people!!!

Basically what I'm saying is, it's crazy that it takes > 500k to live a lifestyle that would have been "upper middle class" in the 80s and 90s with 3 kids.

Yearly trips abroad wasn’t an UMC lifestyle, even in the 90s.

+1 I grew up middle class in the 80s/90s and the UMC and rich kids at my school had the following:

- multiple vacations a year to places like San Diego, NYC, Florida. Sometimes a splurge to Mexico or Jamaica (not yearly). Then when kids were MS/HS age, a couple big trips to Europe. Probably London/Paris once and then maybe a trip to Italy or Germany with some traveling around in HS.

- nice used car at 16, usually a used Saab or Volkswagen

- did not worry about paying for college, whether state flagship or out of state, just not discussed, college was covered

- new clothes and electronics. Stuff like their own en suite bathroom

- public school but the best ones in town, tutoring when they needed it, expensive extra-curriculars if they wanted them

The problem, of course, is that these kids grew up thinking they were middle class because no one explained otherwise, and now they are adults who are millionaires and can give their kids even better than the above but, because they can't take multiple foreign trips a year or front the cost of private college for four kids simultaneously, they STILL think they are "middle class."

It's just a total lack of self-awareness or understanding of what the word is actually like for the average person.

The average person is working class but insists on calling themselves middle class.

You don't understand the word "middle" and "average" are equivalent?

They are not equivalent. In fact, the word “average” has various definitions depending on context (mean vs median for example).

The middle class means the “class” in the “middle”. So let’s say you have wealthy, upper, middle, working, and poor classes. Nowhere is it written that the “average” person must necessarily fall into that “middle” class. That’s a ridiculous assumption.

Let’s say there are monarchs, nobles, and serfs. Which class is in the “middle”? And in which class do you think you would find the “average” person?

You are just making up definitions to words though. You are right "middle class" doesn't mean "average." But you are wrong about literally everything else.

Working class does not mean "people who work." It refers to people who do manual labor or industrial jobs. Generally hourly wage jobs, especially anything involving shift work. Working class jobs, by definition, don't require college degrees. They may require some kind of technical or associates degree, but it must be a degree with few barriers to entry. Thus a medical technician with an associate degree is working class, but an RN with a degree in nursing is not.

So no, people who make 100k at white collar office jobs are not "working class" no matter how much you want them to be.

Upper class refers to people who control capital. Business owners, landlords, corporate C-suite. Also professionals at the highest end of their profession. So law firm partners are upper class, as are surgeons, obviously anyone working in the upper levels of finance. People who control their own fates and are not reliant on a specific employer's mercy. Upper class people hav not only high incomes, they have real wealth (as in assets) and also have high social status, and often political power.

Middle class is people in the middle. The middle class is the widest class and that's why it's divided into upper and lower middle class.

And what is the official source for these definitions? (If you have been keeping up with this thread you would know that there IS NOT an official definition. So we are basically arguing what our individual interpretations are.)

The entire employment landscape has changed. Jobs that may have once been considered middle class jobs are now working class jobs, regardless of what degree a worker has obtained. The proportion of white collar jobs is just going to increase, that doesn’t mean there are more middle class and less working class. It just means white collar is no longer as prestigious as it once was.

You can argue that class boundaries have shifted and you can argue that the nature of being middle class has changed. But the definition of working class has ALWAYS been: manual labor and industrial jobs, especially shift work, hourly wages, no college degree required. I don't need to cite a source other than the dictionary definition and its use in the media which has never changed. That's what it means.

Words can change meanings of time but this one hasn't. You keep repeating in this thread that people who think they are middle class are actually working class, but that is not the opinion of anyone but you. I dare you to find anyone using it the way you are saying it should be used. Anywhere. You can't. That's not what working class means.

Just because a job requires a college degree to be hired, doesn’t mean the job requires a college degree. There is not a single definition of working class. A half second google search will demonstrate this.

Many jobs that used to require intellectual skills no longer do thanks to computers and automation. Lots of office workers are essentially just warm bodies which are easily replaceable, and their compensation reflects that.

I am sorry this discussion and difference of opinion makes you so angry, though. I’ve clearly hit a nerve.

Dp. I am floored you say lots of office workers are essentially warm bodies and replaceable. Have you ever had to deal with a bad admin? Or it is that you have never had a good one? A good admin is worth their weight in gold.

[Anonymous]

47/45

210k income
Net worth $1.08M with like $800k in 401k accounts. 0 in 529s, 3 kids. We're in the donut hole and my wife doesn't believe in 529 accounts.

[Anonymous]

Yeah we're solidly UMC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in the Midwest. Because of a layoff 6 years ago, we make around $90,000 combined.

We are middle class here. We have a 5 bedroom home with a very low interest rate that is almost paid off. We also have lake rights, have a used boat, two older cars.

Because we saved a lot when we were younger, we have what for this area is good savings of around $1M. We also have pensions. Kids did public school and we had prepaid tuition plans. Vacations are mainly in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, the Carolinas, the Caribbean


This is a true middle class life.

No. In the Midwest you are rich. Middle class in the Midwest doesn’t have $1M savings or a boat. Stop it.

Their boat is used, so clearly they are middle class.

The hilarity of having a 5 bedroom house almost paid of, multiple kids sent to college with no student loan debt, vacations to the Caribbean, and a boat as being middle class is why rich people have no sympathy for middle class struggles- they're middle class and everything is great.

What are "middle class" people allowed to have, exactly?

Our used boat cost us $4,000. Our cars are 10 and 17 years old. Our kids went to college with no debt because we had prepaid Florida tuition plans we paid on since the moment they were born. Our large house was $275,000, and we used the funds from our small first house to put a large downpayment because we sold that house during the housing boom, then bought in a different, lower cost area.

We have a lot in our retirement funds because we have been saving for 40 years.

Neither of us has ever made a six figure salary.

And yet the people here think they are poor with HHI of $ 250,000.

Your kids already attended college and you bought a house for $275. Try doing it with current house and college prices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in the Midwest. Because of a layoff 6 years ago, we make around $90,000 combined.

We are middle class here. We have a 5 bedroom home with a very low interest rate that is almost paid off. We also have lake rights, have a used boat, two older cars.

Because we saved a lot when we were younger, we have what for this area is good savings of around $1M. We also have pensions. Kids did public school and we had prepaid tuition plans. Vacations are mainly in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, the Carolinas, the Caribbean


This is a true middle class life.

No. In the Midwest you are rich. Middle class in the Midwest doesn’t have $1M savings or a boat. Stop it.

Their boat is used, so clearly they are middle class.

The hilarity of having a 5 bedroom house almost paid of, multiple kids sent to college with no student loan debt, vacations to the Caribbean, and a boat as being middle class is why rich people have no sympathy for middle class struggles- they're middle class and everything is great.

What are "middle class" people allowed to have, exactly?

Our used boat cost us $4,000. Our cars are 10 and 17 years old. Our kids went to college with no debt because we had prepaid Florida tuition plans we paid on since the moment they were born. Our large house was $275,000, and we used the funds from our small first house to put a large downpayment because we sold that house during the housing boom, then bought in a different, lower cost area.

We have a lot in our retirement funds because we have been saving for 40 years.

Neither of us has ever made a six figure salary.

And yet the people here think they are poor with HHI of $ 250,000.

Your kids already attended college and you bought a house for $275. Try doing it with current house and college prices.

Plenty of people live just fine today on $250,000, even in the DMV.