3 ms·

I think what it means is 50 years ago you had to be a doctor, lawyer, or high level business exec to be in that group. Today most of this forum is in the upper

I think what it means is 50 years ago you had to be a doctor, lawyer, or high level business exec to be in that group. Today most of this forum is in the upper middle class as it has expanded into many professional occupations like software engineers, etc. We have grown the pie and created more opportunities for individuals to claim a larger piece of it (regardless of race, gender, or sexuality) all while eliminating abject poverty.

bumby 6y ago
I agree in part, but to play devils advocate I don’t know that it fully encapsulates the problem of the shrinking middle class. 50 years ago you could be middle class with just a high school education, largely fueled by the manufacturing sector. I don’t think those equivalent cohorts in today’s economy moving up to the upper middle class in the methods you describe but rather they are left to fill the lower strata.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  50 (or 80) years ago, you could get a high school education, get a job in a factory, and be middle class. From there, you could learn what was going on, show that you knew your stuff, and move into management, which would put you at least on the edge of the upper middle class. Today, you may be able to get a middle class job without a college degree. But the route from there to the upper middle class is much harder. That may be what people are feeling. There's a much harder ceiling above the middle class than there was before.
  - bumby 6y ago
    I think we may be saying the same thing from different angles. So are you saying it's easier to move from middle class to upper middle class today than before? My point is that feels true only for a much smaller subset of the middle class today (maybe I'm wrong). It would seem that it's only attainable for a group with a specific skill set. To the original point, I'm not sure this convincingly makes the case that 'The middle class is shrinking because more people are moving to the upper middle class'
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      > I think we may be saying the same thing from different angles. Yes, I thought I was agreeing with you. > So are you saying it's easier to move from middle class to upper middle class today than before? Absolutely not. Quite the opposite, in fact. >> There's a much harder ceiling above the middle class than there was before. That is, those in the middle class have a much harder time rising to upper-middle class than they did in the past.
      - nemo44x 6y ago
        If it’s harder than why are there so many more people in the upper middle class today? Look at the data. It points to the opposite of what you believe. If it were harder then there would be fewer people in the upper middle class when it fact it is continuing to expand. We have been fed narratives for political reasons. But they aren’t true.
        bumby 6y ago
        Revisit their definition of “middle class”. It’s income based, not quantile based. Meaning it may be both possible that there are more people making $100k and simultaneously many much lower. Meaning a bimodal distribution with relatively fewer near the statistical average. That disparity is the what the research referenced in the article concludes. That inequality shouldn’t necessarily be equated with “things are better now” which is what the article title seems to imply.
        bumby 6y ago
        I had some time to dig deeper into the methodology of the paper used as the basis of the claim. One curious thing they did was normalize income in a way that a single person making $58k/yr was counted as making $100k/yr by the nature of them being single. Now that makes some sense in the context of the way poverty is defined in part by the number of heads in a household, but it can certainly be misleading when defining classes by income. Here’s the strange part to me: a couple with no kids need $163k combined to meet upper class. Add me kid to the mix and they need $256k combined. According to their methodology, these all equate to the same standard of living. This ends up skewing the intuition of the definition of “upper middle class”. Traditionally, the top quintile means you are upper middle class. By this definition it requires about $87k/yr. This is exactly 50% above the papers definition for a single person. I’m not saying their method is wrong, just that it doesn’t fit with how we traditionally talk about economic classes.

bumby 6y ago

I agree in part, but to play devils advocate I don’t know that it fully encapsulates the problem of the shrinking middle class. 50 years ago you could be middle class with just a high school education, largely fueled by the manufacturing sector. I don’t think those equivalent cohorts in today’s economy moving up to the upper middle class in the methods you describe but rather they are left to fill the lower strata.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
50 (or 80) years ago, you could get a high school education, get a job in a factory, and be middle class. From there, you could learn what was going on, show that you knew your stuff, and move into management, which would put you at least on the edge of the upper middle class. Today, you may be able to get a middle class job without a college degree. But the route from there to the upper middle class is much harder. That may be what people are feeling. There's a much harder ceiling above the middle class than there was before.
- bumby 6y ago
  I think we may be saying the same thing from different angles. So are you saying it's easier to move from middle class to upper middle class today than before? My point is that feels true only for a much smaller subset of the middle class today (maybe I'm wrong). It would seem that it's only attainable for a group with a specific skill set. To the original point, I'm not sure this convincingly makes the case that 'The middle class is shrinking because more people are moving to the upper middle class'
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    > I think we may be saying the same thing from different angles. Yes, I thought I was agreeing with you. > So are you saying it's easier to move from middle class to upper middle class today than before? Absolutely not. Quite the opposite, in fact. >> There's a much harder ceiling above the middle class than there was before. That is, those in the middle class have a much harder time rising to upper-middle class than they did in the past.
    - nemo44x 6y ago
      If it’s harder than why are there so many more people in the upper middle class today? Look at the data. It points to the opposite of what you believe. If it were harder then there would be fewer people in the upper middle class when it fact it is continuing to expand. We have been fed narratives for political reasons. But they aren’t true.
      - bumby 6y ago
        Revisit their definition of “middle class”. It’s income based, not quantile based. Meaning it may be both possible that there are more people making $100k and simultaneously many much lower. Meaning a bimodal distribution with relatively fewer near the statistical average. That disparity is the what the research referenced in the article concludes. That inequality shouldn’t necessarily be equated with “things are better now” which is what the article title seems to imply.
      - bumby 6y ago
        I had some time to dig deeper into the methodology of the paper used as the basis of the claim. One curious thing they did was normalize income in a way that a single person making $58k/yr was counted as making $100k/yr by the nature of them being single. Now that makes some sense in the context of the way poverty is defined in part by the number of heads in a household, but it can certainly be misleading when defining classes by income. Here’s the strange part to me: a couple with no kids need $163k combined to meet upper class. Add me kid to the mix and they need $256k combined. According to their methodology, these all equate to the same standard of living. This ends up skewing the intuition of the definition of “upper middle class”. Traditionally, the top quintile means you are upper middle class. By this definition it requires about $87k/yr. This is exactly 50% above the papers definition for a single person. I’m not saying their method is wrong, just that it doesn’t fit with how we traditionally talk about economic classes.