What is Middle Class....Really?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://finance.yahoo.com/news/one-couple-feels-like-theyre-scraping-500k-year-144630331.html

According to the author, "they are living comfortably, but not large."

Just a couple examples from their budget:

Children's Lessons - 12,000
Charity - 18,000

Yeah - I see that they are definitely scraping by.....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://finance.yahoo.com/news/one-couple-feels-like-theyre-scraping-500k-year-144630331.html

According to the author, "they are living comfortably, but not large."

Just a couple examples from their budget:

Children's Lessons - 12,000
Charity - 18,000

Yeah - I see that they are definitely scraping by.....

18,000 on a HHI of 500K is 3.6%. So not donating a ton.

And 12,000 in lessons for two kids...it says piano, violin, sports, academics. Each kid is $6,000 a year, or $1,500 per activity. That sounds about right for a year of piano or violin or gymnastics or whatever. Yes, a family doesn't have to do all of those things, or all of those things for two kids. But it doesn't sound like "living large." I spend $1300 a year for one of my kids to do Irish dance in a church basement and $1800 for piano and $1800 for the other one to take drums through the community music school. They do some Saturday classes in cooking and computers and stuff through the county that probably add up to another $1000 or so over the course of the year. (And thank god neither of them wants to do travel soccer or play hockey.) It is a lot of money on the one hand--and I know lots of people don't have this kind of money to spend--but it certainly doesn't feel like raising Richie Rich.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://finance.yahoo.com/news/one-couple-feels-like-theyre-scraping-500k-year-144630331.html

According to the author, "they are living comfortably, but not large."

Just a couple examples from their budget:

Children's Lessons - 12,000
Charity - 18,000

Yeah - I see that they are definitely scraping by.....

18,000 on a HHI of 500K is 3.6%. So not donating a ton.

And 12,000 in lessons for two kids...it says piano, violin, sports, academics. Each kid is $6,000 a year, or $1,500 per activity. That sounds about right for a year of piano or violin or gymnastics or whatever. Yes, a family doesn't have to do all of those things, or all of those things for two kids. But it doesn't sound like "living large." I spend $1300 a year for one of my kids to do Irish dance in a church basement and $1800 for piano and $1800 for the other one to take drums through the community music school. They do some Saturday classes in cooking and computers and stuff through the county that probably add up to another $1000 or so over the course of the year. (And thank god neither of them wants to do travel soccer or play hockey.) It is a lot of money on the one hand--and I know lots of people don't have this kind of money to spend--but it certainly doesn't feel like raising Richie Rich.

Well seeing that what they spend on children's activities and charity is half my income -- it seems like a lot to me....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think your first example is a bit out of touch with housing prices in SF.

What do you mean? I simply posted a link to the NPR report that showed, clearly, that $100k is NOT lower-class in SF (despite another poster saying it was). So these are not my figures, but researched statistics.

1) the data is four years old - SF has seen even higher housing prices since then, and 2) it includes people who bought homes years ago or are protected by rent control. A family, especially one with children, moving there now would have a very hard time making it on $100k.

Researched statistics also show that if you are 5 or more years into your career and are college educated and making under 100k, you are below half of your peers.

It is not an assault on your character. It is an innocuous fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think your first example is a bit out of touch with housing prices in SF.

What do you mean? I simply posted a link to the NPR report that showed, clearly, that $100k is NOT lower-class in SF (despite another poster saying it was). So these are not my figures, but researched statistics.

1) the data is four years old - SF has seen even higher housing prices since then, and 2) it includes people who bought homes years ago or are protected by rent control. A family, especially one with children, moving there now would have a very hard time making it on $100k.

Researched statistics also show that if you are 5 or more years into your career and are college educated and making under 100k, you are below half of your peers.

It is not an assault on your character. It is an innocuous fact.

Link to back that up? It's probably true in large metro areas, but I doubt that stat for smaller markets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think your first example is a bit out of touch with housing prices in SF.

What do you mean? I simply posted a link to the NPR report that showed, clearly, that $100k is NOT lower-class in SF (despite another poster saying it was). So these are not my figures, but researched statistics.

1) the data is four years old - SF has seen even higher housing prices since then, and 2) it includes people who bought homes years ago or are protected by rent control. A family, especially one with children, moving there now would have a very hard time making it on $100k.

Researched statistics also show that if you are 5 or more years into your career and are college educated and making under 100k, you are below half of your peers.

It is not an assault on your character. It is an innocuous fact.

Link to back that up? It's probably true in large metro areas, but I doubt that stat for smaller markets.

Agree. I can't believe we are still trying to persuade college-educated professionals earning $100,000 that they are below average. I think what's skewing the numbers up are doctors and lawyers, but take that out of the equation, and $100,000 is quite good. (Also, is that HHI or individual salaries?)

The link below shows the average salary for professionals 10 years after graduating from the top 25 colleges - which would put them around year 5 or 6 into their careers. Not a single one hit the $100k average. Even the very top earning schools (like MIT, with its highly paid STEM majors) and Harvard (because, well HARVARD) averaged $90,000. And many other excellent schools, like Vanderbilt and Northwestern, averaged only around $60,000. Even Yale averaged only $66,000.

http://www.businessinsider.com/top-25-best-colleges-salaries-2016-9

[Anonymous]

Those numbers are probably skewed by people who deliberately go into low paying fields because of interest (publishing, fashion etc.) or go into public sector non-profit work.

Most of my friends who graduated my year were making $65K immediately after undergrad. By 2-3 years out many (if not most) were brushing up against 100K. 5-6 years out of college most of us are making in the 200K region.

I think it's very true that if you go into a private sector, for profit career where basically the only goal is to make money, you've definitely screwed up if you're only making 100k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those numbers are probably skewed by people who deliberately go into low paying fields because of interest (publishing, fashion etc.) or go into public sector non-profit work.

Most of my friends who graduated my year were making $65K immediately after undergrad. By 2-3 years out many (if not most) were brushing up against 100K. 5-6 years out of college most of us are making in the 200K region.

I think it's very true that if you go into a private sector, for profit career where basically the only goal is to make money, you've definitely screwed up if you're only making 100k.

Link to that claim?

The poster pointed out that even at MIT, where the average salary is the highest (not too many fashion designers and publishing agents coming out of there), five years out is still only $90,000. Nice anecdotal evidence about you and your friends, but talk of it being typical to earn to earn $100k by age 23 or 24 and $200k by age 26 or 27 is the crazy elitist attitude that shows the rest of the country how out-of-touch Washingtonians are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those numbers are probably skewed by people who deliberately go into low paying fields because of interest (publishing, fashion etc.) or go into public sector non-profit work.

Most of my friends who graduated my year were making $65K immediately after undergrad. By 2-3 years out many (if not most) were brushing up against 100K. 5-6 years out of college most of us are making in the 200K region.

I think it's very true that if you go into a private sector, for profit career where basically the only goal is to make money, you've definitely screwed up if you're only making 100k.

I break the posters down into two camps:

1) The people saying that an individual with only an undergrad degree earning $200k is typical and those who aren't earning $100k by their late 20s have screwed up, based on what they and their friends earn. There are never links to back those claims.

2) The people pointing out that there are very few professional careers where the mean ever reaches $100k, linking to various statistics by reputable sources that show it to be true, and that even those from schools like Yale are averaging in the 60s five years out.

The fact remains that a college graduate earning $100,000 is doing well, and can live comfortably in the DC area, assuming he or she is single. Double that for a couple, and an income of 200,000 is also very comfortable, even with a couple of kids. I think it must be here in DCUM land that people are so out of touch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those numbers are probably skewed by people who deliberately go into low paying fields because of interest (publishing, fashion etc.) or go into public sector non-profit work.

Most of my friends who graduated my year were making $65K immediately after undergrad. By 2-3 years out many (if not most) were brushing up against 100K. 5-6 years out of college most of us are making in the 200K region.

I think it's very true that if you go into a private sector, for profit career where basically the only goal is to make money, you've definitely screwed up if you're only making 100k.

What field? My law firm hires college grads into entry level non-attorney positions for around $40k. If they stay 5-6 years they may be making $50-$60k, but they sure as hell aren't pulling down $200k unless during those 5-6 years they also went to law school and came back as associates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those numbers are probably skewed by people who deliberately go into low paying fields because of interest (publishing, fashion etc.) or go into public sector non-profit work.

Most of my friends who graduated my year were making $65K immediately after undergrad. By 2-3 years out many (if not most) were brushing up against 100K. 5-6 years out of college most of us are making in the 200K region.

I think it's very true that if you go into a private sector, for profit career where basically the only goal is to make money, you've definitely screwed up if you're only making 100k.

I break the posters down into two camps:

1) The people saying that an individual with only an undergrad degree earning $200k is typical and those who aren't earning $100k by their late 20s have screwed up, based on what they and their friends earn. There are never links to back those claims.

2) The people pointing out that there are very few professional careers where the mean ever reaches $100k, linking to various statistics by reputable sources that show it to be true, and that even those from schools like Yale are averaging in the 60s five years out.

The fact remains that a college graduate earning $100,000 is doing well, and can live comfortably in the DC area, assuming he or she is single. Double that for a couple, and an income of 200,000 is also very comfortable, even with a couple of kids. I think it must be here in DCUM land that people are so out of touch.

Now THAT is a fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those numbers are probably skewed by people who deliberately go into low paying fields because of interest (publishing, fashion etc.) or go into public sector non-profit work.

Most of my friends who graduated my year were making $65K immediately after undergrad. By 2-3 years out many (if not most) were brushing up against 100K. 5-6 years out of college most of us are making in the 200K region.

I think it's very true that if you go into a private sector, for profit career where basically the only goal is to make money, you've definitely screwed up if you're only making 100k.

What field? My law firm hires college grads into entry level non-attorney positions for around $40k. If they stay 5-6 years they may be making $50-$60k, but they sure as hell aren't pulling down $200k unless during those 5-6 years they also went to law school and came back as associates.

OP here. Many friends went into management consulting (McKinsey, Bain etc.) where comp packages were around 80k all in first year. Some went into Econ consulting (Cornerstone, NERA etc.) where packages are around 70k first year. Many friends also went into investment banking where fjrstvyear comp was well above 100k.

I also didn't mean to suggest the comp 5 years out was just on an undergrad degree. I finished professional school as did many of my friends and that's when we got the salary bump to $200k or so.

[Anonymous]

To add to the above, my friends who did not go to professional school are only making 150-160k now, but without the significant opportunity cost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those numbers are probably skewed by people who deliberately go into low paying fields because of interest (publishing, fashion etc.) or go into public sector non-profit work.

Most of my friends who graduated my year were making $65K immediately after undergrad. By 2-3 years out many (if not most) were brushing up against 100K. 5-6 years out of college most of us are making in the 200K region.

I think it's very true that if you go into a private sector, for profit career where basically the only goal is to make money, you've definitely screwed up if you're only making 100k.

What field? My law firm hires college grads into entry level non-attorney positions for around $40k. If they stay 5-6 years they may be making $50-$60k, but they sure as hell aren't pulling down $200k unless during those 5-6 years they also went to law school and came back as associates.

OP here. Many friends went into management consulting (McKinsey, Bain etc.) where comp packages were around 80k all in first year. Some went into Econ consulting (Cornerstone, NERA etc.) where packages are around 70k first year. Many friends also went into investment banking where fjrstvyear comp was well above 100k.
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I also didn't mean to suggest the comp 5 years out was just on an undergrad degree. I finished professional school as did many of my friends and that's when we got the salary bump to $200k or so.

is as

You realize you are talking about less than 1% of the population right?
Most people even in DC will be in the 125-175k range max.

[Anonymous]

I think 1% is probably a bit harsh- we all went to Ivies, sure, but these were very common outcomes for those who wanted them.