Reply to Can we stop referring to households making $200 or 300K a year as "middle class"?

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Reply to "Can we stop referring to households making $200 or 300K a year as "middle class"?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We make 90k and had to move to Manassas to afford a house.  We can't afford a great school district.  We are not poor as the poor can't buy a house anywhere.  We are middle class.  If your house is in NW DC, Arlington, Potomac, Chevy Chase, Bethesda, etc and you feel like you're middle class, it's because you've lost perspective due to your neighbors.  You might be poor man on the block but compared to everyone else you're basically rich.  [b]You aren't living paycheck-to-paycheck, you've got more than a couple hundred in savings, you probably have your retirement account maxed, you can afford to save for your kid's college while still supporting your family, you're in a good school district[/b] in one of the 10 most expensive counties in the country, etc.  [/quote]

I think that's pretty much the definition of middle class. Sure, it's qualified with "in one of the 10 most expensive counties...", but such a qualification is always explicit or implied. I mean middle class in the richest nation in the world is rich compared to middle class in Mexico, right? [/quote]'

You stop being middle class when you have all those things and an extra half million to pay the difference in mortgage to live in Bethesda, Arlington, or much of NW.

I'll also add that people here seem to think that the middle class thing to do is to save enough that their kids don't have to pay a dime towards private colleges, even if they earn no aid.  Middle class "saving for college" means you put aside enough that when you add something from your monthly paycheck while they're there, and your kid works during the school year and summer, they can go to an instate school without needing to borrow more than Federally Guaranteed Student Loans.  It doesn't mean saving for some $60K no work, no loan college experience.  [/quote]

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