Why do so many affluent people insist they have "middle class" values?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because they do belong to middle class although you can argue they're upper middle. But upper middle is also middle class (i.e. they're not "rich").
I consider being rich as having the option of quitting your job and still having a well-off life. Most of those in the conversation obviously don't belong to this group.

So most millionaires are "middle class" then.

As long as they cannot afford to quit their jobs, they are middle class.

So there is nothing between middle class and rich?

[Anonymous]

Here we go again.. This middle class thread comes up a lot on here. First, they are insisting they have middle class values because they are trying to identify with the middle class so they won't be despised for being rich and so you will think they have the same problems you and I do (they don't..). Because of that now a whole bunch of people call themselves middle class despite making a very high income (they aren't..). What there really is (check Wikipedia under middle class in the united states) is a myriad of classification systems based on education, profession, HHI and net worth that attempt to put us all into nice little boxes. IMHO, the boxes should be something like:

Poor
Lower Class
Lower Middle Class
Middle Class
Upper Middle Class
Upper Class
Rich

Now we can argue for pages and pages about who fits in which box and why.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand this class thing. Who decided we were in different classes ? Someone define middle class values please.

If you work to live, you are working class. That term means nothing. You are part of what everyone does. No more no less.

Your place in any class structure also means nothing if you have no financial security. THAT is what matters. Not the competition to BE someone.

I personally feel good knowing I can rest my head without worrying about eating or stressing bills.

[Anonymous]

Because many of them do have middle class values. Most of us grew up associating "middle class" with these things: graduating from college. Getting a white collar job. Buying a home. Taking some sort of family vacation once or twice a year.

If your HHI is $200-$300K and you own a $1M home in North Arlington (which doesn't mean it's an impressive house), drive a "normal" car, send your kids to public school, save for college, don't have household servants except for the weekly maid service and take the kids to "normal" vacations for a week or two in the summer, that sounds pretty middle class to me. It's just upper middle class.

I'm a single mom who makes low six figures and knows I'm probably upper middle class based on upbringing, education and where I live. But with just one income, I'm closer to the median HHI for my county than the dual-income families I know.

[Anonymous]

I'm not particularly religious, but one truth I think of the New Testament is what Jesus said over and over and over again, something akin to "It's nearly impossible for a rich man to get into heaven."

People don't like to admit they are fortunate or lucky, partly because they don't want the societal structure that enables their fortune to change.

They want to live the good life, but they also want to believe the narrative that they are salt-of-the earth and not guilty of the sins of excess, indulgence, and greed.

But in the great words of the White Stripes, "You can't be a pimp and a prostitute too." People don't want to admit where they shake out in society. Resources are finite. It simply isn't possible no matter what school of economics you buy into for everyone to make that kind of money and have that kind of wealth. So people who have it pretend like they don't or like they deserve it because they don't live a greedy lifestyle. They don't want to believe that they're in the pimp echelon of society, that their wealth comes at a cost to other people. So they keep repeating this middle class narrative.

As a society, we have such a backwards notion of wealth and resources and money. We think that it is an unlimited resource. Money is only an unlimited resources if it is pretend and not anchored to anything. And that is bad news.

If it is anchored to something, then it is a limited resource.

The reality is that companies and even the government don't have unlimited budgets (while some people think the government does, the harsh reality of that error in thinking is starting to materialize). So if employers don't have unlimited budgets, then it means that for some people to make significantly more, others have to make significantly less.

And that is why there is that huge widening in the gap between rich and poor. But one way the rich can continue their self-denial is to refuse to believe or call themselves rich and -- despite the numbers that suggest otherwise -- insist they are middle class and simply living a middle class life.

And for all of the "in the DC area...," if you look at the numbers for average and median salary figures, it just isn't true that $300k hhi is middle class (or middle income if you're going to go down that "class is not about money" road).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because many of them do have middle class values. Most of us grew up associating "middle class" with these things: graduating from college. Getting a white collar job. Buying a home. Taking some sort of family vacation once or twice a year.

If your HHI is $200-$300K and you own a $1M home in North Arlington (which doesn't mean it's an impressive house), drive a "normal" car, send your kids to public school, save for college, don't have household servants except for the weekly maid service and take the kids to "normal" vacations for a week or two in the summer, that sounds pretty middle class to me. It's just upper middle class.

I'm a single mom who makes low six figures and knows I'm probably upper middle class based on upbringing, education and where I live. But with just one income, I'm closer to the median HHI for my county than the dual-income families I know.

This is where the problem comes in. I didn't grow up associating middle class with those things. At the least, those things were upper middle class.

Saving for college, two vacations (or even one) a year, and maid service were (and always will be) for me definitely UPPER middle class.

We were middle class. We knew we'd have to pay for college ourselves through scholarships, work, or loans. We didn't go on yearly vacations. Every other year, we'd make it to the beach for a few days (but that's only because we could drive to the beach).

Graduating from college is actually a pretty new middle class standard. For my parents' generation, it wasn't expected. Middle class jobs were jobs you could get without a college degree -- office jobs, skilled trades, et cetera. College was a way to move into upper middle class existence or beyond.

The problem is that in changing those key defining aspects of "what is middle class," we have cut whole swaths of people out. It may not look like it yet, because a lot of people are managing a so-called middle class existence because they are over-extended on credit and over-leveraged. We saw the first wave of that falling apart with the foreclosure crisis. I fear that's just the beginning.

Maybe I'm just in a dark mood today...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because many of them do have middle class values. Most of us grew up associating "middle class" with these things: graduating from college. Getting a white collar job. Buying a home. Taking some sort of family vacation once or twice a year.

If your HHI is $200-$300K and you own a $1M home in North Arlington (which doesn't mean it's an impressive house), drive a "normal" car, send your kids to public school, save for college, don't have household servants except for the weekly maid service and take the kids to "normal" vacations for a week or two in the summer, that sounds pretty middle class to me. It's just upper middle class.

I'm a single mom who makes low six figures and knows I'm probably upper middle class based on upbringing, education and where I live. But with just one income, I'm closer to the median HHI for my county than the dual-income families I know.

This is where the problem comes in. I didn't grow up associating middle class with those things. At the least, those things were upper middle class.

Saving for college, two vacations (or even one) a year, and maid service were (and always will be) for me definitely UPPER middle class.

We were middle class. We knew we'd have to pay for college ourselves through scholarships, work, or loans. We didn't go on yearly vacations. Every other year, we'd make it to the beach for a few days (but that's only because we could drive to the beach).

Graduating from college is actually a pretty new middle class standard. For my parents' generation, it wasn't expected. Middle class jobs were jobs you could get without a college degree -- office jobs, skilled trades, et cetera. College was a way to move into upper middle class existence or beyond.

The problem is that in changing those key defining aspects of "what is middle class," we have cut whole swaths of people out. It may not look like it yet, because a lot of people are managing a so-called middle class existence because they are over-extended on credit and over-leveraged. We saw the first wave of that falling apart with the foreclosure crisis. I fear that's just the beginning.

Maybe I'm just in a dark mood today...

Same here, but I didn't grow up around this area. I'm from the Midwest where we would all think DCUMers are rich. Most of my childhood our HHI was about 40k. That dropped to 20k once my parents split. We certainly weren't taking any fancy trips, saving for college, living in million dollar houses, paying for maid service or driving anything above an old econobox hand me down car from grandparents. I am in complete agreement with you that all these things are upper middle class plus attributes. I would also argue that people in this area are generally pretty desensitized to what it is truly like to be middle or lower middle class. Hence the reason why a lot of these threads eventually devolve into a bunch of "real" middle class people coming around and feeling insulted while the upper middle class plus people with the million dollar houses, nannys, BMWs, 529s and millions in retirement savings call themselves middle class.

[Anonymous]

I believe the upper middle class feel so strongly that the belong in the middle class because of two reasons:

1. They work very hard to get to where they are. They made sacrifices, took the extra effort, and battled there way into their current income situation. It's not easy. There might have been some element of luck, but mostly you get out of life what you put in. Working hard and earning a solid/comfortable living with what you earn is a main middle class value.

2. They see the full spectrum of how people live - they get a good view of the truly rich from friends, business acquaintances, social circles, and etc. They know how they live themselves, and they see how median Americans live. They realize that they are closer to how the median Americans live, than how the truly rich people live.

The median income people can imagine how glamorous a million dollar home, nanny, BMWs, 529, and retirement savings are. But the truth is that these are not all that glamorous. They are fairly mundane compared to what the truly rich indulge in.

I have nothing against the truly rich, I aspire to be one.

[Anonymous]

Good points. I think one factor that seems to confuse people is that you can't simply call yourself middle class because you look at other rich people and say "I don't have the same stuff they have so I am not rich, but middle class". There is an astronomical difference in wealth among the top 2% (me vs. Warren Buffet for example) that is many, many orders of magnitude different than the difference between the PP with a 20k HHI and a DCUM family with a 300k HHI. That's just the way the top strata works out. It's the same at the bottom too. Just ask the guy with zero HHI living in a box if he's the same as the guy making 17k.

TL;DR - simply looking at what someone else has that's in the same group as you doesn't make you a group or two less because you don't have what he has.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not particularly religious, but one truth I think of the New Testament is what Jesus said over and over and over again, something akin to "It's nearly impossible for a rich man to get into heaven."

People don't like to admit they are fortunate or lucky, partly because they don't want the societal structure that enables their fortune to change.

They want to live the good life, but they also want to believe the narrative that they are salt-of-the earth and not guilty of the sins of excess, indulgence, and greed.

But in the great words of the White Stripes, "You can't be a pimp and a prostitute too." People don't want to admit where they shake out in society. Resources are finite. It simply isn't possible no matter what school of economics you buy into for everyone to make that kind of money and have that kind of wealth. So people who have it pretend like they don't or like they deserve it because they don't live a greedy lifestyle. They don't want to believe that they're in the pimp echelon of society, that their wealth comes at a cost to other people. So they keep repeating this middle class narrative.

Of course, it's possible that people who make more money are simply more educated, work harder and longer hours and have more ambition. Equality of outcomes isn't actually possible. So yes, it's not possible for everyone to make that kind of money because some people work harder for it than others, even after factoring in the innate privilege. If you take a classroom full of middle-class kids, some of them will rise and some will fall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I believe the upper middle class feel so strongly that the belong in the middle class because of two reasons:

1. They work very hard to get to where they are. They made sacrifices, took the extra effort, and battled there way into their current income situation. It's not easy. There might have been some element of luck, but mostly you get out of life what you put in. Working hard and earning a solid/comfortable living with what you earn is a main middle class value.

2. They see the full spectrum of how people live - they get a good view of the truly rich from friends, business acquaintances, social circles, and etc. They know how they live themselves, and they see how median Americans live. They realize that they are closer to how the median Americans live, than how the truly rich people live.

The median income people can imagine how glamorous a million dollar home, nanny, BMWs, 529, and retirement savings are. But the truth is that these are not all that glamorous. They are fairly mundane compared to what the truly rich indulge in.

I have nothing against the truly rich, I aspire to be one.

I agree with this completely. Both 1. and 2. are spot on. I moved from middle class to upper middle class/entry level rich solely because a) I'm a high earner married to a high earner and b) my middle class values taught me to save my money and invest for long term gratification, as opposed to working class friends, who spend any money they can free up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good points. I think one factor that seems to confuse people is that you can't simply call yourself middle class because you look at other rich people and say "I don't have the same stuff they have so I am not rich, but middle class". There is an astronomical difference in wealth among the top 2% (me vs. Warren Buffet for example) that is many, many orders of magnitude different than the difference between the PP with a 20k HHI and a DCUM family with a 300k HHI. That's just the way the top strata works out. It's the same at the bottom too. Just ask the guy with zero HHI living in a box if he's the same as the guy making 17k.

TL;DR - simply looking at what someone else has that's in the same group as you doesn't make you a group or two less because you don't have what he has.

Actually I think that's a very good summary. If you ask each person in the group: middle class, upper middle class, and the truly rich to list out the things they have, and compare their lists, you'll see that the middle class and upper middle class is a lot more similar than the lists between upper middle class and the truly rich. I am not even saying the difference between you and warren buffet. Just compare someone in the DC metro area making the median of $100k, top 2% of $450k, vs someone making $5M a year. The $5M guy is living a *MUCH* more exclusive lifestyle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I believe the upper middle class feel so strongly that the belong in the middle class because of two reasons:

1. They work very hard to get to where they are. They made sacrifices, took the extra effort, and battled there way into their current income situation. It's not easy. There might have been some element of luck, but mostly you get out of life what you put in. Working hard and earning a solid/comfortable living with what you earn is a main middle class value.

2. They see the full spectrum of how people live - they get a good view of the truly rich from friends, business acquaintances, social circles, and etc. They know how they live themselves, and they see how median Americans live. They realize that they are closer to how the median Americans live, than how the truly rich people live.

The median income people can imagine how glamorous a million dollar home, nanny, BMWs, 529, and retirement savings are. But the truth is that these are not all that glamorous. They are fairly mundane compared to what the truly rich indulge in.

I have nothing against the truly rich, I aspire to be one.

I'm with you until you try to sell me that a million dollar home, nanny, 529 and retirement savings are middle class. They may not be "glamorous" but the majority of people in the US do not have these things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe the upper middle class feel so strongly that the belong in the middle class because of two reasons:

1. They work very hard to get to where they are. They made sacrifices, took the extra effort, and battled there way into their current income situation. It's not easy. There might have been some element of luck, but mostly you get out of life what you put in. Working hard and earning a solid/comfortable living with what you earn is a main middle class value.

2. They see the full spectrum of how people live - they get a good view of the truly rich from friends, business acquaintances, social circles, and etc. They know how they live themselves, and they see how median Americans live. They realize that they are closer to how the median Americans live, than how the truly rich people live.

The median income people can imagine how glamorous a million dollar home, nanny, BMWs, 529, and retirement savings are. But the truth is that these are not all that glamorous. They are fairly mundane compared to what the truly rich indulge in.

I have nothing against the truly rich, I aspire to be one.

I'm with you until you try to sell me that a million dollar home, nanny, 529 and retirement savings are middle class. They may not be "glamorous" but the majority of people in the US do not have these things.

Lets not confuse "do not have these things" with "have similar but not as nice things". Primary home, child care, your daily driver, college savings, and retirement savings - these are all mundane things. The upper middle class have nicer versions of these things, but that's about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe the upper middle class feel so strongly that the belong in the middle class because of two reasons:

1. They work very hard to get to where they are. They made sacrifices, took the extra effort, and battled there way into their current income situation. It's not easy. There might have been some element of luck, but mostly you get out of life what you put in. Working hard and earning a solid/comfortable living with what you earn is a main middle class value.

2. They see the full spectrum of how people live - they get a good view of the truly rich from friends, business acquaintances, social circles, and etc. They know how they live themselves, and they see how median Americans live. They realize that they are closer to how the median Americans live, than how the truly rich people live.

The median income people can imagine how glamorous a million dollar home, nanny, BMWs, 529, and retirement savings are. But the truth is that these are not all that glamorous. They are fairly mundane compared to what the truly rich indulge in.

I have nothing against the truly rich, I aspire to be one.

I'm with you until you try to sell me that a million dollar home, nanny, 529 and retirement savings are middle class. They may not be "glamorous" but the majority of people in the US do not have these things.

Lets not confuse "do not have these things" with "have similar but not as nice things". Primary home, child care, your daily driver, college savings, and retirement savings - these are all mundane things. The upper middle class have nicer versions of these things, but that's about it.

Actually I was t confusing anything. You think the majority of people have 529 plans and fully funded retirement? I don't.