Reply to If you make <36,000 or >81,000, You Aren't Middle Class. Or "Upper" Middle Class.

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Reply to "If you make <36,000 or >81,000, You Aren't Middle Class. Or "Upper" Middle Class. "

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What we really see on DCUM is people who have zero understanding of what middle class means. It means you can afford life's necessities. It doesn't mean that you can live lavishly with no budget and do whatever you want. [/quote]

Tell that to the poster on the first page railing against people who "stuff tens of thousands of dollars into retirement each year." There are no pensions any more, Congress is going to have to cut Social Security to keep it solvent, health care and long term care costs keep going up, and people are living longer. I certainly consider saving a ton to live on when I'm older to be one of "life's necessities." And maybe saving for college isn't an absolute necessity but I have two kids and state school for both of them will probably exceed $200,000 and I don't want them to start adulthood in debt. By the time we save all that money, we're not paying for private school or going to Europe every year (or ever), despite our well-above median income.

I thought middle class meant you could afford a decent house with decent schools and send your kids to college and retire when you're 65. Around here, that takes way more than $100K a year. [/quote]

You're conflating societal failures with mathematical percentiles. We refuse to fund SS adequately because we continue to elect people who (serve corporations that) are only interested in privatizing it. We refuse to switch to universal health care for the same reason. We refuse to short circuit the unlimited loan->unlimited college pricing circuit for the same reason. And people aren't really living longer--the wealthiest are while the poorest are actually living shorter lives. All of these issues are due to our refusal to embrace humanistic, socialistic principles out of a mixture of brainwashing, greed, racism, and a generally uneducated population. But none of these issues change the mathematical definitions of what it means to be middle class. By the same measure, 70 years ago, [b]white[/b] families in the middle class (because remember, minority families were specifically excluded from the GI bill and other benefits that created the middle class) lived in 950 sq. ft homes with 4 children. Today the new median home size is around 2700 sq. ft while the fertility rate is 2 kids. There were zero international vacations, zero private schools, and next to zero college educations (certainly not for female children). You'd be screaming bloody murder if you were asked to live a life like that today. Your scale of reference is what's changed, but that doesn't mean the income range of middle class has. You just want things that our society has collectively decided not to pay for anymore.[/quote]

Nailed it. As long as our society doesn't value paying for things like caring for the elderly, funding cradle to grave health care, or providing affordable college educations, hand-wringing about how poor you feel on your upper class but not super rich income is meaningless. Our society doesn't value these things or it would be paying for them. Without change, 4 year college costs will soon be what medical school costs today (~300k), social security will only keep seniors at the poverty line, and health care premiums will easily top 50k a year. Being a 1%er won't protect any of you from these changes--are you then going to start insisting that being a 1%er is "middle class"? Don't be foolish. The societal definition of middle class will soon no longer include a college education, vacations beyond the camping kind, or anything beyond poverty wages in retirement. This is what we've chosen to prioritize because we fundamentally don't want to share resources.  Not even your DC money will protect you from this in the end. Welcome to your cake, now eat it.[/quote]

This is why there is a difference between middle class and middle income. If only the 1% can afford college and health insurance....there is no middle class. Some people may be in the middle of an income scale, but they aren't middle class. I still believe that having enough income to save/pay for retirement, health insurance, a 30-year mortgage on a starter home, and college should put you in the middle class. COL differences between the income band will vary by region. [/quote]

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