What is Middle Class....Really?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is it surprising that successful people prefer to hang with other successful people instead of the poors?

Everyone I know makes 1M+. You 200k slummers are the poors in our books.

And I live off my investments. I don't care to hang with "the workers." Ick.

You're obviously being sarcastic, but this is really how the world works you know. It shouldn't be that way, but that's how it is. Seven figure earners think the rest of us are poors and people living off investments think everyone who works is a loser. How is this surprising to people? You're incredibly naive if you are shocked that rich people have no empathy for others.

[Anonymous]

The poors. Not poors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have anything to add to the main debate here, but I find it quite condescending that people keep saying that those of us who make that kind of income "don't live in the real world."

My parents came as immigrants to this country and had no soft capital to give to me except the cultural values of a love for education and hard work, and my siblings and I clawed our way into making $200k + by sheer force of will and talent while constantly being outsiders.

And people on this board say we don't live in the real world? Forgive me if I don't have endless sympathy for those whose families have been here for generations (with all the privileges that entails) if they still can't hack it and are slumming it in constant mediocrity.

What's your definition of "slumming it"? You don't find it condescending to say people earning $100,000 are mediocre? What a friggin' snob.

Not making a blanket statement about those who make $100K- if you choose to go into government service or public service that's tremendously honorable. But if you've been here for generations and are in the private sector, yeah color me extremely unimpressed.

Like other posters above have said, you are a snob. You seem to think that only government service pays $100,000 (or less) when poster after poster has shown that most careers average less than that. You are in such a bubble that you don't even know it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have anything to add to the main debate here, but I find it quite condescending that people keep saying that those of us who make that kind of income "don't live in the real world."

My parents came as immigrants to this country and had no soft capital to give to me except the cultural values of a love for education and hard work, and my siblings and I clawed our way into making $200k + by sheer force of will and talent while constantly being outsiders.

And people on this board say we don't live in the real world? Forgive me if I don't have endless sympathy for those whose families have been here for generations (with all the privileges that entails) if they still can't hack it and are slumming it in constant mediocrity.

What's your definition of "slumming it"? You don't find it condescending to say people earning $100,000 are mediocre? What a friggin' snob.

Not making a blanket statement about those who make $100K- if you choose to go into government service or public service that's tremendously honorable. But if you've been here for generations and are in the private sector, yeah color me extremely unimpressed.

Bwahahahaha! Honorable to be a lazy bureaucrat? Nobody, but governmnet workers are impressed by government workers. I was one for 2 miserable years and 90% of them are nothing, but a jobs program. People on 100k/yr welfare payments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is it surprising that successful people prefer to hang with other successful people instead of the poors?

Everyone I know makes 1M+. You 200k slummers are the poors in our books.

And I live off my investments. I don't care to hang with "the workers." Ick.

You're obviously being sarcastic, but this is really how the world works you know. It shouldn't be that way, but that's how it is. Seven figure earners think the rest of us are poors and people living off investments think everyone who works is a loser. How is this surprising to people? You're incredibly naive if you are shocked that rich people have no empathy for others.

....except that posters above weren't talkimg about "rich" having no empathy for others. They were saying that they, earning $200,000, think it UNHEALTHY to emphasize with those earning $50,000 - and that they sure dont hang around people who earn so little, or even know anyone who earns so little.

People who think that way are nouveau riche snobs. I personally know a few old-money people in their 40s, from families worth $100 million, and they have friends from all walks of like. It is only the young people (often new law firm assoxiates) who are so impressed with the money they're earning that they consider others who followed careers that pay less (and that would be most of them) beneath them and choose to isolate from them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The poors. Not poors.

Thx for the correction. Obviously I am not part of the elite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is it surprising that successful people prefer to hang with other successful people instead of the poors?

I am good friends with a guy who went to my high school. We don't talk money but it is obvious that our lifestyles greatly diverge. I talk to him about friends and kids, not about what I do in my free time. A lot of his conversation indirectly revolves around money; he does very little not just because activities are expensive but because he "doesn't want to put unnecessary miles on his car." It is really good for me to spend time with him for many reasons, including some insight into how households making under $75K a year live in Fairfax County.

[Anonymous]

How do people have friend groups that are so socioeconomically diverse? Pretty much everyone I'm in touch with from high school or college is now a JD/MBA/MD or working in finance or tech.

It's not like I tried to hang out only with highly paid professionals, I just don't have any friends who aren't (except for some who are now finishing up PHDs, but that's different).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do people have friend groups that are so socioeconomically diverse? Pretty much everyone I'm in touch with from high school or college is now a JD/MBA/MD or working in finance or tech.

It's not like I tried to hang out only with highly paid professionals, I just don't have any friends who aren't (except for some who are now finishing up PHDs, but that's different).

Because we don't spend all our time at work? We are friends with people from church; people from our neighborhood; parents of our kids' friends. Those groups are all diverse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do people have friend groups that are so socioeconomically diverse? Pretty much everyone I'm in touch with from high school or college is now a JD/MBA/MD or working in finance or tech.

You live in a bubble:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-a-quiz-2/

Here's a follow-on that shows how much elite segregation occurs in the DC area:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/how-two-cities-organized-their-elite-enclaves/

[Anonymous]

The worst sign if a bubble is when these snobby 28-year-olds insist that professionals earning $100,000 have been unsuccessful in their careers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The worst sign if a bubble is when these snobby 28-year-olds insist that professionals earning $100,000 have been unsuccessful in their careers.

People should be proud of their accomplishments, whatever social class they may be a part of.

Unfortunately, most aspire to the upper middle class and not one of the working classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You can define middle class but hhi or by lifestyle. That's where the confusion is. Both answers are correct

No they are not. People seem to want to define middle class lifestyle by some nostalgic view of the '50s. The "middle" can't afford all of the things people are suggesting should be part of this lifestyle: short-ish commute, 4 BR house, 2 cars, vacations, savings for college & retirement, etc. Calling these things a "middle-class" lifestyle when they are out of reach for 90% of the country is part of the problem OP is getting at.

You can argue that the majority of Americans *should* be able to afford these things, but the reality is that a tiny fraction in either DC or Peoria can. That's why they are angry and looking for change. Burying your head in the sand and complaining that DC is expensive doesn't change this.

Why do they get angry at the government? Get higher education, start a business, work multiple jobs. Nobody ever said the government was supposed to put you on easy street.

I'm not justifying their anger, I'm explaining it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The worst sign if a bubble is when these snobby 28-year-olds insist that professionals earning $100,000 have been unsuccessful in their careers.

People should be proud of their accomplishments, whatever social class they may be a part of.

Unfortunately, most aspire to the upper middle class and not one of the working classes.

But $100,000, or $200,000 per couple, IS upper-middle class. A working class wage (working class go by hourly wages) is more like $12/hr. If you mean to to imply otherwise, that's a sign of the bubble that posters keep referring to.

BTW, I'm at $110,000 and proud of my successes. It's afforded me a very nice lifestyle, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But $100,000, or $200,000 per couple, IS upper-middle class. A working class wage (working class go by hourly wages) is more like $12/hr. If you mean to to imply otherwise, that's a sign of the bubble that posters keep referring to.

BTW, I'm at $110,000 and proud of my successes. It's afforded me a very nice lifestyle, too.

If you have a graduate degree from a reputable full time program, work as a lawyer, physician, university professor, senior executive, have refined tastes, then you're likely upper middle class.

If you're in a GS-scale job, a middle manager, have a state college degree, watch TV at night, and so on, then you just have a nice income.

Remember that "middle class" is not "middle income". It's the class between inherited wealth and people who really on their own effort to get paid. The upper middle class are those who make enough to separate themselves from most of the managers, dentists, IT professionals, and the like, but still need to work.