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One thing to remember is that everyone thinks they're "middle class". Even the corporate VP making half a million dollars thinks she's middle class.
by hkmurakami 7y ago
One thing to remember is that everyone thinks they're "middle class".
Even the corporate VP making half a million dollars thinks she's middle class.
- clairity 7y agothis is why i define the middle class as the middle 3 quintiles of wealth rather than some nebulous standard of living, the latter of which can be manipulated more easily for political ends. it's more obvious then to see that the 20-80% middle class standard of living has unambigously become more stressed, debt-laden, fearful, and immobile over the last 50 years, while the 1% has become much freer in all dimensions. we need to bring that back into balance (which is not perfectly equal distributions by the way).
- leetcrew 7y agoclass, wealth, and income are all distinct concepts. imo you're better off being more specific if you really mean wealth or income buckets. taken alone, wealth throws away some important information. a retired couple worth $500k (roughly 80th percentile household net worth) is living a very different life than a twenty something who already has that in the bank.
- clairity 7y agoyes, i almost added a tangent about income, but really, that's at best second-order effect--class mobility has been dempened over those 50 years and doesn't make much difference except at the margins.
- skrebbel 7y agoOr the programmer making half a million dollars :-)
- rxhernandez 7y agoAn anecdote, but, most of my closest friends definitely believe they are poor; most of their friends that I've met also believe they're poor. I honestly haven't met too many people that believe they're "lower" middle class. Conversely, except in SV, everyone I know that pulls over $300k thinks they're rich.
- Tomte 7y agoWe just had a great illustration of that effect in Germany: Friedrich Merz, a politician of Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, but purged by her years ago, is trying to become next party chief and chancellor. He is a board member of Blackrock. A lobbyist, and a successful business lawyer. He owns private airplanes. Yet, in a much laughed about interview, he claimed to belong to the "upper middle class".
- paganel 7y agoInteresting how Blackrock has become the new Goldman Sachs of the 2020s, apparently they tend to have quite a big influence in Macron's France, too [1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/14/business/france-blackrock-protests.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/14/business/france-blackrock...
- SauciestGNU 7y agoThe middle class is an illusion, but I have more in common with that VP than I do a billionaire.
- frant-hartm 7y agoIf you stop working an can't live off your savings indefinitely you are middle class by definition.
- refurb 7y agoSo if I'm clearing $750K per year but spending it all on my home in Manhattan, private school for my kids and 4 weeks of international vacations per year I'm middle class?
- dublinben 7y agoThat's the definition of working class. Middle class and working class are not the same thing, even if they significantly overlap.
- naravara 7y agoIf everyone's in debt up to their eyeballs, nobody gets to feel "rich" since we're all stretched to our limits.
- heavyset_go 7y agoIf you can't live off the interest generated by your assets, and need to work to eat and keep a roof over your head, you're either working class or part of the middle class. The VP pulling in half a million is assuredly in the upper middle class, even if they make more money than 99% of people. In a capitalist society, class is determined by ownership of, and your relationship to, capital.