11 ms·

Everybody Thinks They're Middle-Class

128 points by MichaelAO 10y ago

koolba 10y ago
How you live and how much money your make are related but it's not absolute. Local cost of living is a huge factor. Plus you can be an idiot (when it comes to spending money) with a larger paycheck and end up with a lower quality of life than your frugal neighbor.
- gamesbrainiac 10y ago
  This is a very good point. Even if you make 200k in NY, its equivalent to 100k in Arizona. Or at least something along those lines.
  - sotojuan 10y ago
    Depends where you live in NY. I make 80k in Sunset Park and I live comfortably. 200k would mean I don't have to worry about money much. That said, no kids.
    - namenotrequired 10y ago
      > live comfortably > don't have to worry about money much It's interesting how those two phrases can mean the exact same thing to one person (me) and be apparently so wide apart to others. How can you live comfortably while worrying about money a lot?
      - sotojuan 10y ago
        I don't worry about money now because I save and budget appropriately. I meant that with 200k I wouldn't have to think much about money at all. Sorry for the confusion!
        namenotrequired 10y ago
        Ah :) thanks for clarifying!
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  Local cost of living is relevant, but if pay is also higher, they can still save more relative to their peers in lower cost locales, and then retire to a place that costs less.
  - vonmoltke 10y ago
    Depends on how the pay scales. If they pay 70% more to live there but only make 50% more, they probably aren't able to save much more than their peers. This is also where the regressive nature of income taxes start to hit.
    - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
      I think you mean progressive rather than regressive. $200k in San Francisco is still much better than $100k in St. Louis.
refurb 10y ago
I love the retire who isn't middle class, but has 2x the average family income while retired.
jedberg 10y ago
My definitions: Wealthy -- I don't have to work to maintain my lifestyle. Poor -- I can't afford basic necessities even when I work. Middle-class -- everyone else. Now for sure there is some variation on middle-class (upper/lower/truly middle) and that's basically a function of disposable income. But this definition at least accounts for variation in regional cost of living and even adjusts for personal lifestyle choices. Your middle class might be my wealthy because my lifestyle is cheaper.
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  These are American definitions and not European ones, where working class are people who work for someone else for a living, while the middle class works for themselves. I guess it depends if you have your FU money or not.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    I suspect that if you asked most on the street of your average European city, they would use something close to the "American" definition unless they happened to have a background in the social sciences.
  - msh 10y ago
    I have never heard that definition anywhere in Europe (it might exist but I would not say it's common).
  - _benedict 10y ago
    OPs description matches mostly how the UK does it, except we have an aristocratic hangover that confuses the meaning of "upper class" We also (perhaps because of this) have the term "upper-middle class" to refer to particularly well-off middle-class people; though beyond a certain level you just become "rich"
    - charlesdm 10y ago
      Wealth doesn't automatically make you part of the upper class in Europe. Carrying a title and being part of the aristocracy, even if dirt poor, however does. Rich? Definitely. Upper class? Only if you're accepted by the other members.
jasode 10y ago
It's really not strange nor contradictory. Most people probably think of "middle class" like this: - lower class: on welfare & food stamps - middle class: have a job, must work for a living - upper class: not having to work and living off interest payments of wealth investments Therefore, the middle class covers the wide spectrum of $9/hr Starbucks baristas and $500k white shoe lawyers. For "lower class", most people use the label "poor". For "upper class", most people use the label "rich". (I'm guessing Bloomberg was attempting to give an insight similar to the mathematical contradiction of "everybody thinks they're an above-average driver". However, they misunderstood how people self-identify themselves as "middle class".)
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  I'm not sure a $500k white shoe lawyer is middle class. Sure, they may work for a living, but they're also likely to have enough investments that they can just live off the interest if they wanted. I mean, $500k a year is a LOT of money, even in places like SF.
  - mattnewton 10y ago
    Eh, taxes and other expenses add up. I don't think it would be very comfortable to stop working. 500k today isn't what it was just a decade ago.
    - dlp211 10y ago
      And a 100k isn't what it was a decade ago either. While I understand your underlying point (and somewhat agree with it), how you got there was a bit bizarre. We are talking about making 500k this year, which would be obviously less a decade ago when adjusted for inflation.
    - Avshalom 10y ago
      500k is still over 20 years of working full time at target.
  - derefr 10y ago
turar 10y ago
Here's a good discussion on this: http://siderea.livejournal.com/1260265.html?format=light http://siderea.livejournal.com/1260265.html?format=light
okket 10y ago
I doubt that multi-millionaire think that they are 'middle class'. Or a person living on welfare. Everybody else is pretty much in the 'middle' from very low to very high. $200k is much, but unless you are extremely lucky or inherited a huge amount, you have to do a bit for such an income. And you have likely a long time behind you earning less, living in the middle.
- skybrian 10y ago
  Sustained $200k a year means you can retire decades earlier, if you kept expenses low.
- dalke 10y ago
  "Most millionaires say they're middle class" - http://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/06/naires-say-theyre-middle-class.html http://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/06/naires-say-theyre-middle-clas... > Billionaire David Tepper once called himself a "middle-class dad trapped in a rich man's body." Most millionaires, it turns out, have similar feelings of wealth denial. > A majority of millionaires polled describe themselves as middle class or upper middle class despite being among the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans, according to the results of the third CNBC Millionaire Survey. > Fully 44 percent described themselves as middle class, and 40 percent said they were upper middle class. Only 4 percent described themselves as wealthy or rich, and 5 percent described themselves as upper class.
- dismantlethesun 10y ago
  > I doubt that multi-millionaire think that they are 'middle class'. Perhaps, but low digit millionaires do think that they're middle class because they've earned their money across the past 50 years. In that same 50 year span they've seen the actual 'rich' earn about billions instead. Let me give a character construction. You are an engineer. Salary $120k at age 38. Your spouse is also an engineer. Salary $100k at age 38. You both are the inheritors of your parent's estate which includes a pair of $200k pensions, and 2 houses valued at $800k a piece thanks to 20 years of land values rising in your near DC hometown. Now your net worth is 2.0 million and rising. Yet you don't feel like you are 'rich'. Maybe you have kids, can't take 5 vacations a year, and end up comparing yourself to your friends with no kids and greater discretionary income. Maybe because your windfall is from inheritance, you don't think of it as 'yours'. It's a psychological motif, even if its not the economic reality.
superkuh 10y ago
Apparently no javascript means no text these days. It is obviously done intentionally. It is not like blocks of text require javascript to render. I'd shame bloomberg but the frog is well and boiled now; everyone just accepts that without JS websites aren't going to show you anything. And that is a damn shame.
- Koshkin 10y ago
  Well, this is probably because today JavaScript is the biggest middle class generator.
Jill_the_Pill 10y ago
The symbols on the quotes are mysterious, and no key is given. First block is D/R (democrat, republican). Second is age range. Fourth is gender. I thought the third might be race, since a couple of people have a pink W (white?) and a couple have a brown M (mixed race?), but some have a green dollar sign or cents sign. edit: someone has both a W and a cents sign.
- dalke 10y ago
  The span element's class is the only legend I could find. 1) "liberal,young,poor,non-white" 2) "liberal,old,non-white,woman" 3) "conservative,poor,white,man" / "conservative,young,white,woman" 4) "liberal,poor,woman" 5) "liberal,young,rich,man"
- evincarofautumn 10y ago
  The blocks aren’t strictly positional. Clicking them reveals a legend, but I thought they were clear enough: $ = rich, ¢ = not-rich, W = white, M = minority. So “D$W[male sign]” is “blue state, rich, white, male”. (Oddly, HN won’t let me insert the “male sign” character.)
  - Jill_the_Pill 10y ago
    Interesting. I could not get anything by clicking them in my browser.
- gefh 10y ago
  Click it and you get a full page description.
- DINKDINK 10y ago
  If you click and hold on the symbols, an overlay appears that decodes it.
  - OJFord 10y ago
    I had to double-tap and hold... would never have got it without comments here - what a bizarre UI!
samirillian 10y ago
There seems to be a lot of confusion in this article and the comments between class and income-bracket. The bourgeoisie (the historical middle class) were precisely the nouveaux riches. In Europe especially, class made a lot of sense when you could be either impoverished nobility or a wealthy son of peasants. Class was a useful category in early capitalism, but maybe less so in late capitalism (especially in America where we are all essentially bourgeois). I think this survey, if anything, shows the increasing irrelevance of "class" in our society. There is no more class, there is just income, wealth, etc.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
Maarten88 10y ago
So some dude did some inteviews some day in some shopping mall and came to the conclusion that "everybody thinks they're middle class" While 4 days ago there was an opinion piece on gallup.com quoting research that 51% of americans now say they're middle class[1], a long-time (not all-time) low. I'll take the Gallup research, and dismiss piece this as fabrication and factoids. http://www.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/195680/invisible-american.aspx http://www.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/195680/invisible-amer...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
smegel 10y ago
Well it is a pretty wide band one would assume. I think the real problem is people claiming to be poor when they are bang in the middle of middle class.
DINKDINK 10y ago
Rather than 4 data points is there any large-sample-size conclusions about people who identify as Middle class?
twblalock 10y ago
Hey look, a rehash of my Sociology 101 class from freshman year of college. Most Americans call themselves as "middle class," and most Americans believe that social mobility is higher than it actually is. In fact, since the 1970s, economists and sociologists have known that social mobility in America is not much higher than in Europe. This is old news.
namenotrequired 10y ago
"'Rich', by the way, is anyone with more money than you." A quote from a teacher of mine that has always stuck with me. It explains so much.
- afterburner 10y ago
  Yes, even the wealthy are constantly comparing themselves to people richer than them, and complaining about it.
  - broodbucket 10y ago
    Look at this rich guy, always complaining.
tunesmith 10y ago
I don't understand what conclusion this graph is going for. It's a real "Therefore, what?" thing for me.
sevenless 10y ago
"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." - John Steinbeck
pfarnsworth 10y ago
My wife and I combined make well above the limit for 1%-er range, yet we both feel middle class, although upper middle class is probably more accurate. We both work extremely hard, from 9-10 hrs a day in the office and 2-3 hrs at night, most nights. We barely have time to see the kids during the week, and the weekends are filled assuaging our guilt by spending it with them, unless we have to work. We have a modest house in the SF Bay Area, with an unmodest mortgage, and a savings that is miniscule compared to our costs and isn't growing. I have my Honda Accord that I paid off years ago, and my wife leases a Lexus SUV. We are the prototypical house-poor Bay Area family, and if one of us loses our job, we're pretty fucked. Neither of us has any sort of insurance besides whatever is provided by our companies. The two "luxuries" we have are a weekly house cleaner, and a top notch babysitter once a week, which is why I think upper middle class is apt. We don't feel "upper class", and we definitely don't feel rich. We know rich people, though, with live-in nannies, rented out Gary Dankos for special events, got box suites at the Super Bowl, etc.
- exstudent2 10y ago
  A Lexus SUV is a luxury. Some would argue that living in the SF is as well.
  - vonmoltke 10y ago
    You know, things have gotten ridiculous if we have reached the point where living in any particular geographic area larger than a neighborhood has become a luxury.
  - refurb 10y ago
    He might have a modest lifestyle in the most expensive city in the US. That's like saying you own a modest house in Beverly Hills and have a mortgage. Well, that's upper class!
- graeme 10y ago
  1% in the US is about $200,000. So, you have a household income of $400,000 and are struggling? I'm curious, what are your main expenses?
Hondor 10y ago
What on earth is that graph showing? 2% of households make $150k, and another 2% make $151k, and another 2% make $150.01k, etc. It makes no sense at all. I think they meant to use a bar graph or histogram, and perhaps those circles are the boundaries between the bins. But then why are some much wider than others? Do 7% of households make between $30k and $90k? Normally with a bad graph, you can work out what they meant and it's just misleading, but this is too wrong to mean anything. On a second look, the sharp edges of the curve appear to be $10k boundaries which with the text about $20k-$30k would mean they're the bin boundaries. But that assumes the text was written by someone who knew that and wasn't just reading off the line.
- barrkel 10y ago
  I came here to say this. The more ticks there are on the x axis, the lower the y values will be. The graph hurts my head. It should be an S-curve cumulative graph, I think.
- Inufu 10y ago
  Presumably the probability density function, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_density_function https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_density_function
toast0 10y ago
Is there a commonly accepted definition of middle class? (in the United States; class definition seems more rigid in England) Preferably something that involves net worth as well as net income; for me rich and poor indicate status of wealth/net worth, which is often correlated with income, but isn't the same thing. Taxed on those with high income are considered taxes on the wealthy, but may also be taxes on people who had a one time windfall, but aren't wealthy.
- dahart 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluence_in_the_United_States#Status_and_stratification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluence_in_the_United_States...
javajosh 10y ago
Interesting that the interviews were done in Minneapolis, a city I'm currently spending the summer in. This city is big on public services - public transportation is particularly good. Probably everyone in that article took the Metro to the Mall. The libraries are plentiful and excellent, and there are really good amenities in Downtown. The rent/home prices around here is also astonishingly good (Note: I'm from LA). Heck I'm renting a 1500 sq ft. house with a garage and a yard for $1500/mo, and that's kinda pricey. You could probably find a reasonable 1Br around here for $400/mo. tl dr: $30k really is middle class in some American communities.
ciconia 10y ago
As usual, there's the emphasis on how much one makes, very little on how much one spends. Personally, I've spent the last few years not so much trying to earn more but rather spend as little as possible.
leurfete 10y ago
I believe that Paul Fussell's "Class" makes the best accounting of the [American] class system. In it there are nine levels: - Top Out of Sight: Billionaires and multi-millionaires. The people so wealthy they can afford exclusive levels of privacy. We never hear about them because they don't want us to. Upper Class: Millionaires, inherited wealth. Those who don't have to work. They refer to tuxes as "dinner jackets." Upper Middle: Wealthy surgeons and lawyers, etc. Professionals who couldn't be described as middle class. I suspect this is the class to which I, an engineer, am supposed to aspire. Middle Class: The great American majority, sort of. High Proletarian (or "prole"): Skilled workers but manual labor. Electricians, plumbers, etc. Probably not familiar with the term "proletarian." Middle Prole: Unskilled manual labor. Waitresses, painters. (In other words, my mom and dad!) Low Prole: Non-skilled of a lower level than mid prole. I suspect these people ask "Would you like fries with that, sir?" as a career. Destitute: Working and non-working poor. Bottom Out of Sight: Street people, the most destitute in society. "Out of sight" because they have no voice, influence or voter impact. (They don't vote.) http://www.wesclark.com/am/class.html http://www.wesclark.com/am/class.html
- harryh 10y ago
  This is a good list. I wonder how many Americans (out of ~320M total) fall into each level?
agounaris 10y ago
I don't find this surprising...obviously the 200k person has an easier living compared to the 50k but probably they hand out to the same places, have similar houses and generaly their habits are the same.
contingencies 10y ago
The overwhelming sense I get reading this sort of article is: if everybody insists on drawing lines amongst themselves how will we ever solve the world's most pressing problems, which are clearly beyond the reach of individual social groups or nations?
jweissman 10y ago
Don't these definitions have a more solid statistical economic meaning here? As in: middle "class" is the middle quintile of income. This makes the other strata fall pretty reasonably too: 80%-100%: Ruling Class 60-80%: Upper Class 40-60%: Middle Class 20-40%: Working Class 0-20%: Lower Class
peter303 10y ago
Obama and Congress wrestled as to what is middle class when dealing with permenantizing the Bush tax cuts- introduced in 2002 and made permanent in 2011. ACA surcharges start at 200K for individuals and 250K for a couple. The highest income bracket at 400K. We are talking about the top 2%-3% here.
peter303 10y ago
I am optimistic that many people here retain such a broad definition of middle class- essentially the range between poverty level and one percenters. This shows that most Americans dont want to be indentified as impoverished nor wealthy, despite statistics otherwise. Ironically this flies in the face of media pronouncements the middle class died atbthe end of the 20th century and Trump movement is exploiting to the hilt.
DominikR 10y ago
Chances are that even if you make $500k a year you'll still have lots and lots of social interactions with people earning much less. Even most of your friends and family will earn less. That's why it isn't surprising to me that most people choose to identify with the middle class, especially if you consider that most people associate with this term "normal working citizens". Maybe it is different once you have so much that you actually do not need to ever work again, but you certainly aren't in this position by earning $200k. You still have to work really hard, often even harder than the average person does.
soufron 10y ago
Isn't that a data-bias? Everybody think they're middle class because it's the biggest class... meaning that there is an increased probability that people indeed belong to the middle class.
scotty79 10y ago
That reminds me of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Status_Civilization https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Status_Civilization Sci-fi society where eveyone thought of themselves as middle class but it was either upper middle class or lower middle class.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
vixen99 10y ago
A British view: https://youtu.be/K2k1iRD2f-c https://youtu.be/K2k1iRD2f-c
throwaway2016a 10y ago
I think I'm probably a good poster child for this. It's not just about income it's also about wealth. My household income puts me in the top 5% (my wife and i are engineers) but my wealth and savings barely puts me in the top 40% thanks to student loans, buying a house, having a kid, and short work history. So according to income I'm upper class. According to wealth I'm middle class. I don't think you can truly feel upper class until you fall in the top percentages in both. I think it falls under: - Upper class: you could retire today without impacting your lifestyle - Middle class: you will retire someday but you'll have to cut down on your lifestyle - Lower class: you will never retire unless you go on disability / welfare

128 points by MichaelAO 10y ago

How you live and how much money your make are related but it's not absolute. Local cost of living is a huge factor. Plus you can be an idiot (when it comes to spending money) with a larger paycheck and end up with a lower quality of life than your frugal neighbor.

gamesbrainiac 10y ago
This is a very good point. Even if you make 200k in NY, its equivalent to 100k in Arizona. Or at least something along those lines.
- sotojuan 10y ago
  Depends where you live in NY. I make 80k in Sunset Park and I live comfortably. 200k would mean I don't have to worry about money much. That said, no kids.
  - namenotrequired 10y ago
    > live comfortably > don't have to worry about money much It's interesting how those two phrases can mean the exact same thing to one person (me) and be apparently so wide apart to others. How can you live comfortably while worrying about money a lot?
    - sotojuan 10y ago
      I don't worry about money now because I save and budget appropriately. I meant that with 200k I wouldn't have to think much about money at all. Sorry for the confusion!
      - namenotrequired 10y ago
        Ah :) thanks for clarifying!
seanmcdirmid 10y ago
Local cost of living is relevant, but if pay is also higher, they can still save more relative to their peers in lower cost locales, and then retire to a place that costs less.
- vonmoltke 10y ago
  Depends on how the pay scales. If they pay 70% more to live there but only make 50% more, they probably aren't able to save much more than their peers. This is also where the regressive nature of income taxes start to hit.
  - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    I think you mean progressive rather than regressive. $200k in San Francisco is still much better than $100k in St. Louis.

refurb 10y ago

I love the retire who isn't middle class, but has 2x the average family income while retired.

jedberg 10y ago

My definitions: Wealthy -- I don't have to work to maintain my lifestyle. Poor -- I can't afford basic necessities even when I work. Middle-class -- everyone else. Now for sure there is some variation on middle-class (upper/lower/truly middle) and that's basically a function of disposable income. But this definition at least accounts for variation in regional cost of living and even adjusts for personal lifestyle choices. Your middle class might be my wealthy because my lifestyle is cheaper.

seanmcdirmid 10y ago
These are American definitions and not European ones, where working class are people who work for someone else for a living, while the middle class works for themselves. I guess it depends if you have your FU money or not.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  I suspect that if you asked most on the street of your average European city, they would use something close to the "American" definition unless they happened to have a background in the social sciences.
- msh 10y ago
  I have never heard that definition anywhere in Europe (it might exist but I would not say it's common).
- _benedict 10y ago
  OPs description matches mostly how the UK does it, except we have an aristocratic hangover that confuses the meaning of "upper class" We also (perhaps because of this) have the term "upper-middle class" to refer to particularly well-off middle-class people; though beyond a certain level you just become "rich"
  - charlesdm 10y ago
    Wealth doesn't automatically make you part of the upper class in Europe. Carrying a title and being part of the aristocracy, even if dirt poor, however does. Rich? Definitely. Upper class? Only if you're accepted by the other members.

jasode 10y ago

It's really not strange nor contradictory. Most people probably think of "middle class" like this: - lower class: on welfare & food stamps - middle class: have a job, must work for a living - upper class: not having to work and living off interest payments of wealth investments Therefore, the middle class covers the wide spectrum of $9/hr Starbucks baristas and $500k white shoe lawyers. For "lower class", most people use the label "poor". For "upper class", most people use the label "rich". (I'm guessing Bloomberg was attempting to give an insight similar to the mathematical contradiction of "everybody thinks they're an above-average driver". However, they misunderstood how people self-identify themselves as "middle class".)

enraged_camel 10y ago
I'm not sure a $500k white shoe lawyer is middle class. Sure, they may work for a living, but they're also likely to have enough investments that they can just live off the interest if they wanted. I mean, $500k a year is a LOT of money, even in places like SF.
- mattnewton 10y ago
  Eh, taxes and other expenses add up. I don't think it would be very comfortable to stop working. 500k today isn't what it was just a decade ago.
  - dlp211 10y ago
    And a 100k isn't what it was a decade ago either. While I understand your underlying point (and somewhat agree with it), how you got there was a bit bizarre. We are talking about making 500k this year, which would be obviously less a decade ago when adjusted for inflation.
  - Avshalom 10y ago
    500k is still over 20 years of working full time at target.
- derefr 10y ago

turar 10y ago

Here's a good discussion on this: http://siderea.livejournal.com/1260265.html?format=light http://siderea.livejournal.com/1260265.html?format=light

okket 10y ago

I doubt that multi-millionaire think that they are 'middle class'. Or a person living on welfare. Everybody else is pretty much in the 'middle' from very low to very high. $200k is much, but unless you are extremely lucky or inherited a huge amount, you have to do a bit for such an income. And you have likely a long time behind you earning less, living in the middle.

skybrian 10y ago
Sustained $200k a year means you can retire decades earlier, if you kept expenses low.
dalke 10y ago
"Most millionaires say they're middle class" - http://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/06/naires-say-theyre-middle-class.html http://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/06/naires-say-theyre-middle-clas... > Billionaire David Tepper once called himself a "middle-class dad trapped in a rich man's body." Most millionaires, it turns out, have similar feelings of wealth denial. > A majority of millionaires polled describe themselves as middle class or upper middle class despite being among the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans, according to the results of the third CNBC Millionaire Survey. > Fully 44 percent described themselves as middle class, and 40 percent said they were upper middle class. Only 4 percent described themselves as wealthy or rich, and 5 percent described themselves as upper class.
dismantlethesun 10y ago
> I doubt that multi-millionaire think that they are 'middle class'. Perhaps, but low digit millionaires do think that they're middle class because they've earned their money across the past 50 years. In that same 50 year span they've seen the actual 'rich' earn about billions instead. Let me give a character construction. You are an engineer. Salary $120k at age 38. Your spouse is also an engineer. Salary $100k at age 38. You both are the inheritors of your parent's estate which includes a pair of $200k pensions, and 2 houses valued at $800k a piece thanks to 20 years of land values rising in your near DC hometown. Now your net worth is 2.0 million and rising. Yet you don't feel like you are 'rich'. Maybe you have kids, can't take 5 vacations a year, and end up comparing yourself to your friends with no kids and greater discretionary income. Maybe because your windfall is from inheritance, you don't think of it as 'yours'. It's a psychological motif, even if its not the economic reality.

superkuh 10y ago

Apparently no javascript means no text these days. It is obviously done intentionally. It is not like blocks of text require javascript to render. I'd shame bloomberg but the frog is well and boiled now; everyone just accepts that without JS websites aren't going to show you anything. And that is a damn shame.

Koshkin 10y ago
Well, this is probably because today JavaScript is the biggest middle class generator.

Jill_the_Pill 10y ago

The symbols on the quotes are mysterious, and no key is given. First block is D/R (democrat, republican). Second is age range. Fourth is gender. I thought the third might be race, since a couple of people have a pink W (white?) and a couple have a brown M (mixed race?), but some have a green dollar sign or cents sign. edit: someone has both a W and a cents sign.

dalke 10y ago
The span element's class is the only legend I could find. 1) "liberal,young,poor,non-white" 2) "liberal,old,non-white,woman" 3) "conservative,poor,white,man" / "conservative,young,white,woman" 4) "liberal,poor,woman" 5) "liberal,young,rich,man"
evincarofautumn 10y ago
The blocks aren’t strictly positional. Clicking them reveals a legend, but I thought they were clear enough: $ = rich, ¢ = not-rich, W = white, M = minority. So “D$W[male sign]” is “blue state, rich, white, male”. (Oddly, HN won’t let me insert the “male sign” character.)
- Jill_the_Pill 10y ago
  Interesting. I could not get anything by clicking them in my browser.
gefh 10y ago
Click it and you get a full page description.
DINKDINK 10y ago
If you click and hold on the symbols, an overlay appears that decodes it.
- OJFord 10y ago
  I had to double-tap and hold... would never have got it without comments here - what a bizarre UI!

samirillian 10y ago

There seems to be a lot of confusion in this article and the comments between class and income-bracket. The bourgeoisie (the historical middle class) were precisely the nouveaux riches. In Europe especially, class made a lot of sense when you could be either impoverished nobility or a wealthy son of peasants. Class was a useful category in early capitalism, but maybe less so in late capitalism (especially in America where we are all essentially bourgeois). I think this survey, if anything, shows the increasing irrelevance of "class" in our society. There is no more class, there is just income, wealth, etc.

deleted 10y ago
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Maarten88 10y ago

So some dude did some inteviews some day in some shopping mall and came to the conclusion that "everybody thinks they're middle class" While 4 days ago there was an opinion piece on gallup.com quoting research that 51% of americans now say they're middle class[1], a long-time (not all-time) low. I'll take the Gallup research, and dismiss piece this as fabrication and factoids. http://www.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/195680/invisible-american.aspx http://www.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/195680/invisible-amer...

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smegel 10y ago

Well it is a pretty wide band one would assume. I think the real problem is people claiming to be poor when they are bang in the middle of middle class.

DINKDINK 10y ago

Rather than 4 data points is there any large-sample-size conclusions about people who identify as Middle class?

twblalock 10y ago

Hey look, a rehash of my Sociology 101 class from freshman year of college. Most Americans call themselves as "middle class," and most Americans believe that social mobility is higher than it actually is. In fact, since the 1970s, economists and sociologists have known that social mobility in America is not much higher than in Europe. This is old news.

namenotrequired 10y ago

"'Rich', by the way, is anyone with more money than you." A quote from a teacher of mine that has always stuck with me. It explains so much.

afterburner 10y ago
Yes, even the wealthy are constantly comparing themselves to people richer than them, and complaining about it.
- broodbucket 10y ago
  Look at this rich guy, always complaining.

tunesmith 10y ago

I don't understand what conclusion this graph is going for. It's a real "Therefore, what?" thing for me.

sevenless 10y ago

"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." - John Steinbeck

pfarnsworth 10y ago

My wife and I combined make well above the limit for 1%-er range, yet we both feel middle class, although upper middle class is probably more accurate. We both work extremely hard, from 9-10 hrs a day in the office and 2-3 hrs at night, most nights. We barely have time to see the kids during the week, and the weekends are filled assuaging our guilt by spending it with them, unless we have to work. We have a modest house in the SF Bay Area, with an unmodest mortgage, and a savings that is miniscule compared to our costs and isn't growing. I have my Honda Accord that I paid off years ago, and my wife leases a Lexus SUV. We are the prototypical house-poor Bay Area family, and if one of us loses our job, we're pretty fucked. Neither of us has any sort of insurance besides whatever is provided by our companies. The two "luxuries" we have are a weekly house cleaner, and a top notch babysitter once a week, which is why I think upper middle class is apt. We don't feel "upper class", and we definitely don't feel rich. We know rich people, though, with live-in nannies, rented out Gary Dankos for special events, got box suites at the Super Bowl, etc.

exstudent2 10y ago
A Lexus SUV is a luxury. Some would argue that living in the SF is as well.
- vonmoltke 10y ago
  You know, things have gotten ridiculous if we have reached the point where living in any particular geographic area larger than a neighborhood has become a luxury.
- refurb 10y ago
  He might have a modest lifestyle in the most expensive city in the US. That's like saying you own a modest house in Beverly Hills and have a mortgage. Well, that's upper class!
graeme 10y ago
1% in the US is about $200,000. So, you have a household income of $400,000 and are struggling? I'm curious, what are your main expenses?

Hondor 10y ago

What on earth is that graph showing? 2% of households make $150k, and another 2% make $151k, and another 2% make $150.01k, etc. It makes no sense at all. I think they meant to use a bar graph or histogram, and perhaps those circles are the boundaries between the bins. But then why are some much wider than others? Do 7% of households make between $30k and $90k? Normally with a bad graph, you can work out what they meant and it's just misleading, but this is too wrong to mean anything. On a second look, the sharp edges of the curve appear to be $10k boundaries which with the text about $20k-$30k would mean they're the bin boundaries. But that assumes the text was written by someone who knew that and wasn't just reading off the line.

barrkel 10y ago
I came here to say this. The more ticks there are on the x axis, the lower the y values will be. The graph hurts my head. It should be an S-curve cumulative graph, I think.
Inufu 10y ago
Presumably the probability density function, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_density_function https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_density_function

toast0 10y ago

Is there a commonly accepted definition of middle class? (in the United States; class definition seems more rigid in England) Preferably something that involves net worth as well as net income; for me rich and poor indicate status of wealth/net worth, which is often correlated with income, but isn't the same thing. Taxed on those with high income are considered taxes on the wealthy, but may also be taxes on people who had a one time windfall, but aren't wealthy.

dahart 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluence_in_the_United_States#Status_and_stratification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluence_in_the_United_States...

javajosh 10y ago

Interesting that the interviews were done in Minneapolis, a city I'm currently spending the summer in. This city is big on public services - public transportation is particularly good. Probably everyone in that article took the Metro to the Mall. The libraries are plentiful and excellent, and there are really good amenities in Downtown. The rent/home prices around here is also astonishingly good (Note: I'm from LA). Heck I'm renting a 1500 sq ft. house with a garage and a yard for $1500/mo, and that's kinda pricey. You could probably find a reasonable 1Br around here for $400/mo. tl dr: $30k really is middle class in some American communities.

ciconia 10y ago

As usual, there's the emphasis on how much one makes, very little on how much one spends. Personally, I've spent the last few years not so much trying to earn more but rather spend as little as possible.

leurfete 10y ago

I believe that Paul Fussell's "Class" makes the best accounting of the [American] class system. In it there are nine levels: - Top Out of Sight: Billionaires and multi-millionaires. The people so wealthy they can afford exclusive levels of privacy. We never hear about them because they don't want us to. Upper Class: Millionaires, inherited wealth. Those who don't have to work. They refer to tuxes as "dinner jackets." Upper Middle: Wealthy surgeons and lawyers, etc. Professionals who couldn't be described as middle class. I suspect this is the class to which I, an engineer, am supposed to aspire. Middle Class: The great American majority, sort of. High Proletarian (or "prole"): Skilled workers but manual labor. Electricians, plumbers, etc. Probably not familiar with the term "proletarian." Middle Prole: Unskilled manual labor. Waitresses, painters. (In other words, my mom and dad!) Low Prole: Non-skilled of a lower level than mid prole. I suspect these people ask "Would you like fries with that, sir?" as a career. Destitute: Working and non-working poor. Bottom Out of Sight: Street people, the most destitute in society. "Out of sight" because they have no voice, influence or voter impact. (They don't vote.) http://www.wesclark.com/am/class.html http://www.wesclark.com/am/class.html

harryh 10y ago
This is a good list. I wonder how many Americans (out of ~320M total) fall into each level?

agounaris 10y ago

I don't find this surprising...obviously the 200k person has an easier living compared to the 50k but probably they hand out to the same places, have similar houses and generaly their habits are the same.

contingencies 10y ago

The overwhelming sense I get reading this sort of article is: if everybody insists on drawing lines amongst themselves how will we ever solve the world's most pressing problems, which are clearly beyond the reach of individual social groups or nations?

jweissman 10y ago

Don't these definitions have a more solid statistical economic meaning here? As in: middle "class" is the middle quintile of income. This makes the other strata fall pretty reasonably too: 80%-100%: Ruling Class 60-80%: Upper Class 40-60%: Middle Class 20-40%: Working Class 0-20%: Lower Class

peter303 10y ago

Obama and Congress wrestled as to what is middle class when dealing with permenantizing the Bush tax cuts- introduced in 2002 and made permanent in 2011. ACA surcharges start at 200K for individuals and 250K for a couple. The highest income bracket at 400K. We are talking about the top 2%-3% here.

peter303 10y ago

I am optimistic that many people here retain such a broad definition of middle class- essentially the range between poverty level and one percenters. This shows that most Americans dont want to be indentified as impoverished nor wealthy, despite statistics otherwise. Ironically this flies in the face of media pronouncements the middle class died atbthe end of the 20th century and Trump movement is exploiting to the hilt.

DominikR 10y ago

Chances are that even if you make $500k a year you'll still have lots and lots of social interactions with people earning much less. Even most of your friends and family will earn less. That's why it isn't surprising to me that most people choose to identify with the middle class, especially if you consider that most people associate with this term "normal working citizens". Maybe it is different once you have so much that you actually do not need to ever work again, but you certainly aren't in this position by earning $200k. You still have to work really hard, often even harder than the average person does.

soufron 10y ago

Isn't that a data-bias? Everybody think they're middle class because it's the biggest class... meaning that there is an increased probability that people indeed belong to the middle class.

scotty79 10y ago

That reminds me of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Status_Civilization https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Status_Civilization Sci-fi society where eveyone thought of themselves as middle class but it was either upper middle class or lower middle class.

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vixen99 10y ago

A British view: https://youtu.be/K2k1iRD2f-c https://youtu.be/K2k1iRD2f-c

throwaway2016a 10y ago

I think I'm probably a good poster child for this. It's not just about income it's also about wealth. My household income puts me in the top 5% (my wife and i are engineers) but my wealth and savings barely puts me in the top 40% thanks to student loans, buying a house, having a kid, and short work history. So according to income I'm upper class. According to wealth I'm middle class. I don't think you can truly feel upper class until you fall in the top percentages in both. I think it falls under: - Upper class: you could retire today without impacting your lifestyle - Middle class: you will retire someday but you'll have to cut down on your lifestyle - Lower class: you will never retire unless you go on disability / welfare