90 percent of Americans define themselves as middle class. Clearly, that’s impossible, but many poor and wealthy people are a little confused.
The issue of class has been an underlying current in the comment section of this blog all week. Some say that markers of wealth include handbags and house cleaners. Is taking a year to find yourself or a backpacking trip through Europe a marker of wealth? Or is it all about the ratio of income to debt? What is average?
Question of the Day: What is middle class? What is wealthy?
Apt. 11d 
Laura, I don’t have the slightest idea how to answer this. I can throw out words: consumerism, status, educational level, debt. But for some reason, what really occurs to me is the concept of risk, which makes it all kind of ironic considering the On the Road thread.
For the first 6-7 years of my kids’ lives, I would describe my husband and me as living with a great deal of risk. We had a certain lifestyle, but one crisis, and it all could have fallen apart. A lot of people live that way every day of their lives, and maybe my risk level wasn’t as high as I thought.
Then a few things happened in the last year, and I feel like we have much less risk now. If our car breaks down, we can get a new one. I don’t want to. We have set up our lifestyle so it hasn’t expanded much beyond what it was when we had more risk. We don’t buy a car for the sake of having a new car. But we *could*. And just because I *can* afford a Coach handbag now doesn’t mean I will buy one even if it means my students will look at me with a little more respect. 😉 I guess we are raising our asset level, though I’m also giving more away. But we’re also giving to our kids (they both have IRAs and 529s now).
Anyway, it’s kind of ironic that I am (sort of) defining class status as a lack of risk because in the On the Road thread, one of the things you pointed out was that kids today take fewer risks. Maybe social class is about being able to take certain kinds of risks and not others.
Just spitballing here and avoiding packing for a weekend trip to Long Island.
LikeLike
I’m a statistical stickler. When it comes to the middle class, I want to know what the characteristics of the middle actually are: how much do they spend on food, on clothes, on handbags, on houses? I think where we do get confused is that middle class _is_ about more than money; it’s about your consumer and education choices, what you do for your money, and yes, your level of risk and safety network.
I think part of the complexity can be addressed by the concept of different kinds of capital (i.e. social, income, skills, and asset capital). You can be in the middle as far as income is concerned, but still not middle class, because you lack assets capital (increases risk. You can be in the middle because of your income, but still not middle class, because you’re far above the norm in skills capitol (have a law degree, for example).
So, are you middle class ’cause you’re middle class on all the different kinds of capital? If we define it like that, there might not be anybody there.
Now, Coach bags (did Laura buy a Coach bag? Is that why we’re talking about them?) and house cleaners are not markers of the middle-class. They’re markers of being rich. I think those of us who are much better off than average have to acknowledge it to ourselves, lest we become like Queen Marie, and tell people to eat cake.
LikeLike
Laura did not buy a Coach bag. It’s my weird shorthand for “consumer goods that are symbols of excess consumerism.” It was probably set off by Laura mentioning that she bought a purse of some sort.
I could use Lexus instead. I mean, I’m sure it’s a good car, but is it necessary?
LikeLike
I think the reason so many people identify as middle class is that they don’t “feel” rich, even if (objectively) they are. I’m rich in the third world, sure, and maybe even in this one, but my neighbors drive nicer cars, hire housecleaners, don’t have to plan for months to take a nice vacation. Never mind my neighbors, most of the rest of my (birth) family doesn’t! But I do, so I feel middle class. But if you look at my education, my social advantages, probably even my earnings–then I’m much better off. Case in point: I’m on sabbatical this year, on half salary. If I were truly middle class could I afford to forego half my salary for a year? (The other question is whether I can even now…)
LikeLike
Regular housecleaning is a sign of being upper-middle class, but even a middle-middle class person might hire cleaners, just not regularly. Given different costs of living, I don’t think you can arrive at a single dollar figure defining the middle class. I think that 90% figure is slightly too big, but not ridiculous. 80% would be better, with 10% at the bottom and 10% at the top excluded.
Here’s what I think defines the upper-middle class: medical insurance, 401(k) or equivalent, carries all relevant forms of insurance (starting with life insurance), has started college fund for children, and has substantial emergency fund for things like car or home repairs. Note that I am not defining upper-middleclassness in terms of consumption, but in terms of security, since consumption means not that someone has a lot of money, but that they spent a lot of money, possibly belonging to a third party who wants it back. (I was just listening to the Dave Ramsey show while doing housework, and the last caller I heard was a woman who is about to have a million dollars of lots foreclosed on. She won’t be the last, either.)
LikeLike
Pithy statement: Middle class is having what everyone else has; wealthy is having what everyone else wants.
LikeLike
The New York Times reported sometime in the last year or so that the top fifth of incomes in the US starts at $70,000. If you make more than $70,000, I’d find it hard to agree with calling yourself middle class–my definition of middle does not include the top fifth.
I started writing a response to this but it got too long so I’ve moved it to my journal:
http://snippy.livejournal.com/396060.html
LikeLike
Libby,
I wouldn’t bet on all of your neighbors or relatives actually being better of than you. Some probably are, but others are most likely a paycheck away from disaster. If you listen to a financial show like Dave Ramsey’s, or read blogs like thehousingbubbleblog.com, there are a dozen stories every day of people living out Ramsey’s saying that “Normal is looking good and being broke.” Foreclosure.com is also worth a look–no matter how ritzy the zip code, there’s always somebody being foreclosed on or going bankrupt.
We’re basically upper-middle class (although we haven’t started doing all the things that I listed above). We rent a house for $1000 a month, pay $400 a month for private school, and drive one $10,000 car and pay for regular babysitting and housecleaning. We’ve just started working a more scientific budget, and hope to pay off credit card debt, student loans, and car debt within a year or so. Then we save for a downpayment (remember those?–they’re back!) and buy a house in two or three years, by which time my husband and I will be well into our thirties. Travel is mostly confined to trips to visit far away grandparents at Christmas and during the summer, and frankly it really isn’t that much fun with little kids who miss their cribs and don’t understand the difference between Eastern and Pacific time.
LikeLike
Kai, over the past few years, my household income has been anywhere from 42K to 120K, but I’m not sure my lifestyle changed very much. It’s hard for me to think “Hey, we were middle class in 2004, but in 2006 we were wealthy.” I think part of it may be whether we’re counting the unpaid labor of first me, then my husband, when we were stay at home parents. The issue of the labor value of caring for children not of school age may also count in there.
LikeLike
Our income has increased greatly since this blog started. Our life style hasn’t. I drive a beat up car, wear cheap jeans, buy meat on sale, live in a working class neighborhood. But I would be asshole, if I didn’t admit that we’ve moved out the middle class category.
Sure, we have a lot of expenses. Ian’s therapy and private shadows for his daycare cost us $2,000 a month until last month when he started kindergarten. We only started a retirement program a few years back. We will have student loans until we die. But still, I would be an asshole, if I didn’t admit that we were very well off.
I think that the income number, rather than expenses, should draw the lines between the classes. It’s neat and efficient. The trouble is that the lines are drawn differently in different parts of the country. Here, people often say that you need $100,000 to be middle class.
LikeLike
When I was a kid, my parents bought everything used, fixed up their own handyman special house (my dad did all the labor, including plumbing and electrical), mixed powdered milk with fresh milk, half and half. My mother made most of my clothes and we rarely ate out. Before I was in college, I could count the number of times I’d been on an airplane on one hand; our vacations usually involved a trip by car to a place where we could stay with relatives (the spare bedrooms of distant relatives are cheaper than a motel).
My father has a master’s degree, and worked a white collar job, so I don’t think we qualified as working class. I think that was probably middle class. It was certainly a more restricted life style than we live now.
I do think, though, that it’s worth noting that national income averages can be a little deceptive. The median household income in Montgomery Cty, MD is $71K. Cost of living (particularly housing, even in the current slump), unsurprisingly, is also comparatively high. So, strictly by percentiles, in MoCo, we’re middle class. By national standards, we’re clearly upper class. But how meaningful is that?
LikeLike
The Pragmatic Libertarian blog posted the following numbers last year, for family income:
“According to the Wall Street Journal, the income percentiles for the USA are as follows:
INCOME GROUPS IN THE U.S.
Median — $25,100
Top 10% — $87,300
Top 5% — $120,000
Top 1% — $278,000
Top 0.5% — $398,000
Top 0.1% — $1,130,000
Top 0.01% — $5,350,000
(NB: I have rounded off the numbers on the 3rd digit. Figures are from 2004.)”
Pravda describes the middle class: “There is no agreed upon definition of Middle Class. Some such as Washington post consider those that earn from $40000 to $90000 to belong to the middle class, while others consider any family that have an income of $20000 to $90000 as middle class. Here since we use the Congressional Budget Office’s quintile system, we combine the middle and fourth quintile to define our middle class group. Then according to this classification a middle class family is a family whose income is between $51900 and $77300 per year.
The middle class is considered the backbone of the consumer society. Their health and wealth is extremely important to the economy. They tend to be better educated than the lower quintiles, healthier and more politically engaged. Their size and economic health determines the prosperity of the nation.
When one looks at the income of a middle class family one would expect that at least this group would be in a good financial position. But all the reports point to the contrary.
The middle class is squeezed from all sides. The costs of housing, healthcare, transportation and education for the kids, have skyrocketed; making it exceedingly difficult to make ends meet. ”
Where I live, in the prosperous DC burbs, there’s not a hell of a lot of difference – in any way that looks important to me – between a $52000 middle quintile person and a $278000 top 1.0% person. The car can be a ten year old Camry or something newer or more stylish, you live in a slightly down-at-heels condo or a nice-but-not-special house. If you need to go to the doctor, you go, and you don’t have to choose between eating and medical care. You aren’t too cold in the winter, or too hot in the summer. You don’t have a summer place in Nantucket. At the top of that range, you send your kids to a private college and they make you pay for most of it, at the bottom, you send your kids to state college and there is scholarship help and loans. At the top, you have a nice HMO which lets you choose from a buffet of nice medical practice groups, at the bottom, you go to clinics and don’t get to pick your doctors. The differences feel big, but they are nowhere nearly as big as what happens when you drop into the bottom two quintiles or ascend into the top half to tenth percent. Those would be the guys with the private jets and the Nantucket houses etc. I’m going to claim that, functionally, that is the middle class. Those people don’t have Paris Hilton-type money to burn, but they don’t go hungry. 98th percenters can’t just give the college of their dreams a library and get their slacker son in. The child of a 50th percenter will get into college somewhere and can continue in the middle class like her parents. Both 50th and 98th drive themselves – no chauffeurs. 98th percenters get their houses cleaned – weekly, by someone who does not live in.
I think I’m supported by Ferrer RL, Palmer R. who wrote an article “Variations in health status within and between socioeconomic strata.” and the abstract says “There is considerable variability in self rated health within socioeconomic strata and that variability increases in a step-wise fashion at each lower stratum of income. Most of the increased variability is accounted for by changes in the middle and lower (10th, 25th, and 50th centiles) rather than the upper (75th and 90th) portions of the distribution”
So I’m claiming that those are some of the markers which people look to in deciding, “I am middle class”
LikeLike
I have to chime in here. I read the house cleaner blog and came away envious of folks who can afford to hire one, even occasionally. Until reading this blog I used to consider myself middle class. I make just under 30K a year and support two kids, basically on my own but not entirely. We always have food to eat, my bills, the few there are (car, insurance, couple small credit cards) are usually paid every month. I always pay my rent every month. We don’t have too many extras; we don’t go out to dinner hardly ever, we haven’t been to the movies in over a year. We haven’t had a real vacation in, well, ever. But in the neighborhood I live in I would be considered middle class. Most people around me make much less than I do and are on all sorts of public assistance. I think the term ‘middle class’ is too relative to define. I think it’s a feeling, a perception, rather than an income level. Next to some of you I would definitely be considered poor, not by the way I would be treated, don’t get me wrong, but by my income.
I have been thinking a lot about this lately since I am dating a man who makes more than twice what I make. We plan to move in together next summer. He saw nothing of dropping $300 to buy his son a trampoline for his 5th birthday recently. He is thinking of dropping another $500 to buy him a little quad for Christmas. He is always sure to mention that my kids would get use out of these items too and that’s true but how do I compete with that? Will my kids, who are 14 & 10, start to notice the disparity? And what do I get for him for gifts? I live paycheck to paycheck, no savings account. His ex makes even more than he does so they were accustomed to nice things.
I hate that there is such a gap in income levels. What I do for a living is no less meaningful than what anyone else does but because it pays substantially less than other work I am stuck one disaster away from homelessness or having to figure out how to get my kids to school and me to work. There are many days now that I feel things just aren’t stacked up fairly…
LikeLike
I’d suggest a values-oriented approach to the question of class status, rather than the wealth-oriented approaches broached above. Class is about far more than where a family income falls on the percentile index, and, as has been suggested, middle class values and habits can be maintained and transmitted even when the income plummets or fluctuates.
Traditional middle class values, I’d suggest, include self-reliance, frugality, hard work, education, saving, modesty or inconspicuous consumption, and self-denial. On this rubric, hiring workers to clean one’s house or purchasing a new handbag (to pick on the two we’ve fetishized in this discussion) goes counter to a number of middle class values. It’s in this sense, as much as or more than the question of means, that I’ve seen you (or, again, what you’ve presented on the blog, realizing, of course, that there’s a lot you don’t share) move away from middle class, Laura.
LikeLike
Teresa,
It sounds like you don’t have any margin for error but are making the best of things. However, unless you are living in a really low-cost area and he’s a phenomenal budgeter and saver in other areas, I am actually a lot more concerned about your boyfriend. The stuff you mention doesn’t really sound proportionate to his income.
Sorry if I sound a little preachy, but I recently got religion with regard to finances, after years of me spending the money and my husband taking care of the bills. This sounds really dumb, but it’s only now dawned on me that our income (while nice) is limited, and that we need to have a financial plan for this month and for the next 30 years.
I really can’t recommend highly enough Dave Ramsey’s radio show and his book “The Total Money Makeover.” He’s really big on couples working on budgets and following a plan together. Blended families face a lot of difficulties, so it’s worthwhile figuring the financial side of things as early as you can.
LikeLike
Laura’s nonexistent Coach bag seems to be turning into an urban legend. I’m expecting it to turn up on Snopes any day now.
LikeLike
I think we’re having two different discussions here. One is what we would have to be to consider ourselves middle class. The other is how to define the middle class. I know I’m not middle class, personally, and that aspiring to call myself that would be (to use Laura’s term) assholish. But, I do want to define middle class for the purpose of using phrases like “middle-class tax cut”. Does middle class tax cut mean giving money to people who have the values of “frugality & self reliance”?
Are we playing a value judgment game? Is it good to be middle-class, as defined by Cates? Is it possible to be self-reliant & frugal while still being rich? Do we respect Bill Gates less because he drives a Porsche, an expense that is chump change for him?
I mean, if you make a million dollars a year and have five million in the bank, are you allowed to buy a Lexus, just ’cause you want to? Isn’t it just a matter of “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.” (except that we’d want our margin of error to be a bit better than that, re Wendy & Amy).
bj
LikeLike
The phrase “middle class” could never have as much importance as it does in our political life if it had a clear meaning.
It suspect it originally was supposed to include people who fall between the rich and the working class (depending on how you define that!) — what we might now call the upper middle class, the professional-managerial class, or in certain moods the petit bourgeoisie. It did not include people near the median in income — that was the working class.
But as standards of living for much of the working class rose from Roosevelt through Nixon, the term was redefined to include more and more of the increasingly well-off workers.
Now I tend to think that the middle class includes all of the non-rich people who aren’t either poor or one or two mishaps away from poverty. That’s less than 90 percent of the population but still a lot. And it does include the median.
By the way, we should use long-term earning potential rather than actual income in a given year. There is no great class fluctuation in growing up in a $75,000 a year household, earning $25,000 as a recent college graduate, and then earning $75,000 a decade or two later.
Here, however, is what some smarter people said on the subject a little while ago:
http://drummajorinstitute.org/library/report.php?ID=44
LikeLike
Rocky,
I think you’re basically right. One feels middle class as long as one isn’t seeking out charity or welfare. (Middle class goodies like state college subsidies and mortgage deductions aren’t felt as charity or welfare, so they don’t count.) It’s harder to define the upper end of the middle class. As someone was pointing out over at Megan McArdle’s blog, in Manhattan you’d need healthy six figures to be able to afford the lifestyle that comes dirt cheap to families outside the expensive coastal areas.
LikeLike
Amy P~
He and I still have a lot to learn about each other, hence waiting until next summer to move in together. He and his ex made approximately $140K between the two of them so they were accustomed to dinners out several times a week, bars for drinks whenever they wanted, nice clothes, etc. They’re mortgage payment was in the ballpark of $1700 a month but both of their vehicles were paid for. We definitely have some talking to do with regards to budgeting, he has mentioned several times needing to learn from me how I raise two kids on $30K a year.
Thanks for the website info. I have the book and workbook for Your Money Or Your Life; I have began the program many times but it is fairly time consuming so I gave up. Maybe this is something we can both do to see what comes of it.
I don’t want to hijack this post, I appreciate what you all have written. If anyone wants to e-mail me personally if you have faced a similar situation as I am in feel free to e-mail me at myersteresa240@yahoo.com. I welcome any advice. 🙂
LikeLike
I think that the income number, rather than expenses, should draw the lines between the classes. It’s neat and efficient.
It’s also easy. We can talk about middle income and all agree what the number is. But I don’t think most people mean income when they use the words “middle class.”
The trouble is that the lines are drawn differently in different parts of the country
I think that’s a fallacy. Location (where you live), which is captured as cost of living, is one of the things you choose to purchase with your income. If you could make a substantially similar income in a cheaper place, then the difference in your lifestyle (house size, cars, clothes, eating out, theater, nightlife, easy beach or mountain access, etc.) is what you receive as an unvalued bonus for living in the expensive place.
LikeLike
Kai,
You’re right for a lot of university professors, who make basically the same salary no matter how high or how low the cost of living. However, I suspect that that doesn’t hold in most other fields. Isn’t it usually true that high cost areas pay high salaries and have lots of jobs (like Washington DC), while low cost areas pay lower salaries and have few jobs (like Michigan)? (Florida is high cost and low wage, but given its housing situation, it is the exception that proves the rule.) One couldn’t realistically expect to go to Michigan and have the same career options as in Washington DC, even making allowances for cost of living.
LikeLike
Interesting discussion.
I’m interested in how many of us felt like we grew up in the “middle class” – I know I did. My dad was an officer in the military and my mom stayed home until we hit Jr. High.
I’m quite sure there wasn’t a lot of extra $$$, but we always had everything we needed and never felt anything was missing. It was a great childhood.
And now, from the looks of those income charts, many of us are beyond “middle class” (landing somewhere in the top 10% of income) but still FEEL very “middle class.”
To me, the “upper class” vacations in Europe each spring and drives fancy cars and goes to private boarding schools. We do none of the above. But according to the income charts, we are not middle class anymore.
Will our children look back and see a middle class upbringing? Or will they somehow turn into spoiled brats before our very eyes? My kids have so much more than I ever did, but so far have managed to avoid becoming brats.
we think.
LikeLike
If you can pay for someone else to live part of your life for you, you’re rich 🙂
LikeLike
I would like to pay someone to live 8th grade for me and then wipe it from my memory. Can I pay someone to do that for me? Cause that would be cool.
LikeLike
K’s remark on what Laura calls middle class markers is useful (‘To me, the “upper class” vacations in Europe each spring and drives fancy cars and goes to private boarding schools. We do none of the above. But according to the income charts, we are not middle class anymore.’) The distinction between middle income and middle class is being teased out here.
My grandfather and grandmother lived on the $141 a month he made as a teller at the local bank in rural Minnesota. That was a lot more money in 1920 than it is today, but they – when they spent a dollar, you could hear George Washington squeal. But they were middle class: they saved money out of their income, they had a reading group with their friends, both had gone to school after high school (she to a 4-year college, he to a year of commercial school). Thrift, sobriety, don’t-spend-your-capital, go to church, all that stuff. My wife’s family much the same.
My wife and I are not middle income, we’re securely in the top decile nationally. In the context of where we live (DC burbs) we are more likely just into the top quintile. But we have values and patterns very like those of our grandparents – we drive our cars til they wear out, we paid our mortgage in full as soon as we had the money to do it, we are squirrelling money away for retirement and for our kids’ college, we deny our kids many of the things they ask for on grounds that they are excessive. And – like K – we think ourselves middle class.
LikeLike
Jane Galt had a comment several years ago on her old blog that went something like this:
What the upper and lower classes know that the middle doesn’t, is that deferred gratification is no fun.
LikeLike
Amy: The way I think about class is about the choice field. Cost of living is captured in income level because it is one of the choices you can make with more income. You can choose to live somewhere on the same money by accepting a lower standard of living (discounting the part contributed by location, that is, and only counting material goods) and adding in the benefits of location brings your standard of living up to the class I would put you in.
So, even if you get a raise for moving to NYC or Washington DC because your employer acknowledges it costs more to live there, and even if, including that raise, you still have a smaller house and less disposable income than you would somewhere else, the benefits of the location of NYC or Washington DC are part of your class. You have a wider choice field that Jane Blow who lives in smalltown USA (even though she lives on far less income than you and has nicer things or a wilder vacation). You can go to the theater (on and off Broadway) and museums, you can sample the nightlife in the city that never sleeps. Or you can live in the seat of government, with access to powerful people, plus museums and everything that DC has.
By choosing the location you are “spending” part of your income (in the form of a higher cost of living) on that location.
LikeLike
Re: delayed gratification
That’s a good line, but it doesn’t explain why Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and Paris Hilton don’t look happier.
LikeLike
A few more thoughts on delayed gratification:
Delayed gratification when one is young isn’t much fun, but neither are being 55 and uninsured and having to save up for a hernia operation or being 80 and living at a cut-rate nursing home. Being very, very fat is no fun at all, and being paralyzed from the neck down after reckless driving also has its limitations. I also get the feeling that car repos, foreclosure, bankruptcy, pay day loans at 800% a year, and creditors calling you at home, at work, and your relatives and neighbors when they can’t reach you, are all real bummers.
I’m actually the poster girl for undelayed gratification. It was very jolly to go to Warsaw, Lublin, Krakow and Vienna with my husband as young marrieds, to help out friends in need, to have cleaning help, and to eat out a lot. Having no car and no house made all of these things doable, rather than utterly catastrophic, at least before we had kids. I don’t think I regret any these extravagances, except the so-so meals that I could have cooked better myself and which I am still carrying around. Oh, and we should have started retirement savings earlier.
LikeLike
I spent some time as an ambulance driver. Cut rate nursing homes are really grim. Good reason to save…
LikeLike
Rich is easy:
Gekko: The richest one percent of this country owns half our country’s wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It’s bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own. ~Wall Street
Kip
LikeLike
I would define middle class in terms of assets, not income.
If you have significant assets (financial, social, human capital), and rely on continuing to work, you are middle class.
Rich: enough assets that you don’t have to work if you don’t want to.
Poor: no or very few assets.
LikeLike
But what about retired people of modest means? You have to stick some sort of exception in for them.
LikeLike
The issue of middle-class markers is coming to play again in the attacks on Graeme Frost’s family by Michelle Malkin and Mark Steyn. That Graeme’s father has a nice-looking kitchen is being used as “proof” that his kids don’t need S-CHIP. The kids also attend private schools, and Frost’s property apparently has a high value. But obviously, those outward appearances aren’t enough to assess class status/income level/financial need.
LikeLike
The attacks are probably impervious to reason, but the reason, as I understand it, that the family has a really attractive kitchen is that the dad is a cabinet maker. If his own cabinets look shabby, who’s ever going to buy from him? The kids attend private schools — on significant scholarships. The neighborhood was not nearly as nice when they first moved in, and the value has appreciated as the neighborhood has improved
LikeLike
Given the crazed rehabbing of the past six years in the Baltimore area, I don’t buy that the Frosts had a combined income of 45-50K three years ago. I can believe that they are in real financial distress, given the housing slowdown, but people in homebuilding had at least five years in which they were practically printing money. Also, the details in the NYT wedding announcement suggest that while the Frosts themselves may be shabby genteel, just about all their relatives are loaded and/or socially prominent.
LikeLike
And this is a reason for saying they shouldn’t have health insurance?
LikeLike
I think it might just be a hold-over thing. 30 years ago much of the country was living in a way that, were it to happen today, would make them rich. (“A 4-bedroom single family in EVANSTON? With a stay-home mom????”) But back then, such behavior was typical of folks who were below the top decile.
What’s the relationship between the terms “blue/white collar” and “middle class”, in everyone’s opinion? Can you be blue collar and also middle class?
LikeLike
No, this is to suggest that if the parents had wanted to, they had the means to get health insurance, but chose not to.
The thing is, I know exactly where these people are coming from, since my parents are similarly self-employed, brought up a family with no health insurance, and are uninsured to this day. I know exactly what kind of hardworking, freewheeling, non-risk-averse person makes that very bad choice.
Also, now that I think of it, if they purchased a home in Baltimore for essentially nothing (which could easily have happened), how is it that we hear that health insurance would have cost $1200, even more than their mortgage. Why the heck would they have a sizeable mortgage? This probably indicates that even while times were good, they cannibalized their home equity.
LikeLike
Jen,
The NYT wedding announcement details suggest that the Frosts are the blue collar branch that sprouted on a white collar family tree.
LikeLike
I am not referring to the Frosts when I ask about blue/white collar. Just a general thing. Not sure why everyone is so focused on the Frosts, except perhaps to note that these middle-class “markers” turn quickly and nastily into the basis for judgement of others. Witness all the heat around a $40 purse from banana republic.
LikeLike
Jen,
Sure, you can be blue collar and middle class.
LikeLike
I think ‘middle class’ has a lot on common with ‘middle age’ – it stops somewhere above me, and the goal posts keep moving. When I was 20 my view was that middle age started around 30, and ‘old’ was somewhere around, well, 55. At 30, middle age started at 40 or so. At about 45 I began to acquiesce to the idea that middle age was near by, and ‘old’ started to move back.
You see spandex-wearing boomers in the papers proclaiming that 55 is the new 40, etc. And, yes, you see people well into the bottom and top income deciles who think themselves ‘middle class’, and people closer to a mean income who think that’s ridiculous.
Another interesting question would be WHY people from such a broad swathe of the income distribution think themselves middle class, my guess is that it’s partly egalitarianism and partly because in some important ways things don’t change that much between, say, 20th and 80th percentile – both families will scrimp to send kids to college, will own cars, will go someplace for vacation most years, and will watch television.
LikeLike
Hey! you have an answer! $97,000.
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2007/11/democrats-debat.html
Always good to get things settled…
LikeLike
George Will quotes economist Stephen Rose, says $30-100K
“…Economist Stephen Rose, defining the middle class as households with annual incomes between $30,000 and $100,000, says a smaller percentage of Americans are in that category than in 1979 — because the percentage of Americans earning more than $100,000 has doubled, from 12 to 24, while the percentage earning less than $30,000 is unchanged. “So,” Rose says, “the entire ‘decline’ of the middle class came from people moving up the income ladder.” Even as housing values declined in 2007, the net worth of households increased…”
LikeLike
Invaluable information , this is certainly both good reading for, have quite a few good key points, and I learn some new stuff as a result ! too, many thanks for sharing your information.
LikeLike
I was researching class markers and enjoyed this thread. I adore that the last post above this comment is Coach handbags spam.
LikeLike