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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous] You are upper class, although it's possible you are "new money," depending on your grandparents' situation.[/quote]
She's upper middle class unless she's living on passive income.[/quote]
Disagree, we don't not know if she COULD live on passive income, only that she and DH earn in top 1%.
I made a distinction above between upper class and "new money," when I should have made the distinction between upper-lower (new money) and upper-upper (which you cannot earn your way into). If the poster's parents went to the Dalton School and Deerfield (as examples), it's likely she's upper-upper.[/quote]
I'm the PP OP is responding to.  It's interesting, because I would put us both in UMC (while recognizing DH and I are extremely well off).  The reason for this is we both have to work for a living...though, theoretically, if my parents believed in providing inheritances early we could live a decent lifestyle off of passive income (not as nice as our current lifestyle, though).

I think the question about "new money" gets at one of the more difficult aspects of defining class in the US.  My parents are immigrants, while DH has one ancestor who came over the the Mayflower (as an indentured servant).  The rest of his ancestors still immigrated at least 3 generations ago, though.  My parents come from fairly well-off families, landed, in their country of origin, but both of my grandfathers were younger siblings meaning they did not inherit the bulk of their familial wealth (think Mathew Crowley but not in Europe).  One was a doctor, the other an engineer turned extremely high level government official.  My parents did not come to the US for economic opportunity so much as better training, but they ended up staying here and becoming wealthier than they likely would have if they returned.  My mom's siblings benefit from passive income, living lifestyles their professions (college professor, political activist) could never possibly support.  So, class-wise, given this background with grandparents who straddled UMC and UC in my parents' birth country, what does that make me?  I think it still makes me UMC, but I know that in my parents' culture my tastes are "higher brow" than my friends' whose parents come from less well-off backgrounds in the same country but earn similarly to my parents.

While I know that OP didn't mean it this way, part of the problem with class and the somewhat pejorative "new money" is that it explicitly leaves out a majority of Americans who either were denied the opportunity to build generational wealth or just don't have that history here in the US. A wealth African-American person is pretty much guaranteed to be "new money"...what does that mean for their SES?[/quote]
OP here, and the one who originally made the distinction between "upper class" and "new money," although I corrected it later to "lower-upper" (which is the new money) and "upper-upper" (inherited through a few generations). Certainly I did not intend it to be pejorative, but merely a way of noting that one cannot earn his/her way into the "upper-upper," no matter how rich. (Interestingly, many "lower-uppers" have more wealth than "upper-uppers.")

I realize we're digressing from my original point, but the topic is interesting and does tie in. FWIW, I still think you are in the upper-class, as your income puts you in the top 1%. If people in the upper 1% income-wise still consider themselves "upper-middle," then I understand more what is happening here: There is "class deflation" here on DCUM! That is why so many of those earning $200,000 and $300,000 look at someone earning $100,000 - a single income that still affords a comfortable upper-middle class lifestyle - and calls them lower-middle, or, even worse, lower-class and "almost welfare class." It's patently ridiculous. Everyone is lowering their class (at least based on some of these DCUM posts), which means that if someone earning $100,000 is viewed as lower-middle, then the typical average couple pulling in $54,000 is....what.....poor? No wonder the average American is insulted by the disdain upon which the upper classes look at them.

So, I get it. If a couple earning $600K consider themselves upper-middle, then $100K DOES sound...It's more than the average COMBINED income of two people, here in DC.)well....a bit hard to get by. But that's not the case. People earing $100K (single) have maids, European vacations, theater tickets, etc., etc., and enjoy an upper-middle class lifestyle with that income. So the perspective is skewed, which is what I've been saying all along.

(will continue below in a minute)[/quote]
...continuing from above....

But anyway, to the $600K couple (can I borrow a few bucks?), you are upper-class. Perhaps not upper-upper, but definitely part of the upper class.

You bring up another interesting point, though, about the black upper class, and that you feel that they have not had enough opportunity (or any opportunity) to accumulate and inherit generational wealth. That's not entirely true. There's a book called "The Aristocracy of Color" in which pockets of black elites, as they are called, are described - and dating back to the early 1820s. So there is some true "upper-upper" class blacks around, although obviously not as many as whites. There's another book "People Like Us" (or something like that), written by a member of the so-called black elite, and he describes the cotillions and summering on Nantucket. An interesting read.

To circle back (I have plans this evening and cannot respond back again after this), I keep pointing out the skewed perspectives of DCUMers, where $500,000/couple is merely upper-middle in their minds, and $100,000 (or $200,000 a couple for an apples-to-apples comparison) is therefore considered lower-middle. But again, that's my point. The perspective is wrong. The average Americans in the pejoratively nicknamed "flyover country" know it's wrong, as well. And until Democrats understand that, rather than double-down on the insults (if this thread is any indication), they will continue to lose votes. 
[/quote]

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