3 ms·
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
by 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 agoInteresting - 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.)