3 ms·

"60 years ago some people could afford a middle-class lifestyle, but cannot do the same today." This is completely orthogonal to the fact that a middle-class l

by sgift 16y ago

"60 years ago some people could afford a middle-class lifestyle, but cannot do the same today." This is completely orthogonal to the fact that a middle-class lifestyle today is better than it was 60 years ago.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
Could you define "middle class lifestyle"? Also perhaps explain which people you mean? If you define it in relative terms (i.e., "a middle class lifestyle is the lifestyle of the middle 40%), then by definition it is always affordable to the middle 40%. So this can't be what you mean. Or maybe the problem is that in the race to be in the middle 40%, some professions have overtaken manufacturing, and this lowers the relative (but not absolute) lifestyle/status of manufacturing? (Though it's hard for me to see why that would be a problem, unless you are emotionally attached to some sort of caste-based ordering of jobs.)
- sgift 16y ago
  For a lack of a better (formal) definition I copy here the one used by the Economist (found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-class http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-class): "defined it as beginning at the point where people have roughly a third of their income left for discretionary spending after paying for basic food and shelter." This conveys the idea I have for a middle-class lifestyle. Hope it helps. For the explanation of which people I mean I have to ask tomjen3 for help: He used "those people" in his argumentation and I've reused it.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    Interesting - by this definition, 80% of the US is (at least) middle class. After paying for food and shelter, the 20%-40% quintile has 42% of their income left over after paying for food and shelter. So it seems as if the problem you describe is very uncommon. See table 1: http://www.bls.gov/cex/csxann08.pdf http://www.bls.gov/cex/csxann08.pdf (The bottom 20% are a funny case - they consume about 2x the listed income figures. The reason is that income does not include welfare, so we have no way of knowing how large or small income really is for this quintile.)

by sgift 16y ago

yummyfajitas 16y ago

Could you define "middle class lifestyle"? Also perhaps explain which people you mean? If you define it in relative terms (i.e., "a middle class lifestyle is the lifestyle of the middle 40%), then by definition it is always affordable to the middle 40%. So this can't be what you mean. Or maybe the problem is that in the race to be in the middle 40%, some professions have overtaken manufacturing, and this lowers the relative (but not absolute) lifestyle/status of manufacturing? (Though it's hard for me to see why that would be a problem, unless you are emotionally attached to some sort of caste-based ordering of jobs.)

sgift 16y ago
For a lack of a better (formal) definition I copy here the one used by the Economist (found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-class http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-class): "defined it as beginning at the point where people have roughly a third of their income left for discretionary spending after paying for basic food and shelter." This conveys the idea I have for a middle-class lifestyle. Hope it helps. For the explanation of which people I mean I have to ask tomjen3 for help: He used "those people" in his argumentation and I've reused it.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  Interesting - by this definition, 80% of the US is (at least) middle class. After paying for food and shelter, the 20%-40% quintile has 42% of their income left over after paying for food and shelter. So it seems as if the problem you describe is very uncommon. See table 1: http://www.bls.gov/cex/csxann08.pdf http://www.bls.gov/cex/csxann08.pdf (The bottom 20% are a funny case - they consume about 2x the listed income figures. The reason is that income does not include welfare, so we have no way of knowing how large or small income really is for this quintile.)