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I think it's some definition of 'middle class' coming from the 1970s and never inflation-adjusted since then. A person making $35K is anything but a middle clas
by anovikov 13y ago
I think it's some definition of 'middle class' coming from the 1970s and never inflation-adjusted since then. A person making $35K is anything but a middle class in every place i seen, let alone Silicon Valley. Maybe, a lower middle in totally clapped out East European countries like Ukraine.
- patio11 13y ago$35k is solidly middle class in Japan (corresponds pretty much exactly to the expected income of a salaryman and his wife during their family's formative years) and in wide swathes of the US, particularly non-metro areas. Representative occupations would include, e.g., early-career public school teachers, public servants, car salesmen, police officers, etc, etc.
- icelancer 13y ago$35K is doing just fine in Cleveland, OH.
- waterlesscloud 13y agoYou can live middle-classly on 40-60k in most of America still. Techies seem to be anxious to claim middle-class status, but if you're in a 6-figure household family, you're still pushing upper class compared to nearly anywhere. And the statistical fact is that if you're $250 k in the US in household income, you are in fact the 1%.
- patio11 13y agoAbout $400k, actually.
- waterlesscloud 13y agoYeah, you're right. $250 k would only put you in the top 2.32% in 2011. Let's be absolutely clear here. A six figure household income puts you in the top 20% of the US. You are not middle class. You are in fact upper class.
- anovikov 13y agoIt was 350K in 2009, in the midst of a crisis (incomes of people like that have a lot to do with performance-based bonuses, stock appreciation and the like, so they dipped a lot in the crisis, much more than oridinary people's). In 2012 it was already $560K. And the definition for upper class as being top 1% is arbitrary, it is in fact invented by Obama during his first presidential campaign, solely for finger-pointing (he could safely say 1% is not many people so they won't impact election results enough and safe to be finger-pointed). Upper class are ought to be people who don't derive their income from work, but from their property - business profits, stock dividends, rent etc. - in all societies upper class are those who DON'T depend on salary, and many of them don't work at all. So it is natural to define upper class income threshold as a point above which less than 50% of income comes from employment. In the present United States, this is about 3-4 million bucks a year per household. This will be economically defined upper class, not just some 'people rich enough to hate them'. So McCain was closer to reality back in 2008 is his upper class definition. I personally don't know anyone making that much, but i can safely say that all people i know making 150-1000k a year will be broke months or at most, a year or two if they stop working, with one exception (a guy living in East Asia with about 400k of annual income, who never married or had kids). So they are not upper class. And i am speaking of the places which are cheaper and have lower living standards than USA.
- waterlesscloud 13y ago"Upper class is people other than us." Go ahead, enter your household income here, find out where you really fall. http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2013/09/what-is-your-us-income-percentile.html http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2013/09/what-is-yo... Hint- if you're a techie in SF, you're reaaaaallll near the top.
- anovikov 13y agoHahaha it shows percentiles above 100% for income above 220k for women and 450k for men (both unmarried and living alone = all 3 figures equal) - that javascript is broken.
- 13y ago
- Element_ 13y agoThere was a segment on PBS news hour yesterday that mentioned police officers in California are making 100-250k+ a year and are able to retire with 6 figure pensions & full union benefits. I think most people would class policing as a middle class job.
- __xtrimsky 13y ago130k here, I feel lower middle class. I can't buy a house in NY. I'll have to move upstate for that. I have only one car, second car would be a little bit hard.
- billyjobob 13y agoThe American English definition of 'middle class' is bizarre and seems to include anyone who has a job and isn't homeless. The correct English meaning of the word is someone who works for themselves rather than a boss in a profession which has a guild to ensure exclusivity, e.g. doctor or lawyer. Or the owner of a small business which employs other people. It's mostly inherited upon birth and has little to do with income. For example the son of a doctor will be born middle class and will maintain that status even if he becomes a wage labourer working for an employer. After perhaps 20 years of wage labour he may then consider he has fallen into the working class. Similarly someone who wins millions on the lottery will never really be 'upper class' because they weren't born of aristocratic stock, although if they maintain their wealth while avoiding work then their children might be. The people in Silicon Valley working for others are working class.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- laurencerowe 13y agoA doctor or barrister would be upper middle class. Working in most other jobs requiring a university education would definitely make you middle class in England. While the American definition of "middle class" is best translated as "working class" into English English, it seems far from bizarre given it covers someone making the median income.
- eaurouge 13y agoI think it's bizarre that in England your status in society is based mostly on whether you won or lost the birth lottery.