4 ms·

Techies are the new middle class? You've got to be kidding me.

• potatolicious 13y ago
  Well, yes, if we take middle class at face value (the middle two quartiles of income) that's an insane claim. Of course techies aren't the middle class, we're very comfortably in the top 10% of incomes, if not the top 5%. Purchasing power with the past middle class though is a different story. My parents are firmly middle class - but looking at the cost of housing and other factors, to afford a similar lifestyle to what they gave me growing up, living in similar places, now requires an income level far in excess of what they made. It's in fact much closer to what I make now. So the more accurate (and less insane sounding) claim is that to afford the middle class lifestyle of the past now requires a higher-than-middle-class income. This gap varies depending on where you are.