4 ms·

The US doesn't have a middle class anymore. People taking six figures are just higher up in the underclass. They are still incomprehensibly far from the upper c

The US doesn't have a middle class anymore. People taking six figures are just higher up in the underclass. They are still incomprehensibly far from the upper class.

aksss 4y ago
I think you’re mixing metaphors. If you earn a six figure income in most of the US, you’re decidedly not in the lower class. But that lifestyle is decidedly not the same as people in the upper class. There are a lot of shades to being “rich”, and much fewer to being “poor”, but you know when you’re rich and you know when you’re poor. If you know you’re not either, you’re in the middle class. This describes a great portion of the US population. Dividing the world into two groups, the upper and under, seems to be more about politics and power, and through that lens, many “rich” people are still in the “underclass” as well.
- jchonphoenix 4y ago
  Keyword: most. In San Francisco, 100k qualifies you for governmental support services like low income housing.
  - rocket_surgeron 4y ago
    What percentage of the US population meets this criteria? Because with a population of 800k, San Francisco makes up 0.25% of the 332 million people in the US. I am sure there are additional areas where people making 100k are not middle class. I am also sure that there are many more areas where this is not the case.
    - JohnClark1337 4y ago
- pencilguin 4y ago
  In 1970, there was still a middle class. Income was distributed according to the classic bell curve. Today, income is strictly bimodal. The lower-income lobe is the permanent underclass. The ragged tail of the upper class manages assets of ten million dollars or more. Politically, it has been very useful to convince underclass voters that they are middle or even, often, upper class, and get them voting against measures that would benefit the underclass including themselves. Trump supporters helped institute policies that massively benefit the actual upper class, at their own expense.
  - 88913527 4y ago
    Household income is a skewed bell curve [0]. Some graphs make it it appear bi-modal because the last few bars will contain larger buckets: in this chart, the last 2 bars represent $50,000 in values where all proceeding values are $5,000 [1]. When looking at the change over time, there is an increasing number of households at the upper end of the curve [2]. [0]: https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2015/demo/distribution-of-household-income--2014/_jcr_content/root/responsivegrid/embeddableimage65.coreimg.png/1459361296671/hh-inc-dist.png https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2015/demo/dist... [1]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Distribution_of_Annual_Household_Income_in_the_United_States_2010.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Distribu... [2]: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/07/PSDT.07.12_economic_inequality-AppA-00-.png?w=600 https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/wp-content/uploads...
yucky 4y ago
There is hyperbole and then there is this. Not that the middle class isn't shrinking, but by all measures around half the country is in fact middle class. It feels like people just write in headlines/tweet form now. Facts don't matter.
- jfrbfbreudh 4y ago
  By all measures being what? I think if we’re using a definition of “middle class” based around at least half the population always falling into it, a proper summary here would be that the lifestyle of the middle class continues to deteriorate as traditional assets like homes become increasingly unobtainable.
  - yucky 4y ago
    > I think if we’re using a definition of “middle class” based around at least half the population always falling into it Nobody uses that definition. It is however, a defined income level and there is a wealth of data on it. It has shrunk from around 60% of the US population 50 years ago, to around 50% of the population now. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/04/20/how-the-american-middle-class-has-changed-in-the-past-five-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/04/20/how-the-ame...
    - jfrbfbreudh 4y ago
      > In this analysis, “middle-income” adults in 2021 are those with an annual household income that was two-thirds to double the national median income in 2020, after incomes have been adjusted for household size, or about $52,000 to $156,000 annually in 2020 dollars for a household of three. “Lower-income” adults have household incomes less than $52,000 and “upper-income” adults have household incomes greater than $156,000. The definition used in this paper has no ties to actual quality of life criteria or ownership of traditional “middle class” assets (house, car, etc). This is effectively a percentage based definition based around the median income of the country and is more a measure of changes to income inequality than it is a definition of a “middle class.”
- 4y ago

The US doesn't have a middle class anymore. People taking six figures are just higher up in the underclass. They are still incomprehensibly far from the upper class.

aksss 4y ago

I think you’re mixing metaphors. If you earn a six figure income in most of the US, you’re decidedly not in the lower class. But that lifestyle is decidedly not the same as people in the upper class. There are a lot of shades to being “rich”, and much fewer to being “poor”, but you know when you’re rich and you know when you’re poor. If you know you’re not either, you’re in the middle class. This describes a great portion of the US population. Dividing the world into two groups, the upper and under, seems to be more about politics and power, and through that lens, many “rich” people are still in the “underclass” as well.

jchonphoenix 4y ago
Keyword: most. In San Francisco, 100k qualifies you for governmental support services like low income housing.
- rocket_surgeron 4y ago
  What percentage of the US population meets this criteria? Because with a population of 800k, San Francisco makes up 0.25% of the 332 million people in the US. I am sure there are additional areas where people making 100k are not middle class. I am also sure that there are many more areas where this is not the case.
  - JohnClark1337 4y ago
pencilguin 4y ago
In 1970, there was still a middle class. Income was distributed according to the classic bell curve. Today, income is strictly bimodal. The lower-income lobe is the permanent underclass. The ragged tail of the upper class manages assets of ten million dollars or more. Politically, it has been very useful to convince underclass voters that they are middle or even, often, upper class, and get them voting against measures that would benefit the underclass including themselves. Trump supporters helped institute policies that massively benefit the actual upper class, at their own expense.
- 88913527 4y ago
  Household income is a skewed bell curve [0]. Some graphs make it it appear bi-modal because the last few bars will contain larger buckets: in this chart, the last 2 bars represent $50,000 in values where all proceeding values are $5,000 [1]. When looking at the change over time, there is an increasing number of households at the upper end of the curve [2]. [0]: https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2015/demo/distribution-of-household-income--2014/_jcr_content/root/responsivegrid/embeddableimage65.coreimg.png/1459361296671/hh-inc-dist.png https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2015/demo/dist... [1]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Distribution_of_Annual_Household_Income_in_the_United_States_2010.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Distribu... [2]: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/07/PSDT.07.12_economic_inequality-AppA-00-.png?w=600 https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/wp-content/uploads...

yucky 4y ago

There is hyperbole and then there is this. Not that the middle class isn't shrinking, but by all measures around half the country is in fact middle class. It feels like people just write in headlines/tweet form now. Facts don't matter.

jfrbfbreudh 4y ago
By all measures being what? I think if we’re using a definition of “middle class” based around at least half the population always falling into it, a proper summary here would be that the lifestyle of the middle class continues to deteriorate as traditional assets like homes become increasingly unobtainable.
- yucky 4y ago
  > I think if we’re using a definition of “middle class” based around at least half the population always falling into it Nobody uses that definition. It is however, a defined income level and there is a wealth of data on it. It has shrunk from around 60% of the US population 50 years ago, to around 50% of the population now. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/04/20/how-the-american-middle-class-has-changed-in-the-past-five-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/04/20/how-the-ame...
  - jfrbfbreudh 4y ago
    > In this analysis, “middle-income” adults in 2021 are those with an annual household income that was two-thirds to double the national median income in 2020, after incomes have been adjusted for household size, or about $52,000 to $156,000 annually in 2020 dollars for a household of three. “Lower-income” adults have household incomes less than $52,000 and “upper-income” adults have household incomes greater than $156,000. The definition used in this paper has no ties to actual quality of life criteria or ownership of traditional “middle class” assets (house, car, etc). This is effectively a percentage based definition based around the median income of the country and is more a measure of changes to income inequality than it is a definition of a “middle class.”
4y ago