Anonymous wrote:above 100k below 450k

Ha ha ha.

Zombie Thread.

Income is only one facet of class. Here are ways I identify a middle class person:

- strong emphasis on enforcement of dominant culture (eg, people who become really upset if someone expresses a view like "vaccines are bad"- this is a dead class giveaway)
- concern about rules of etiquette, especially table manners
- more concerned about class signals than any other class
- tend to signal affiliations (bumper stickers that say "Penn State" or "My Child is on the Honor Role at Middling Middle School")
- expresses opinions in terms of class ("cruises are for the poors") vs preference ("I havent tried one but I tend to prefer staying at one destination")
- implicit statements that suggest other people are financially constrained
- fussy about clothing brands or car brands
- fly main cabin on vacation
- believe that Europeans are sophisticated
- explain that they are "more of a Starbucks person" when someone is drinking dunkin donuts coffee
- tend to disdain others with similar buying power
- and this is an important one, they do not know when they are talking to a rich person

I feel like what’s considered “middle class” in the dc area means a HHI which would make you appear very rich in most normal parts of America.

HHI and class are not the same thing. Has no one read Paul Fussell's book on class in the United States?

This is stupid. Why does it matter? Might as well start another thread on DCUM asking how much people make.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:above 100k below 450k

Absolutely not. In the DC area, I'd say middle class would be maybe 40-50K

WRONG. Look up the section 8 income limits for Fairfax:

For a family of 4 (which is probably the demographic on this site):

Extremely low income: 32K and under
Very Low Income: 53K max
Low Income: 70K max

You have not even begun to graze the middle with your estimate of "middle".

Really? Please show a source. I need to move to Fairfax! Free housing for the middle class!!!!!!!!!!!

You can google, no? Section 8 is NOT for the middle class, it is for Low income people. If you are low income, getting a section 8 rental is very hard.

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/rha/rentalhousingprograms/hcv.htm

It is extremely easy to figure out what is middle class for your area. Census can give you the median income for your county. Median is the dead middle.

Making a statement that middle class Americans are at 50K/yr is just stupid. That is like saying the average home price is 250K....yea when you factor in Detroit. When saying "middle Class" you cannot compare everyone in the 3rd largest country in the world, spanning nearly 4 million square miles, you have to break it down by region.

COL (mainly housing and childcare) is much different in Tulsa, OK vs. Falls Church, VA.

My point was that if a family of 4 with an HHI of $70k can get section 8 housing in fairfax, then that's a pretty good deal! I work in d.c., live in pg. I know a family of four, HHI of *less* than $70k (d.c. job but lives in MD), and here they thought they were solidly middle class, struggling with their mortgage. They could just move to fairfax and qualify for section 8!

OMG you are so dumb. No wonder.

http://www.wtop.com/41/2440968/Taxpayers-subsidizing-luxury-housing-in-Fairfax

That's not section 8.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:above 100k below 450k

Absolutely not. In the DC area, I'd say middle class would be maybe 40-50K

WRONG. Look up the section 8 income limits for Fairfax:

For a family of 4 (which is probably the demographic on this site):

Extremely low income: 32K and under
Very Low Income: 53K max
Low Income: 70K max

You have not even begun to graze the middle with your estimate of "middle".

Really? Please show a source. I need to move to Fairfax! Free housing for the middle class!!!!!!!!!!!

You can google, no? Section 8 is NOT for the middle class, it is for Low income people. If you are low income, getting a section 8 rental is very hard.

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/rha/rentalhousingprograms/hcv.htm

It is extremely easy to figure out what is middle class for your area. Census can give you the median income for your county. Median is the dead middle.

Making a statement that middle class Americans are at 50K/yr is just stupid. That is like saying the average home price is 250K....yea when you factor in Detroit. When saying "middle Class" you cannot compare everyone in the 3rd largest country in the world, spanning nearly 4 million square miles, you have to break it down by region.

COL (mainly housing and childcare) is much different in Tulsa, OK vs. Falls Church, VA.

My point was that if a family of 4 with an HHI of $70k can get section 8 housing in fairfax, then that's a pretty good deal! I work in d.c., live in pg. I know a family of four, HHI of *less* than $70k (d.c. job but lives in MD), and here they thought they were solidly middle class, struggling with their mortgage. They could just move to fairfax and qualify for section 8!

OMG you are so dumb. No wonder.

http://www.wtop.com/41/2440968/Taxpayers-subsidizing-luxury-housing-in-Fairfax

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:above 100k below 450k

Absolutely not. In the DC area, I'd say middle class would be maybe 40-50K

WRONG. Look up the section 8 income limits for Fairfax:

For a family of 4 (which is probably the demographic on this site):

Extremely low income: 32K and under
Very Low Income: 53K max
Low Income: 70K max

You have not even begun to graze the middle with your estimate of "middle".

Really? Please show a source. I need to move to Fairfax! Free housing for the middle class!!!!!!!!!!!

You can google, no? Section 8 is NOT for the middle class, it is for Low income people. If you are low income, getting a section 8 rental is very hard.

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/rha/rentalhousingprograms/hcv.htm

It is extremely easy to figure out what is middle class for your area. Census can give you the median income for your county. Median is the dead middle.

Making a statement that middle class Americans are at 50K/yr is just stupid. That is like saying the average home price is 250K....yea when you factor in Detroit. When saying "middle Class" you cannot compare everyone in the 3rd largest country in the world, spanning nearly 4 million square miles, you have to break it down by region.

COL (mainly housing and childcare) is much different in Tulsa, OK vs. Falls Church, VA.

My point was that if a family of 4 with an HHI of $70k can get section 8 housing in fairfax, then that's a pretty good deal! I work in d.c., live in pg. I know a family of four, HHI of *less* than $70k (d.c. job but lives in MD), and here they thought they were solidly middle class, struggling with their mortgage. They could just move to fairfax and qualify for section 8!

OMG you are so dumb. No wonder.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The failure of people who make 200k, 500k, etc to realize they are rich, is exactly the reason why we have such income disparity in the United States. Holy shit. Holy cognitive dissonance.

We make $430K. We are well off, but we are not rich because we work two full time jobs.

That is approximately FIVE TIMES the median income in the area. You are rich. You are upper class. You are in amazing denial.

So I get to be middle class if we drop one of the incomes? Do you realize that we net the same as a household making $300K a year?

I agree with the posters who are suggesting that it's necessary to evaluate SES (which is what I think the OP was referring to - not her ability to know which silver to use at dinner or whether there are cars on blocks in her yard) by at least partially factoring in geography. This is a very expensive area. I moved here from a college town in the Midwest and when we were first looking to buy a house, I was more or less traumatized by the prices. A quarter of a million dollars for a 2 bedroom/1 bathroom house in a further out PG county suburb? At least $1000 in rent for a studio apartment on 16th Street? I was coming from a town where making $23,000 a year working in an office while going to school full time was perfectly fine, because my rent for a 2 bedroom apartment in a nice neighborhood was around $700/month.

I am in my early 30s, college educated and working as a legal secretary at a medium sized firm downtown. My father is a tenured professor at a state school in the Midwest. He has a master's degree and a PhD in his field, as well as tenure, since he's been working at the same place since the late 80s. My salary is about $3k a year less than his. If I was making the same salary at home, I would be considered upper middle class. It would be enough to rent a large house with a yard in a good school district. In DC, what I make is enough that I can afford for my daughter to have her own bedroom, but only living in the semi-transitional neighborhood I live in. We could move into a larger apartment if we lived further out in the suburbs, which would likely also improve school choice, but I would never see her. Here, I do not consider myself to be upper middle class at all. The only reason I consider myself to be in the range of middle class is that last time I checked, I made too much money to qualify for public assistance.

I have no idea how people manage to support a family of 4 in this area on $60,000 a year. When I hear people complaining about how they're middle class because they don't have a lot of money due to needing to max out their 401K or renovate their kitchen, I feel a bit ill. When I hear people posting that if you do not have at least a year's salary saved in an emergency account and a life insurance policy, you're an irresponsible adult, I feel a bit ill. If I lost my job tomorrow, I would have about 2 weeks to find another one before I started having to borrow money from my family, which is not an option available to everyone.

Please remember when you're complaining about your $500k HHI and how much you have had to work to get there that there are people who make less than 10% of your salary who have worked just as hard. Please also consider that your lawyer's salary likely affords things like health insurance and ability to save for retirement, which is not something that your average retail or childcare job provides.

Anonymous wrote:Please do not ask me to pity you because you have to "work" in a fancy office taking meetings and typing things and only bring home $500K.

It's tough around here on 500k, you'll pull out of it soon I hop.

Please do not ask me to pity you because you have to "work" in a fancy office taking meetings and typing things and only bring home $500K.

Anonymous wrote:woops posted in the wrong list

450k is rich nationally so adjust for COL in the DC area and it's higher than that, i think the rich in the DC area are 500-600k and higher. Which is barely rich.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/12/31/news/economy/fiscal-cliff-rich/index.html

"By contrast, only 0.6% of joint filers, or 965,000 households, have incomes above $500,000, according to the closest estimate the Tax Policy Center has done to the fiscal cliff deal."

So, about half a percent of people in this country have that income...but you think anything below that is middle class?

This area has completely warped your damn brain

woops posted in the wrong list

450k is rich nationally so adjust for COL in the DC area and it's higher than that, i think the rich in the DC area are 500-600k and higher. Which is barely rich.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/12/31/news/economy/fiscal-cliff-rich/index.html