Originally Posted By DDMAN26 <<You know the funney this is President Obama agree's with Romney>> Donny, seriously when you type, s l o w d o w n.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer You can't call $200,000 and less middle class when the upper fifth percentile of income starts at $186,000. Middle class is in the middle of the income range. Someone who makes $200,000 makes more than 95% of the population. There is no way that is the middle.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder Median household income in 2010 was just shy of $70,000.00. <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/22/us-usa-economy-middleclass-idUSBRE87L0TI20120822" target="_blank">http://www.reuters.com/article...20120822</a>
Originally Posted By WilliamK99 But let's think about this a second...I don't consider anyone lower class that has enough for an Iphone and a laptop...Unfortunately I know quite a few people making less than 30,000 a year who have quite a few luxuries that no poor in any other country would even dream of having...
Originally Posted By Dabob2 That's a separate question. The question we were considering was, is 200k plus "middle income?". If it's in the 96th percentile, by definition it's not.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <<But let's think about this a second...I don't consider anyone lower class that has enough for an Iphone and a laptop...Unfortunately I know quite a few people making less than 30,000 a year who have quite a few luxuries that no poor in any other country would even dream of having...>> Get out of the 1950s, William. I know folks who make no more than $30K a year. They're called "interns" and "entry level" professionals. Some of them even work at Pixar. They have iPhones and laptops BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO HAVE THEM FOR THEIR JOBS! Staying connected via a laptop for communication purposes and using a smartphone instead of a land line is basically a necessity now. No one is tied down to one single desk these days. And doing work during travel time... gotta do it w/70 hour work weeks. Seriously... why don't you try joining the 21st century?
Originally Posted By TMI "Anyone that thinks 200-250K is part of the middle class is an imbecile.<< Upper middle class, but still middle class..." Someone else pointed out that over 200k is in the top 5% of all people. How does that fit the definition of "middle", upper or otherwise? "So I guess I am an imbecile..." Not at all, but I would say your perception is skewed (as are many people when it comes to this sort of thing). And the Republicans love to play on this misperception, because it entices people who will never come anywhere close to this "middle" to believe that somehow they will, and thus should vote GOP in order to protect "their" earnings.
Originally Posted By TMI "Nowadays a quarter million isn't much..." And yet it's more than what 95% of the people have. "You can't really consider than upper class..." And yet, it's more than 95% of the people have.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< I know folks who make no more than $30K a year. They're called "interns" and "entry level" professionals. Some of them even work at Pixar. They have iPhones and laptops BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO HAVE THEM FOR THEIR JOBS! Staying connected via a laptop for communication purposes and using a smartphone instead of a land line is basically a necessity now. >>> Also, a great many of the younger lower-income people with smartphones have them in lieu of a landline telephone. Having telephone service of some sort is almost as ubiquitous as having indoor plumbing in the US. I don't think it's unreasonable for an entry-level worker to have their own telephone, and it makes sense for it to be a mobile phone these days, just as it makes sense these days for every household to have a computer and internet access of some sort, even though those were luxuries 30 years ago. Times are changing.
Originally Posted By 182 "Staying connected via a laptop for communication purposes and using a smartphone instead of a land line is basically a necessity now" No it's not You can get a job at McDonalds and a few thousand other jobs without a smart phone or Email.
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost <<But let's think about this a second...I don't consider anyone lower class that has enough for an Iphone and a laptop...Unfortunately I know quite a few people making less than 30,000 a year who have quite a few luxuries that no poor in any other country would even dream of having...>> A few years back I had a tenure as a municipal bus driver. This was back when cell phones were relatively new. One of our bus routes had a bus stop right in front of the food bank and across the road from the bottle redemption center. People with so little money they couldn't afford to buy food would be on their cell phones inviting friends to join them for breakfast. I also had an experience where traffic was held up on a narrow street due to the fact that a guy with a "liberated" shopping cart fill with empty bottles and cans had decided to stop, in the middle of the street, blocking all traffic to take a cell phone call.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "You can get a job at McDonalds and a few thousand other jobs without a smart phone or Email." And you know this how?
Originally Posted By DDMAN26 <<...Unfortunately I know quite a few people making less than 30,000 a year who have quite a few luxuries that no poor in any other country would even dream of having...>> This is true, compared to some other countries our poor look like Romney.
Originally Posted By WilliamK99 OK cell phones yes, but you can get the 25 dollar pre-paid special at Wal Mart, why do so many people struggling need the Iphone or other Smart phone with the hundred dollar monthly service contract? They don't...they could survive with the prepaid 25 dollar special... Our poor are really not poor when compared to any other nation... But I digress, I don't buy the middle class being the 40 to 60 percentile.. You can't really place a definitive number on it but you can look at it from the common sense perspective.. How can you consider someone making 250,000 upper class when someone making 3 million a year is upper class too? You can't... Totally different lifestyles...
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Do people in the 99th percentile have a lot more money than those in the 96th percentile? Sure. Once you get to those upper tiers, the money involved goes up to a sometimes staggering degree. But is someone in the 96th percentile "middle income?" No. By definition, no.
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost I hate to think of where my just over 5 figure Social Security puts me, and yet I qualify for no extra benefits. I must be completely off the bottom of the chart.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< How can you consider someone making 250,000 upper class when someone making 3 million a year is upper class too? You can't... Totally different lifestyles... >>> It depends on whose perspective you're looking at the situation from. If you're looking at it from the $250,000/year family, they probably consider themselves upper middle class, or perhaps even just middle class. The way they see it, they have a mortgage, bills to pay, car payments, etc. "just like those on the other end of middle class." It's admittedly a totally different lifestyle than someone making $1 million a year or more. But looking at it from the point of view of the vast majority of households that are in the middle class, $250k/year sounds like a nearly inexhaustible supply of money, one that they can't imagine having and will very likely never reach anywhere near themselves. So, the question talked about several times already in this thread is very interesting: how would you define "middle class" ? Some seem to be saying that it should go all the way up to $250k/year, since the lifestyle of those people is far closer to the middle of the middle class than it is of the people that make, say, $5 million a year. Although that's true, that definition expands the middle class all the way up to the 98.5 percentile. It's hard to imagine any reasonable scenario where a range of numbers going up to the 98.5th percentile represents the "middle" of the range. So I asked myself, "what WOULD a reasonable range for 'middle class' be?" Without looking at the charts, I thought that perhaps a VERY generous range would be that the center 2/3 of the population was "middle class", leaving the lower 1/6 for lower class, and the upper 1/6 for upper class. I then consulted the charts, and that gives a range of about $17k-$97k a year. 2/3 of US households fit into that income range. Hmmm. I'm quite certain that a family making $99k/year does not consider itself to be upper class, but I'm also certain that a family making the median income of around $46k does not consider itself anywhere near in the same class as another family making $97k, let alone $250k. I guess it comes down to the context of the conversation where these terms are being used. If we're talking about tax policy in terms of who should get a break and who could probably afford to pay more, I suspect that the answer is radically different for the median family making $46k/year vs the self-identified "middle class" family making $250k/year. But it's not very productive to try to label anyone making more than $100k/year as being "rich" in the same sense that The Donald is.
Originally Posted By EighthDwarf Historically speaking, being "middle class" had nothing to do with income level. Income level is part of the equation, but only part. Where the income comes from has more to do with it than how much the income is. Living on investment/passive income implies upper class. Working for a living, no matter how much you make, implies middle class. Depending on others implies lower class.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <<Living on investment/passive income implies upper class. Working for a living, no matter how much you make, implies middle class. Depending on others implies lower class.>> Then the definition needs to change with the times. I can think of two individuals right off the top of my head who would be classified as "middle class" by this definition. Both of them work for a living, but as executives. One in the UC system, making $750K annual salary. The other is at Disney, also making about $750K salary. How, exactly, are these individuals "middle class"? They are not, pure and simple.
