5 ms·

I think of that as independently wealthy, since I personally have a hard time telling someone that if you’re an engineering exec making > $1mm/yr, that you’re m

by dbish 5y ago

I think of that as independently wealthy, since I personally have a hard time telling someone that if you’re an engineering exec making > $1mm/yr, that you’re middle class because you get paid for your time. That seems pretty upper class even if it isn’t the properly wealthy, no need to work, upper class.

akiselev 5y ago
I'd say the exec is upper middle class because if their employer went bankrupt and they had to pay for a bad string of unexpected medical expenses or got sued for some liability they weren't insured for, it could easily send them deep into the middle class. It's like having exactly a million dollars in net worth - are you really a millionaire if all it takes is a little depreciation to drop you back to six figures? However, entering the upper class with executive salary like that takes a lot less luck - they don't need to start a billion dollar unicorn, they just need a little bit of luck and a few decades of steady investment. The way I see it: the underclass has to work hard to move upwards, the middle class has to work hard to stay where they are, and the upper class has to work hard to move downwards.
- dbish 5y ago
  You can’t call a top 1% person in income upper middle class imho and I think the definition of millionaire is tied to having more then a million net worth not whether you can lose it, but that’s where indepdently wealthy or similar definitions may come into play. If I have say a million or two, vs. someone who makes 50k/yr and worth maybe 100-200k, are we all middle class? What does it mean to define a middle class at this point then? It started with the middle 50% who have similar financial and social lives, but if it’s that wide, I’m unsure it’s a useful label. Everyone likes to call themselves middle class, but that seems wrong other then to say you’re a small millionaire vs. someone with real power in the > 100mm net worth category. The label does matter when we talk about the middle class being squeezed for example, and we know that’s not happening to tech execs or even software engineers in demand who start at 6 gigs, but to folks who work hard to break 6 figs in their career and see it as breaking into the upper middle class.
  - akiselev 5y ago
    > Everyone likes to call themselves middle class, but that seems wrong other then to say you’re a small millionaire vs. someone with real power in the > 100mm net worth category. The label does matter when we talk about the middle class being squeezed for example, and we know that’s not happening to tech execs or even software engineers in demand who start at 6 gigs, but to folks who work hard to break 6 figs in their career and see it as breaking into the upper middle class. Not to get too soap boxy, but that's exactly how the upperclasses have used divide and conquer to hold onto disproportional political power. It seems "wrong" to you, but imagine we went back to the tax rates set in the Revenue Act of 1942 with brackets adjusted for inflation: a family with a single tech exec or engineer making 6 or 7 figures a year can live well within their means and still have to drastically cut back on their quality of life under those tax rates. Someone with a hundred million dollars of productive assets probably wouldn't notice a change in QoL at all, unless they measure it by yacht-foot or jet-seat.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- ryandrake 5y ago
  Also: that exec may have $1M expenses a year. He may be living paycheck to paycheck! Almost all of us are N paychecks away from bankruptcy. The only difference between us is what number N is. There are people who do nothing and dividends from their assets pay for their lifestyle and grow their net worth forever without labor. Those are the few actual upper (economic) class people!
BlueTemplar 5y ago
The difference between "upper class" and "old money" ?

by dbish 5y ago

akiselev 5y ago

I'd say the exec is upper middle class because if their employer went bankrupt and they had to pay for a bad string of unexpected medical expenses or got sued for some liability they weren't insured for, it could easily send them deep into the middle class. It's like having exactly a million dollars in net worth - are you really a millionaire if all it takes is a little depreciation to drop you back to six figures? However, entering the upper class with executive salary like that takes a lot less luck - they don't need to start a billion dollar unicorn, they just need a little bit of luck and a few decades of steady investment. The way I see it: the underclass has to work hard to move upwards, the middle class has to work hard to stay where they are, and the upper class has to work hard to move downwards.

dbish 5y ago
You can’t call a top 1% person in income upper middle class imho and I think the definition of millionaire is tied to having more then a million net worth not whether you can lose it, but that’s where indepdently wealthy or similar definitions may come into play. If I have say a million or two, vs. someone who makes 50k/yr and worth maybe 100-200k, are we all middle class? What does it mean to define a middle class at this point then? It started with the middle 50% who have similar financial and social lives, but if it’s that wide, I’m unsure it’s a useful label. Everyone likes to call themselves middle class, but that seems wrong other then to say you’re a small millionaire vs. someone with real power in the > 100mm net worth category. The label does matter when we talk about the middle class being squeezed for example, and we know that’s not happening to tech execs or even software engineers in demand who start at 6 gigs, but to folks who work hard to break 6 figs in their career and see it as breaking into the upper middle class.
- akiselev 5y ago
  > Everyone likes to call themselves middle class, but that seems wrong other then to say you’re a small millionaire vs. someone with real power in the > 100mm net worth category. The label does matter when we talk about the middle class being squeezed for example, and we know that’s not happening to tech execs or even software engineers in demand who start at 6 gigs, but to folks who work hard to break 6 figs in their career and see it as breaking into the upper middle class. Not to get too soap boxy, but that's exactly how the upperclasses have used divide and conquer to hold onto disproportional political power. It seems "wrong" to you, but imagine we went back to the tax rates set in the Revenue Act of 1942 with brackets adjusted for inflation: a family with a single tech exec or engineer making 6 or 7 figures a year can live well within their means and still have to drastically cut back on their quality of life under those tax rates. Someone with a hundred million dollars of productive assets probably wouldn't notice a change in QoL at all, unless they measure it by yacht-foot or jet-seat.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
ryandrake 5y ago
Also: that exec may have $1M expenses a year. He may be living paycheck to paycheck! Almost all of us are N paychecks away from bankruptcy. The only difference between us is what number N is. There are people who do nothing and dividends from their assets pay for their lifestyle and grow their net worth forever without labor. Those are the few actual upper (economic) class people!

BlueTemplar 5y ago

The difference between "upper class" and "old money" ?