Reply to Ok can we stop saying $300k is "rich" in DC?

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Reply to "Ok can we stop saying $300k is "rich" in DC?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Yes, you are lower middle class in DC. 300k looks rich to you because it's more than double your income, but it's not rich. Your perspective is skewed. People making 50k here are straight up poor. The posters harping that people making 50k are middle class are delusional. We have plenty of medical assistants in our clinic with hhi 50-60k. Their finances are miserable. Zero retirement, perpetual renters, and they work like dogs for their wages. They splurge now and then, probably so they don't go crazy. Does that sound middle class? [/quote]
Yes. That's what slashing the social safety net and basically having a dog-eat-dog society does to the middle class. But that doesn't mean that income level isn't middle class. If you think their situations are bad (and I agree they are), take a look at those of the truly destitute.

You are insisting that you aren't rich based on your perception of what rich should be. But statistics say otherwise. The problem is that a middle income can no longer support a decent lifestyle...not that people are arguing that 5-10%-ers are rich.

-- $600-700K HHI, so this isn't about me envying your lot[/quote]

My definition of middle class is based on lifestyle. If you can't have, as you say, a decent lifestyle on average income, you are poor. Employers have done a good job keeping wages flat while the price of everything has gone up, so that 50k, which bought you a middle class lifestyle decades ago, now buys a lower class lifestyle. It's the same for people making 300k in DC. Their income buys them an okay house, decent to good schools, and retirement savings. This sounds solidly middle class to me. It was middle class 40 years ago. I'm not sure why so many posters here have adjusted their standards and insist that what was clearly middle class is now rich. [/quote]

I'm not sure why this is confusing to you.  You said that you define middle class by lifestyle.  Others define it by income or wealth.  I think the difference of opinion is in the standards of consumption.  We're 35, earn $300k, have $500k in retirement savings, $250k in home equity, $40k in a 529 for our 2 year old, and no student loan or car debt.  We have a SFH in Arlington.  If you want to say that's a solidly middle class existence, then I think your view of the world is slightly warped.

My parents were middle class (teacher and electrician). They scraped and saved to give me that existence, but I have it much, much easier.   [/quote]

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