What’s the different between upper middle class and upper class?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From the vantage point of people hovering around the poverty line, there's no difference betweeen UMC and UC. It's all a blur of completely out of reach.

This whole thread is stupid.

Hard disagree. Politicians have framed it this way, but UMC people are going to work every day just like LMC people. UC are spending their days as they wish and making more in a week or month than UMC does in a year just as their investments grow. Everyone has more in common with each other than the ultra wealthy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Neither of these terms has any fixed meaning. The end.

Sociologist?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once again, lots of people are conflating class with money, which itself is a very middle class way of looking at things.

UMC has a home theater; UC has a (live) theater subscription.

UMC has a power boat; UC has a sailboat.

UMC is terribly concerned with meeting the right people; UC already knows them. (Whether they like them is a whole 'nother matter.)

UMC has a freshly paved and sealed driveway. UC has washboarded gravel.

UMC children are William (never Will or Billy) and Charlotte (never Lottie or Char). UC children are Bungy, Lala, Chip/Trey/Quinn, and Roo.

UMC fly on A plane. UC fly on THE plane.

UMC kids learn golf from the club pro. UC kids learn from their parents and grandparents.

UMC horse-crazy daughters buy $1200 boots for horse shows. UC daughters go fox hunting in their mom's old tweeds.

You describe old money vs new money, not UMC vs UC.

Bill Gates is most certainly UC, but his horse riding daughter spends tons on the latest fashions.

Jeff Bezos owns a $250MM super yacht, not a sailboat.

None of their children are Bungy or Roo.

And both These examples are of rich UMC parents - so what’s your point exactly? They were born MC or UMC were smart enough to be very successful and had a ton of luck along the way. Simple.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Upper middle has at least some income through a w-2 and actually needs to work to maintain their lifestyle/savings.

Upper class can fully sustain themselves with investments.

Plenty of FIRE people “sustain themselves with investments.” But they are living on $100k a year in a LCOL area. That doesn’t make them upper class.

But many upper class people are cheap as hell.

For sure. But that doesn't have anything to do with whether or not they are UC.

My mother wouldn't let me order sour cream on my baked potato at Ponderosa because it cost 25 cents extra. Drive up the road from that Ponderosa (just about the only place we ever ate out, unless you count BK, which was also rare) a ways and you would come across a uni building with our name on it. Lol. She was a money hoarder -- it's a mental illness and had nothing to do with how much money there actually was, or the fact that she had grown up the way most UC people do. She was just nuts. I remember one evening at the Country Club we were having dinner with my grandparents and my grandfather looks up from the menu and says to my grandmother "Larla, we can't afford this!" and she just shook her head at him annoyed -- they could afford every dinner in the place and the building it was in to boot, and more. People have weird relationships with money and get very controlling around spending and sometimes having a lot of money doesn't really matter. My grandfather's dad jumped off a building in NYC in 1929 though (yeah, not a myth, it did happen) -- so we will allow him his trauma and controlling feelings around money.

I'm so sorry your grandfather's family went through that, PP. Absolutely, that sounds incredibly traumatic.

It is not a “sickness” it generational trauma from the Depression. My grandparents had it too. In some ways this helps define a true WASP (sadly). My dad still gos around turning off all the lights by habit - sometimes when I’m sitting in the room reading in those lights.

My family were bankers in Illinois who owned thousands of acres of farmland. You can imagine their stress - Depression and dust bowl combined.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the biggest difference between the UMC and UC is time. That is, your time is your own when you’re UC. You don’t think twice about flying out mid week to NYC to see a concert or going skiing or flying to Caribbean with friends. I have relatives like this who’ve invited us along not realizing that they don’t have to negotiate bosses, clients, childcare or paid time off the way a highly compensated and golden handcuffed UMC person does. And yes, this is different than the retired couple with $5 million in the bank who spend their weeks playing pickle ball or golf while collecting a social security check. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

This quote is about money, not class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ha my sister married into a UC Bostonian family - you would never know it when you look at them.

The parents have a house in the NE for the summer and in the SE for the winter.

Will fly commercial but as they have gotten older prefer to fly on private jets.

Daughter married into finance and her HHI is around $10 million a year.

Son (my sisters husband) and my sister do well but are not as insanely wealthy as the daughter. Their HHI is around $1.5 million a year.

The family trust is around $20 million and nobody touches the principal it just gets passed down through the generations.

This is a tiny family trust for this level of HHI. I created a $7m trust for my child a single mother making $300k/year

Sorry, what are you saying? how does one create a $7 million trust from earning $300k a year? That's like 30x your gross pre-tax annual salary.

You invest half your salary and use compounding interest over many years. Do you not have a 401k? This sounds like such an ignorant question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Upper middle has at least some income through a w-2 and actually needs to work to maintain their lifestyle/savings.

Upper class can fully sustain themselves with investments.

Plenty of FIRE people “sustain themselves with investments.” But they are living on $100k a year in a LCOL area. That doesn’t make them upper class.

But many upper class people are cheap as hell.

For sure. But that doesn't have anything to do with whether or not they are UC.

My mother wouldn't let me order sour cream on my baked potato at Ponderosa because it cost 25 cents extra. Drive up the road from that Ponderosa (just about the only place we ever ate out, unless you count BK, which was also rare) a ways and you would come across a uni building with our name on it. Lol. She was a money hoarder -- it's a mental illness and had nothing to do with how much money there actually was, or the fact that she had grown up the way most UC people do. She was just nuts. I remember one evening at the Country Club we were having dinner with my grandparents and my grandfather looks up from the menu and says to my grandmother "Larla, we can't afford this!" and she just shook her head at him annoyed -- they could afford every dinner in the place and the building it was in to boot, and more. People have weird relationships with money and get very controlling around spending and sometimes having a lot of money doesn't really matter. My grandfather's dad jumped off a building in NYC in 1929 though (yeah, not a myth, it did happen) -- so we will allow him his trauma and controlling feelings around money.

Sounds like my FIL. UHNW and almost had a heart attack when he thought we weren’t covering the entire $100 Carrabba’s bill at dinner. It’s a sickness.

I’ve noticed this too. It’s the wealthy families we know who will invite one of our kids along to an activity and let us know the amount so we can Venmo them. And I don’t mean expensive activities, I’m talking ~$30 when they live in a $2M house and own vacation properties.

Meanwhile my family your typical DCUM UMC earning about $300k and we definitely need our incomes. Yet I refuse to let other parents reimburse me if I’m the one inviting their child somewhere. I always give 2-3x the suggested contribution amount to the room parents. We generally tip 20% as the default for things like going out to eat, hair cuts, etc. We give generous holiday gifts to our biweekly cleaners, teachers (well as much as the gift limit allows throughout the year), adopt an angel tree kid and try to get everything on the list we reasonably can, etc.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in a working class neighborhood and feel so fortunate to now have the disposable income we do even if it’s not enough to quit our jobs and live a life of leisure. We are good savers and lucked out on buying a home with a sub 3% interest rate, so I don’t want to spend our lives fretting over relatively small amounts of money. I’d rather err on the side of generosity.

Conversely I think having a lot of wealth creates this scarcity mindset where you must protect that wealth and worry about people taking advantage of you.

When you have a lot, you have a lot to lose. And some people have lost a lot (or their parents did) and this is a learned behavior. I’m constantly bickering with DH, who grew up UMC in Britain while I grew up UC here. I believe in private schools and trusts, but 15-18% tips and I hate it when my kids order expensive beverages at restaurants - I had to drink water or milk as a kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Upper middle class goes to Hawaii. Upper class has a condo in Hawaii.

Upper middle either lives in a great school district or sends their kids to private school. Upper class does boarding school.

Upper middle class has a cleaning lady once or twice a week. Upper class has a housekeeper.

How money is spent doesn’t dictate class, sorry.

Actually it’s probably the true definition. There are certain class markers that take money: private schools with legacy, family hobbies (skiing, sailing, horses), vacation homes in prestigious places passed down through generations, buildings named after your family, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the biggest difference between the UMC and UC is time. That is, your time is your own when you’re UC. You don’t think twice about flying out mid week to NYC to see a concert or going skiing or flying to Caribbean with friends. I have relatives like this who’ve invited us along not realizing that they don’t have to negotiate bosses, clients, childcare or paid time off the way a highly compensated and golden handcuffed UMC person does. And yes, this is different than the retired couple with $5 million in the bank who spend their weeks playing pickle ball or golf while collecting a social security check. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

This quote is about money, not class.

It is insofar that the wealthy person is a working class prole who sold his plumbing business for $30 million and spends his days attending UFC and NASCAR events. They’re still a low cultural capital rube that has money but no class. I think it’s different if they have multigenerational wealth, a family office and house manager/house keeper/operations manager/personal assistant, sit on a few high profile non-profit boards and civic institutions, and can leave on a moment’s notice for a vacation if they so choose.

That’s not money or class. It’s both. Ask yourself if that rube is likely to be invited to some high profile civic or cultural institution and you have your answer regarding whether they are UC, ceteris paribus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ha my sister married into a UC Bostonian family - you would never know it when you look at them.

The parents have a house in the NE for the summer and in the SE for the winter.

Will fly commercial but as they have gotten older prefer to fly on private jets.

Daughter married into finance and her HHI is around $10 million a year.

Son (my sisters husband) and my sister do well but are not as insanely wealthy as the daughter. Their HHI is around $1.5 million a year.

The family trust is around $20 million and nobody touches the principal it just gets passed down through the generations.

This is a tiny family trust for this level of HHI. I created a $7m trust for my child a single mother making $300k/year

Sorry, what are you saying? how does one create a $7 million trust from earning $300k a year? That's like 30x your gross pre-tax annual salary.

You invest half your salary and use compounding interest over many years. Do you not have a 401k? This sounds like such an ignorant question.

Let me try to make it simple to you. The point is you should make it a goal NOT to be a salaried employee in your 40s. No, you can’t become a multi millionaire investing half your salary because taxes will be eating half your salary .
It can only be achieved through ownership of assets worth of millions and millions of dollars . The only way to do it when you have little capital is to borrow and invest the borrowed money in assets that produce cashflow sufficient to service the loan and keep some extra cash to yourself. The only asset that allows it to red beginners is real estate. Of course, if you buy it at the right time and know how to create value with what you bought . And if you don’t know how to create value, you’ll go bankrupt

Once you get a cashflow, you will diversify your assets with stocks moving away from RE. But 401k is the least profitable way of doing it .

I’m done teaching on this thread but a good book like Value Added RE by A.Grosso

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ha my sister married into a UC Bostonian family - you would never know it when you look at them.

The parents have a house in the NE for the summer and in the SE for the winter.

Will fly commercial but as they have gotten older prefer to fly on private jets.

Daughter married into finance and her HHI is around $10 million a year.

Son (my sisters husband) and my sister do well but are not as insanely wealthy as the daughter. Their HHI is around $1.5 million a year.

The family trust is around $20 million and nobody touches the principal it just gets passed down through the generations.

This is a tiny family trust for this level of HHI. I created a $7m trust for my child a single mother making $300k/year

Sorry, what are you saying? how does one create a $7 million trust from earning $300k a year? That's like 30x your gross pre-tax annual salary.

You invest half your salary and use compounding interest over many years. Do you not have a 401k? This sounds like such an ignorant question.

Let me try to make it simple to you. The point is you should make it a goal NOT to be a salaried employee in your 40s. No, you can’t become a multi millionaire investing half your salary because taxes will be eating half your salary .
It can only be achieved through ownership of assets worth of millions and millions of dollars . The only way to do it when you have little capital is to borrow and invest the borrowed money in assets that produce cashflow sufficient to service the loan and keep some extra cash to yourself. The only asset that allows it to red beginners is real estate. Of course, if you buy it at the right time and know how to create value with what you bought . And if you don’t know how to create value, you’ll go bankrupt

Once you get a cashflow, you will diversify your assets with stocks moving away from RE. But 401k is the least profitable way of doing it .

I’m done teaching on this thread but a good book like Value Added RE by A.Grosso

I literally can’t get through the rest of your post because of the bolded, so clearly you have reading issues.

The PP you responded to (not me) has a “child” - so assume sub-18 - that have ~$7M. She is currently working making $300k. Let’s assume she’s in her early 40s. She can retire with $7M if she so chooses. This still would not make her UC but she is definitely within the top 2% wealth. And yes I’m UMC (educated elite private schools) and can do math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Upper Class: This is the realm of traditional blue-blooded elites who, although they lack the almost mythical wealth of their higher counterparts, still wield considerable influence. Think of families like the Kennedys and Roosevelts — families who, according to Fussell, are obviously extremely elite but too “public” to be placed in the higher “top out of sight” tier.

Upper Middle Class: This class represents the backbone of educated professionals who, while not possessing the lineage or heritage wealth of the ‘Upper Class’, nonetheless hold significant sway within society. If the ‘Upper Class’ is defined by heritage and wealth, then the ‘Upper Middle Class’ is defined by education. Here, you’ll find a plethora of Ivy League degrees and advanced qualifications. Universities are seen not merely as gateways to professional success but as indispensable institutions for cultural enlightenment and social bonding. As for professions, expect a broad spectrum. They’re your accomplished lawyers, seasoned doctors, university professors, and successful small business owners. Their careers offer more than economic comfort — they command societal respect and intellectual satisfaction. Culturally, the ‘Upper Middle Class’ champions meritocracy and the pursuit of personal growth. They place a high premium on cultural literacy, aesthetic refinement, and intellectual curiosity. In essence, the ‘Upper Middle Class’ values are rooted in achievement through dedication and education rather than inherited status. They are the embodiment of the American dream, where one can rise through the ranks via hard work and intellectual acumen.

Note class is what you're born into, not the money you have. A blue collar plumber who wins the lottery or happens to sell his business for $20 million is still High Proletarian. Now, his kids might level up. That is, no matter how much sheen you put on it, you will find your class markers betraying you even if you become successful and wealthy. For instance, I know some very wealthy and successful people who grew up poor and their very nice and tasteful house is packed with food. Like ridiculous and wasteful amounts of food -- because it's a sign of comfort and of the trauma due to food insecurity that they experienced as children. That's a sure sign that they were born lower middle class or lower.

Most of this sounds straight out of chatgpt, with all the attendant lack of understanding.

Oh please enlighten us on what is misunderstood. This was pulled from notes from Paul Fussell's book, "Class" along with personal anecdotes and recognizing it's a wonderful, albeit dated guide to class distinctions in America. Or perhaps I struck a nerve because it hit too close to home? If it did, then it's probably because you're decidedly middle class and insecure.

Lady white people are about to be a minority in America. The days of the illustrious blue bloods are dated. Dying breed, to be frank. Too many generations now and too much dilution.

Nice that you think that but you are wrong. There will always be UC WASP culture. There is already UC Hispanic culture. The future will mean that there will also be UC American Asian, Persian, Nigerian, etc. People bring their culture with them and adapt it.

I grew up in UC WASP circles - Mayflower, DAR, boarding school, CT, Maine summer compound, NESCAC college, all that good stuff - and it’s definitely dying in my POV.

[Anonymous]

Well, it’s harder to use your legacy status or be assured that your kids will be guaranteed a place at certain exclusive or status conscious institutions. And whatever advantages they have, these have to be couched as “merit” and “hard work” rather than legacy and connections. They’re also being outmuscled and outhustled by UMC professionals. For example, they may still make partner at a law firm but it’s probably not a top tier one anymore and they’re expected to produce rather than coast on their credentials. I also think tech is much more egalitarian and that’s where most of the wealth is being generated these days. As a random aside, I’ve seen quite a few of these mediocre legacy white guys fail out of more serious professions and go into crypto. It seems like the fallback, fallback option for failsons these days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, it’s harder to use your legacy status or be assured that your kids will be guaranteed a place at certain exclusive or status conscious institutions. And whatever advantages they have, these have to be couched as “merit” and “hard work” rather than legacy and connections. They’re also being outmuscled and outhustled by UMC professionals. For example, they may still make partner at a law firm but it’s probably not a top tier one anymore and they’re expected to produce rather than coast on their credentials. I also think tech is much more egalitarian and that’s where most of the wealth is being generated these days. As a random aside, I’ve seen quite a few of these mediocre legacy white guys fail out of more serious professions and go into crypto. It seems like the fallback, fallback option for failsons these days.

Shots fired at Jack Mallers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Upper middle has at least some income through a w-2 and actually needs to work to maintain their lifestyle/savings.

Upper class can fully sustain themselves with investments.

Plenty of FIRE people “sustain themselves with investments.” But they are living on $100k a year in a LCOL area. That doesn’t make them upper class.

But many upper class people are cheap as hell.

For sure. But that doesn't have anything to do with whether or not they are UC.

My mother wouldn't let me order sour cream on my baked potato at Ponderosa because it cost 25 cents extra. Drive up the road from that Ponderosa (just about the only place we ever ate out, unless you count BK, which was also rare) a ways and you would come across a uni building with our name on it. Lol. She was a money hoarder -- it's a mental illness and had nothing to do with how much money there actually was, or the fact that she had grown up the way most UC people do. She was just nuts. I remember one evening at the Country Club we were having dinner with my grandparents and my grandfather looks up from the menu and says to my grandmother "Larla, we can't afford this!" and she just shook her head at him annoyed -- they could afford every dinner in the place and the building it was in to boot, and more. People have weird relationships with money and get very controlling around spending and sometimes having a lot of money doesn't really matter. My grandfather's dad jumped off a building in NYC in 1929 though (yeah, not a myth, it did happen) -- so we will allow him his trauma and controlling feelings around money.

Sounds like my FIL. UHNW and almost had a heart attack when he thought we weren’t covering the entire $100 Carrabba’s bill at dinner. It’s a sickness.

I’ve noticed this too. It’s the wealthy families we know who will invite one of our kids along to an activity and let us know the amount so we can Venmo them. And I don’t mean expensive activities, I’m talking ~$30 when they live in a $2M house and own vacation properties.

Meanwhile my family your typical DCUM UMC earning about $300k and we definitely need our incomes. Yet I refuse to let other parents reimburse me if I’m the one inviting their child somewhere. I always give 2-3x the suggested contribution amount to the room parents. We generally tip 20% as the default for things like going out to eat, hair cuts, etc. We give generous holiday gifts to our biweekly cleaners, teachers (well as much as the gift limit allows throughout the year), adopt an angel tree kid and try to get everything on the list we reasonably can, etc.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in a working class neighborhood and feel so fortunate to now have the disposable income we do even if it’s not enough to quit our jobs and live a life of leisure. We are good savers and lucked out on buying a home with a sub 3% interest rate, so I don’t want to spend our lives fretting over relatively small amounts of money. I’d rather err on the side of generosity.

Conversely I think having a lot of wealth creates this scarcity mindset where you must protect that wealth and worry about people taking advantage of you.

Getty who was one of the founders of Standard Oil along with Rockefeller had a pay phone in his house that guests had to use if they wanted to make a call. Admittedly, phone calls back in the day were really expensive (in the 1950s you had to pay like $10 for a 10 minute phone call from NYC to Boston).

Don't you remember the commercial where they were serving boxed wine at some massive estate and the tagline was "how do you think I got so rich?".