Reply to Is there a certain net-worth at which you consider a family to be MC vs UMC?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]In terms of income, this can be determined with actual data. For the DC area, you get bumped out of middle with $200,000 gross HHI for a family of 4:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/23/are-you-in-the-american-middle-class/

Net worth gets far more complicated, especially if it's tied up in your housing equity. [/quote]

A family of 4 making 200k can't afford the staples of a UMC life in this area- private school being the most obvious [/quote]

I agree, generally. But that doesn't mean the family making $200k isn't in the upper quartile of income in the region. It just means they can't afford private school.

If private school tuition for multiple kids is generally considered affordable only for the top 5% of income earners (I'm making that number up), that certainly doesn't make people at 6%, 7%, 8% middle class. [/quote]

+1, and similar things can be said about single-family home ownership. We are rapidly getting to a point in DC where you will not be able to buy a SFH with 200k HHI. We are already at the point where you can't buy in a desirable school boundary on that HHI. But that doesn't make 200k middle class.

If you've ever lived in NYC, it's instructive. Housing and education are so expensive there, and rich people there are SO rich, that there are lots of people in NYC living what appear to be middle class lives (renting or buying tiny apartments in not-great neighborhood, kids in public schools and not always even great publics) but who have HHIs several multiples the median income in the US. They may feel middle class, but all it would take to magically become UMC would be making one or two different lifestyle choices. Like moving out of the city and having a slightly longer commute. Suddenly they could afford private Waldorf schools or a 4 bedroom house in a great school district. Their "middle classness" is just a condition of being in the city, but it doesn't translate to anywhere else, not even the suburbs of that same city.[/quote]

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