4 ms·

What middle class? None of the younger people from the article are middle class. Struggling to pay rent is not a middle class activity. And Techer/Nurse are

What middle class? None of the younger people from the article are middle class. Struggling to pay rent is not a middle class activity. And Techer/Nurse are not good jobs given the low pay (not just compared to other "profressional" jobs but compared to manual jobs once you take into account the cost of student loans and time lost to study). The problem here is people who are working class (a class lower than their parents) but somehow think they are middle class. You've been demoted but no one told you. Sorry.

ansgri 4y ago
I agree that your definition is more useful. In the article they define 'middle class': > whose incomes fall in the middle 60% of American incomes, which is what Brookings defines as the middle class So we have a conflict of definitions: your socioeconomic definition, and this purely statistical definition. Evidently, many people somewhere got the idea that these two should roughly correspond to each other.
- LatteLazy 4y ago
  Here in the UK it is more and more common to equate earned income and wealth/richness. But it has rarely been less true: a combination of income taxes, student loans, other work-associated costs and housing costs for people that don't own outright mean that you can be on a very high gross income and have little to no disposable income or safety cushion. Meanwhile we have pensioners complaining they only get 12k a year when all their housing, property taxes, travel, heating and other costs are taken care of and that's basically £1000 a month for groceries and fun-money...
opportune 4y ago
Those used to be middle class jobs in most cases though. Don’t you think that’s a problem?
- LatteLazy 4y ago
  I am not sure if that is a problem or rather whether its a solvable one. It's more a reality of modern capitalism. You get rich by OWNING things (like those parents with 4 houses) NOT by working. There are no "middle class jobs" anymore IMHO...

ansgri 4y ago

I agree that your definition is more useful. In the article they define 'middle class': > whose incomes fall in the middle 60% of American incomes, which is what Brookings defines as the middle class So we have a conflict of definitions: your socioeconomic definition, and this purely statistical definition. Evidently, many people somewhere got the idea that these two should roughly correspond to each other.

LatteLazy 4y ago
Here in the UK it is more and more common to equate earned income and wealth/richness. But it has rarely been less true: a combination of income taxes, student loans, other work-associated costs and housing costs for people that don't own outright mean that you can be on a very high gross income and have little to no disposable income or safety cushion. Meanwhile we have pensioners complaining they only get 12k a year when all their housing, property taxes, travel, heating and other costs are taken care of and that's basically £1000 a month for groceries and fun-money...

opportune 4y ago

Those used to be middle class jobs in most cases though. Don’t you think that’s a problem?

LatteLazy 4y ago
I am not sure if that is a problem or rather whether its a solvable one. It's more a reality of modern capitalism. You get rich by OWNING things (like those parents with 4 houses) NOT by working. There are no "middle class jobs" anymore IMHO...