Is $250,000 middle class?

[Crazy Eddie]

I am probably going to regret taking dismal seriously, but here goes

Yes.

Do you bow and scrape to people who are able to retire?

What does this have to do with the price of tea in China?

In your mind is the word "class" defined by nothing but money?

In the minds of MOST people, "class" is defined by socioeconomic power. A person with an income of $250K has certain powers that a middle-class person does not. The most obvious of these are:

1) Disposable income - The wealthier man is able to pay all of his bills, taxes and basic living expenses and then has a huge pool of money left over that he can spend on whatever he likes. He can save it, he can invest it, he can donate it to charity, he can splurge on luxuries, he can blow it on something completely useless and frivolous. A father of one child at $35k has to sit down and think hard about his budget and decide whether to get his son into a tutoring program or pay to have his car repaired; he has to make the choice between risking the loss of his car and risking his son falling behind in class. The wealthier man can do both of those things without a second thought, can buy a SECOND car just for the hell of it, can pay tuition for three of his kids in five different tutoring programs and after school programs and then completely blow off those programs without asking for a refund. This is functionally the difference between "Ate ramen noodles because I can't afford protein" and "Ate at a five-star restaurant because I was bored."

2) Economic security - The wealthier man has a better outlook later in life because he can devote a larger portion of his disposable income to savings and retirement plans. He doesn't have to worry about his pension (necessarily) because he has money he can squirrel away for later. He can potentially leave an inheritance and trust fund for his kids, he can buy a second home and hold it as an asset, etc. Where the poorer man is spending every penny he has just to make his life suck a little bit less for himself and his family, the class above him has room to maneuver to ensure a more-than-comfortable lifestyle for their children and grand children.

3) Political access - At $250K, local fundraisers and political functions $500 a plate luncheons with the City Council or Mayoral candidate -- become feasible. Low level political positions -- school board, city council, town trustee, etc -- all enter into the budget range. In point of fact, with an income of $250K a person attempting to participate in politics becomes for the first time a "small fry" in a class that is otherwise dominated by people making $500 to $1 million a year.

All told: Around $250K is solidly in the range of "upper class" for most communities. At less than half that income, you're looking at working professionals in the suburbs; that's roughly the cutoff for "upper middle class" where most of the above advantages are situational and inconsistent.

What is the value of having a word that means "has a certain amount of money, but we must argue and debate about how much that is because people disagree about how much"?

Because the people who dispute the actual figure usually do so with an agenda.

 

[dismal]

I am probably going to regret taking dismal seriously, but here goes

Yes.

Do you bow and scrape to people who are able to retire?

What does this have to do with the price of tea in China?

In your mind is the word "class" defined by nothing but money?

In the minds of MOST people, "class" is defined by socioeconomic power. A person with an income of $250K has certain powers that a middle-class person does not. The most obvious of these are:

1) Disposable income - The wealthier man is able to pay all of his bills, taxes and basic living expenses and then has a huge pool of money left over that he can spend on whatever he likes. He can save it, he can invest it, he can donate it to charity, he can splurge on luxuries, he can blow it on something completely useless and frivolous. A father of one child at $35k has to sit down and think hard about his budget and decide whether to get his son into a tutoring program or pay to have his car repaired; he has to make the choice between risking the loss of his car and risking his son falling behind in class. The wealthier man can do both of those things without a second thought, can buy a SECOND car just for the hell of it, can pay tuition for three of his kids in five different tutoring programs and after school programs and then completely blow off those programs without asking for a refund. This is functionally the difference between "Ate ramen noodles because I can't afford protein" and "Ate at a five-star restaurant because I was bored."

2) Economic security - The wealthier man has a better outlook later in life because he can devote a larger portion of his disposable income to savings and retirement plans. He doesn't have to worry about his pension (necessarily) because he has money he can squirrel away for later. He can potentially leave an inheritance and trust fund for his kids, he can buy a second home and hold it as an asset, etc. Where the poorer man is spending every penny he has just to make his life suck a little bit less for himself and his family, the class above him has room to maneuver to ensure a more-than-comfortable lifestyle for their children and grand children.

3) Political access - At $250K, local fundraisers and political functions $500 a plate luncheons with the City Council or Mayoral candidate -- become feasible. Low level political positions -- school board, city council, town trustee, etc -- all enter into the budget range. In point of fact, with an income of $250K a person attempting to participate in politics becomes for the first time a "small fry" in a class that is otherwise dominated by people making $500 to $1 million a year.

All told: Around $250K is solidly in the range of "upper class" for most communities. At less than half that income, you're looking at working professionals in the suburbs; that's roughly the cutoff for "upper middle class" where most of the above advantages are situational and inconsistent.

What is the value of having a word that means "has a certain amount of money, but we must argue and debate about how much that is because people disagree about how much"?

Because the people who dispute the actual figure usually do so with an agenda.

I think you are missing my point. If you want to say something about people who make more than $250,000 you can say "people who make >$250,000 have more X". This is more useful and precise than saying "the upper class have more X" and then arguing about the definition of "class".

The word "class", in my mind, and I think in many others, means something other than just income. I certainly don't consider people who make less money than me to be of a "lower class" than me. Nor do I consider people who make more money than me to be of a "higher class" than me. I don't dispute that making more money means someone can buy more stuff, but this seems obvious enough of a relationship that there is little need to drape class rhetoric around it.

Indeed, the need to drape some sort of "class" label on what could be easily and more precisely described by income level is what suggests some sort of demagogic agenda.

 

[JonA]

http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/18/news/economy/clinton-sanders-middle-class/index.html

For Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, the middle class extends to those earning up to $250,000 a year. Both have used that figure as the dividing line, raising taxes on those with higher incomes as part of their campaigns to ensure the wealthy pay their fair share.
...

So what sayth you?

How do you pander to the wealthy for campaign money and still hate the rich?

Redefine what it means to be rich, obviously.

This is a long running word game used by democrats playing both fields.

The truth is that republicans and democrats both just do what their donors tell them to, the rest of us be damned.

 

[dismal]

http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/18/news/economy/clinton-sanders-middle-class/index.html



So what sayth you?

How do you pander to the wealthy for campaign money and still hate the rich?

Redefine what it means to be rich, obviously.

This is a long running word game used by democrats playing both fields.

The truth is that republicans and democrats both just do what their donors tell them to, the rest of us be damned.

Yes, it's a word game played by politicians and other demagogues to get people to think "he's talking about me".

It works precisely because most people don't think of themselves as being upper or lower class.

Politician: "I'm here to fight for the Middle Class".

Citizen: "Huzzah, he's on my side"

This works for an exceptionally wide swath pf the population. It's like being for parents of above average children.

 

[credoconsolans]

To the OP:

$250,000 is, IMO, lower upper class or high middle class.

Doctors pull in about that amount or more.

No one thinks doctors are middle class.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I think you are missing my point. If you want to say something about people who make more than $250,000 you can say "people who make >$250,000 have more X". This is more useful and precise than saying "the upper class have more X" and then arguing about the definition of "class".

The definition of class hinges on the distribution of X, which is, broadly speaking, social and political power. The upper classes have power to directly influence events outside of their immediate circumstances and well into the future; the lower classes only have control of their own immediate surroundings, and then only for the immediate future.

The word "class", in my mind, and I think in many others, means something other than just income. I certainly don't consider people who make less money than me to be of a "lower class" than me. Nor do I consider people who make more money than me to be of a "higher class" than me. I don't dispute that making more money means someone can buy more stuff, but this seems obvious enough of a relationship that there is little need to drape class rhetoric around it.

The difference is that in America social class correlates strongly with wealth. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the largest of this is that the American class structure is divided differently than it is in Europe. It is not uncommon, for example, for a European citizen to own land or property without having a huge source of income; it is possible for a European of solidly upper-class pedigree to have little more income than his middle class counterparts but still be influential for other reasons.

This is not generally the case in America. The combination of property taxes and high cost of ownership means that the "ownership class" increasingly relies on a steady cash flow to maintain their holdings. That has the double effect of encouraging "meaningless" ownership where people buy houses they have no intention of keeping or even using, just for investment purposes. The extremely high costs of healthcare, education, retirement, and a political system that increasingly trends towards oligarchy drive a tighter and tighter correlation between wealth and socioeconomic power.

In another society it might have nothing to do with money at all; in a space colony, class might be determined by engineering acumen or piloting skill; in an aquatic society, class might be determined by swimming speed or the length of time a merman can hold his breath. In America, however, one of the surest indicators of socioeconomic power is income: a person with a huge amount of wealth but no income (say, a retiree who doesn't work anymore, has little invested in the stock market and is otherwise living off a lifetime of savings) is more likely to be middle or upper-middle class than a person who has very little wealth but an enormous income. Of course, the latter case is extremely rare, as a high income usually generates wealth just by virtue of individuals not being able to spend their entire income in a given time interval...

Indeed, the need to drape some sort of "class" label on what could be easily and more precisely described by income level is what suggests some sort of demagogic agenda.

To the extent that America can still function as an egalitarian society rather than a full-throated oligarchy, this is true. The problem is, this country's political agenda is being driven by wealthy elitists at almost every level of government, and the political system is being deliberately structured to reward wealth and investment with access and power. It's not an accident that social class correlates with income level; those in the higher income levels have gone out of their way to MAKE it that way.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

I wrote this some years back

It seems to apply

The Big Lie

The biggest lie that American Neo-liberalism was able to perpetrate on the masses was that of the Middle Class Nation. We are the only country in the world that has no upper or lower classes, everybody is middle class. Ask a waitress and she’ll tell you she’s middle class. Ask a teacher and she’ll tell you she’s middle class. Ask a doctor, a lawyer, an Indian chief and you’ll find they are all middle class. Ask a banker and guess what? He’s middle class too. Damnedest thing you’ll ever see or hear. A country of princes and paupers but they are all middle class.

No wonder there’s not a class war. There’s only one class!

And then add to that “No money down, easy credit,” and now the waitress, the trash-man, the nurse’s aide can have all the affectations of the middle class without earning middle class wages and all it costs them in a signature on the dotted line. “Why of course the pool guy is middle class, look at his shiny new car.”

And then the bill came due.

The house got foreclosed, the car repossessed, and the charge accounts overdrawn and canceled. And who was to blame? Not the bankers (because they were middle class too). It must be

…

the GOVERNMENT!

The government that takes our money and spends it on things we don’t want or need. The govt and all those govt workers who have those sweetheart deals that make them immune from downturns and bubbles. That’s who is to blame, those workers. They are getting our money, no TAKING our money and giving it in the form of cash, goods, and services to welfare queens and drug dealers and WE HAVE TO STOP THEM!

But aren’t the government workers middle class too?

We are all middle class, but some of us are more middle class than others.

 

[fast]

http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/18/news/economy/clinton-sanders-middle-class/index.html



So what sayth you?

Depends mostly on how arbitrarily wide or narrow you want to make each "class" (with the emphasis on arbitrary).

How about household median incomes between the 1/3 and 2/3 rank? That wouldn't be arbitrary. Something perhaps but not arbitrary. We'd have the lower lower, the middle lower, and the upper lower all being in the class lower than the middle class. The upper higher, the middle higher, and the lower higher would be the upper class. The middle class, well, would include the lower middle, the middle middle, and the upper middle. Seems to me that dividing the households evenly by nine and including the three groups in the middle would be a non-arbitrary, methodological even, way of looking at it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

To the OP:

$250,000 is, IMO, lower upper class or high middle class.

Doctors pull in about that amount or more.

No one thinks doctors are middle class.

It depends on your yardstick.

If you divide it into three: Low/middle/high then doctors are middle.

If you divide it into nine then they're high middle class.

 

[Jayjay]

To the OP:

$250,000 is, IMO, lower upper class or high middle class.

Doctors pull in about that amount or more.

No one thinks doctors are middle class.

It depends on your yardstick.

If you divide it into three: Low/middle/high then doctors are middle.

If you divide it into nine then they're high middle class.

What do you base that on?

Quick googling shows that average salary for general practition physician is $142000. Plugging that number to any income percentile calculator puts it at 85-90%. Not near the middle.

 

[Elixir]

There is a fallacious assumption underlying all of this, and it bugs me.

The presumption we have a class system?

No, the assumption that since someone makes a lot of money one year, they must make a lot of money every year.