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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][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't live in an 850K house, I live in a 600K 2 bedroom cape in south Arlington, on 1/6 of an acre, and commute 3 miles to the Metro because we live in an area that is as far as you can be in Arlington from either Orange or Blue. But our HHI is almost $300K, so apparently we are just one step away from Donald Trump.[/quote] No, you are not one step away from Donald Trump. But you are about as far from Donald Trump as you are from the true middle class. You are affluent, but not rich or wealthy. The affluent class is easily above the middle class and has choice of where to live, can fully fund retirement, saving for college, good schools for children (whether buying property in a good school district or private), savings and still have some disposable income (not necessarily a lot) leftover. The middle class has to make compromises in a lot of areas to get those same benefits. I'd say that the the middle class makes about $75-150K, which is about the 25th to 75th percentile of HHI, essentially the middle of the earning curve. The affluent is probably about the 76th percentile to the 99th percentile or about $150-400K. The rich are the 1% which in this area is roughly over 400K. [/quote] Well, of course this works if you add another category ("affluent"). But usually people say the categories are poor, working class, middle class, and rich, and pretty much anyone who supports their family with a job is going to put themselves in the "middle class" category. [/quote] Uh, upper-middle? Isn't that what half this argument was about- $300k folks preferring to be called middle rather than upper-middle?[/quote] The top 5% is in no way middle unless you consider the "middle" to encompass 90% of the population and includes those making $8,000/yr as well as those making $300,000. Yes both of those are so middle class...[/quote] [quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't live in an 850K house, I live in a 600K 2 bedroom cape in south Arlington, on 1/6 of an acre, and commute 3 miles to the Metro because we live in an area that is as far as you can be in Arlington from either Orange or Blue. But our HHI is almost $300K, so apparently we are just one step away from Donald Trump.[/quote] No, you are not one step away from Donald Trump. But you are about as far from Donald Trump as you are from the true middle class. You are affluent, but not rich or wealthy. The affluent class is easily above the middle class and has choice of where to live, can fully fund retirement, saving for college, good schools for children (whether buying property in a good school district or private), savings and still have some disposable income (not necessarily a lot) leftover. The middle class has to make compromises in a lot of areas to get those same benefits. I'd say that the the middle class makes about $75-150K, which is about the 25th to 75th percentile of HHI, essentially the middle of the earning curve. The affluent is probably about the 76th percentile to the 99th percentile or about $150-400K. The rich are the 1% which in this area is roughly over 400K. [/quote] Well, of course this works if you add another category ("affluent"). But usually people say the categories are poor, working class, middle class, and rich, and pretty much anyone who supports their family with a job is going to put themselves in the "middle class" category. [/quote] Well it's all about how we feel, right? Lots of armchair experts on this board. This guy had some interesting thoughts on how difficult it is to make these generalizations- be sure to read the last paragraph, haha. http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/08/defining_rich_in_america_what_are_the_income_cutoffs.html I'm not sure what the obsession is with being identified in one category is anyway. Things like taxes and financial aid are determined on a continuous scale, or rather very detailed, narrow classifications like tax brackets. Slightly OT but I back in school I had to interview an elder for a class project- I chose my Grandma and one of the questions we had to ask was what class they identified themselves in. She said "upper middle," which my dad got a kick out of, but in her mind she and my grandfather were successful- they raised nine healthy and successful children, were devout Christians, and were able to retire to Florida condo. Of course, all it took was a chronic illness to zap their savings and from then on my dad and his siblings had to cover everything their SS check didn't. Now she's in a Medicaid bed in a nursing facility. But due to her dementia, I'm willing to bet she still identifies herself as "upper-middle." ;) [/quote]
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