Reply to 31% of millionaires think they're middle class

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's because of inflation, especially in college and housing.

We have a high HHI and about 5 million in investments. Plus our house, which we own. We don't put that in net worth because you have to live somewhere and if we moved, it would probably be to somewhere bigger/more expensive. This all sounds good and it is right? We're mid 40s so we still have more time to build savings. However, about 1 million of that money is earmarked for our 3 kids' college educations and we intend to spend every penny and then some. If they go to grad school, we'll have to pull from other savings.

Then there's our house. It's a nice house and it is worth a lot of money but it would have been considered firmly &quot;middle class&quot; back when we were growing up. It's 4 bedrooms and less than 3k sqft. Our kids go to public school in a &quot;good&quot; school district and we live in a lovely neighborhood.

When it comes to more frivolous spending, we spend money on our kids' activities and vacations. They each do private lessons for their chosen activity (tennis, skiing, gymnastics). We go skiing once or twice a year, we always take one trip to the Caribbean over spring break, one bigger &quot;splurge&quot; trip to Europe in June or July, and one trip to the OBX in August.

I'm not complaining about our lifestyle AT ALL. It just blows my mind because I know how much money we make and I would have considered it &quot;a lot&quot; back when I was growing up. It's just that wages haven't kept pace with inflation. I just checked flights to see what it would cost to fly to St. Martin from NYC in February and it was 8k for 5 people!!!

Basically what I'm saying is, it's crazy that it takes &gt; 500k to live a lifestyle that would have been &quot;upper middle class&quot; in the 80s and 90s with 3 kids.[/quote]

Yearly trips abroad wasn’t an UMC lifestyle, even in the 90s.[/quote]

+1 I grew up middle class in the 80s/90s and the UMC and rich kids at my school had the following:

- multiple vacations a year to places like San Diego, NYC, Florida. Sometimes a splurge to Mexico or Jamaica (not yearly). Then when kids were MS/HS age, a couple big trips to Europe. Probably London/Paris once and then maybe a trip to Italy or Germany with some traveling around in HS.

- nice used car at 16, usually a used Saab or Volkswagen

- did not worry about paying for college, whether state flagship or out of state, just not discussed, college was covered

- new clothes and electronics. Stuff like their own en suite bathroom

- public school but the best ones in town, tutoring when they needed it, expensive extra-curriculars if they wanted them

The problem, of course, is that these kids grew up thinking they were middle class because no one explained otherwise, and now they are adults who are millionaires and can give their kids even better than the above but, because they can't take multiple foreign trips a year or front the cost of private college for four kids simultaneously, they STILL think they are "middle class."

It's just a total lack of self-awareness or understanding of what the word is actually like for the average person.[/quote]

The average person is working class but insists on calling themselves middle class.[/quote]

You don't understand the word "middle" and "average" are equivalent?[/quote]

They are not equivalent.  In fact, the word “average” has various definitions depending on context (mean vs median for example).

The middle class means the “class” in the “middle”.  So let’s say you have wealthy, upper, middle, working, and poor classes.  Nowhere is it written that the “average” person must necessarily fall into that “middle” class.  That’s a ridiculous assumption.

Let’s say there are monarchs, nobles, and serfs.  Which class is in the “middle”?  And in which class do you think you would find the “average” person?[/quote]

You are just making up definitions to words though. You are right "middle class" doesn't mean "average." But you are wrong about literally everything else.

Working class does not mean "people who work." It refers to people who do manual labor or industrial jobs. Generally hourly wage jobs, especially anything involving shift work. Working class jobs, [b]by definition[/b], don't require college degrees. They may require some kind of technical or associates degree, but it must be a degree with few barriers to entry. Thus a medical technician with an associate degree is working class, but an RN with a degree in nursing is not.

So no, people who make 100k at white collar office jobs are not "working class" no matter how much you want them to be.

Upper class refers to people who control capital. Business owners, landlords, corporate C-suite. Also professionals at the highest end of their profession. So law firm partners are upper class, as are surgeons, obviously anyone working in the upper levels of finance. People who control their own fates and are not reliant on a specific employer's mercy. Upper class people hav not only high incomes, they have real wealth (as in assets) and also have high social status, and often political power.

Middle class is people in the middle. The middle class is the widest class and that's why it's divided into upper and lower middle class.[/quote]

And what is the official source for these definitions?  (If you have been keeping up with this thread you would know that there IS NOT an official definition.  So we are basically arguing what our individual interpretations are.)

The entire employment landscape has changed.  Jobs that may have once been considered middle class jobs are now working class jobs, regardless of what degree a worker has obtained.  The proportion of white collar jobs is just going to increase, that doesn’t mean there are more middle class and less working class.  It just means white collar is no longer as prestigious as it once was.[/quote]

You can argue that class boundaries have shifted and you can argue that the nature of being middle class has changed. But the definition of working class has ALWAYS been: manual labor and industrial jobs, especially shift work, hourly wages, no college degree required. I don't need to cite a source other than the dictionary definition and its use in the media which has never changed. That's what it means.

Words can change meanings of time but this one hasn't. You keep repeating in this thread that people who think they are middle class are actually working class, but that is not the opinion of anyone but you. I dare you to find anyone using it the way you are saying it should be used. Anywhere. You can't. That's not what working class means.[/quote]

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