Do you consider a family that makes >$100,000 wealthy?

[meowser]

For me, when I hear "wealth" I think net worth. Not salary. I know a guy who is making something in the $50,000 range and I'm pretty sure he's wealthy. And that wealth has nothing to do with his job or salary.

 

[pryncess527]

Even in NYC, the median household income is only $50,000. Despite the high cost of living, wages are not always substantially higher and many struggle to make ends meet. Project NYC has a really interesting graph of the incomes by neighborhood -- http://project.wnyc.org/median-income-nabes/

I was about to say that it really depends on your prospective on weath. Because there are places where having the luxury of not in any way worrying about food, shelter, clean water, etc make us wealthy. By that definition must of the US (and I would assume UK and many other countries too) lower class is wealthy.

I respectfully disagree that "most of the US lower class" has the luxury of not in any way worrying about food, shelter, reliable transportation, etc.
I know people who consider themselves middle class who struggle with some of those concerns.

 

[tvguy]

Income does not equal wealth.

And a low income doesn't mean you are living paycheck to paycheck. Janitor at the first company I worked for never made much more than minimum wage, and his wife never worked. He gobbled up any overtime he could get, and would do odd jobs like clean out the gutters at co-workers homes for extra cash. He did everything himself. Built his house, adding on as he had the money for more materials.. Did his own car repairs including overhauling the engine in his 1958 Chevy Pickup, that he bought new and paid cash for. He is still driving it. He grew vegetables in his back yard, and his wife canned the surplus so they never had to buy produce at the store.

You don't need a lot of money.

 

[Nennie]

Where I live, each spouse makes around $100K each, and people still aren't wealthy. They have nice homes and take nice vacations, but many live paycheck to paycheck, just like those who make much less! Bigger paycheck equals bigger bills!

 

[NotUrsula]

I've seen this expressed over and over on this thread and I just can't wrap my head around it. Are you really saying we've reached a point where the bottom 80% of the income distribution is something below middle class?

No, not saying that at all. "Middle class" in the US is a big range, and one that varies widely due to COL in different locations. I'm saying that an annual income of $100K is pretty much solidly middle class in any of them. Maybe not upper-middle in somewhere like Queens, and definitely not lower-middle in Little Rock, but it falls in that range. (And of course, the size of your household matters as well.)

I live in Missouri, as does Gumbo. In some areas here you can have a household income of $35K and still be solidly middle-class, provided your family is small, your home is paid-for and you don't have expensive tastes. The median household income where I now live is $32.7K... I'm in the top 5% here, but I'm at the bottom of it. Does that make me well-off? Yeah, probably. Does it make me wealthy? Hardly. When you look at the metro area instead of the city limits, I drop down into the top 25%, and that's what matters. Other than the cost of my home itself, all of my expenses are regionally priced. I'm not poor by any means (and I know, because I used to be poor; really poor), but I'm also not wealthy except by comparison to the poorest around me.

I agree with PrincessDaddy; in MOST of the US, $100K is unlikely to be enough to use to generate significant assets while still paying ordinary expenses, unless you have a unusual financial advantages to give you a leg-up, such as perhaps inheriting your home free and clear, or being an early beneficiary of a life-insurance policy.

Absolutely, if you are looking at global income numbers, probably 85% of Americans would qualify as wealthy. However, you can't put a roof over your head here on a family income of $3US/day, whereas in rural Bangladesh, you can, and manage to eat, too (not well, just vegetables and rice, but you can fill your children's bellies.) The definition of relative wealth differs geographically because the definition of poverty does as well.

If you are in the top 1% somewhere in the US where a sizeable chunk of the population is below the Federal poverty limit, you are still most likely not wealthy by US standards. Take the town where I grew up, for instance. According the the latest numbers, the median household income there is $20,165. (Not per-capita; household, and the average household size is 3.) The number of households classed as below the poverty line is 41.5%. The median home value is $75K. I know for a solid fact that there are 3 families in the area with assets that would make them truly wealthy, as in multiple millions, all of them own oil-rich land. There are 4300 households in that town, and I'd guess that today, perhaps 800 of them might break $100K in income. (And FTR, no civil servant makes anything close to that. School and police salaries both top out under $50K. The fire chief is probably the highest-paid city employee; he makes $62K.) Still, when you break out the income of the highest 1%, there is going to be a huge range there, all the way from about $160K to somewhere upward of $15M.

 

[Skippy918]

I would also consider wealthy when one does not need to work in order to make ends meet, take vacations, etc. I currently work with someone who works for fun.

 

[Disneychick75]

We live in an area where cost of living is on the lower end and $100,000 is not wealthy. It's upper middle class.

 

[ShirikiUtundu]

I don't understand who else we would compare things to? There are no people on other planets. And as I said, even if you limit your comparison to people in the US (not sure why you would do that, but ok...), even then, someone who can easily meet all of their needs every day is wealthy compared to the majority of people in the country.

Because the OP is referring to places in the US, not outside of it.
The reality is that wealth has little to do with income, and wealth definitely cannot be judged by income only.

 

[Christine]

Because the OP is referring to places in the US, not outside of it.
The reality is that wealth has little to do with income, and wealth definitely cannot be judged by income only.

To be fair, the OP did not put it in a "U.S." context when she made her first post. I think we all assumed.

Secondly, the OP said "MAKING >$100,000" which, to me, means earning it. So she has asked us to judge wealth based on income.

 

[Christine]

duplicate post

 

[ShirikiUtundu]

OP talks about regional dependency, NY, and Arkansas and a family norm of 2A2C. So that means US as far as I can tell, no assumptions necessary.
Yes I understand what the OP was asking. That's why I answered the poll "no" and gave my opinion.

 

[Art 1]

Well, Josh Smith just stated that it was going to be hard on his family this year as his salary for 2015 fell to $6.9 million.

And Latrell Spreewell, he turned down $27 million over three years, said he couldn't feed his family on that and soon they would be in a Sally Struthers commercial. I know he has a lot of children but one would think he could feed them on that. Spree burned through $100 million, now he is broke.

So $100,000 a year, I guess they'd starve to death.

 

[Colleen27]

To be fair, the OP did not put it in a "U.S." context when she made her first post. I think we all assumed.

Secondly, the OP said "MAKING >$100,000" which, to me, means earning it. So she has asked us to judge wealth based on income.

We all made several assumptions - focusing in on 100K rather than the vast range encompassed by "greater than", the US as the location/context, and the nature of the income as being from employment.

And among those assumptions... We all went to earnings from work, but an annual income of 100K could also be investment returns, rental incomes, business proceeds, etc. that are derived from significant assets rather than from selling one's time for a wage. So in that sense someone with a 100K income could be wealthy.

 

[Art 1]

We all made several assumptions - focusing in on 100K rather than the vast range encompassed by "greater than", the US as the location/context, and the nature of the income as being from employment.

And among those assumptions... We all went to earnings from work, but an annual income of 100K could also be investment returns, rental incomes, business proceeds, etc. that are derived from significant assets rather than from selling one's time for a wage. So in that sense someone with a 100K income could be wealthy.

Very true.

 

[Colleen27]

No, not saying that at all. "Middle class" in the US is a big range, and one that varies widely due to COL in different locations. I'm saying that an annual income of $100K is pretty much solidly middle class in any of them. Maybe not upper-middle in somewhere like Queens, and definitely not lower-middle in Little Rock, but it falls in that range. (And of course, the size of your household matters as well.)

That I totally agree with. What threw me were the comments about 100K being "barely" or "the extreme low end of" middle class. That's just such a bleak thought to me, knowing how few households actually make six figures even with two incomes.

 

[mnrose]

For me, when I hear "wealth" I think net worth. Not salary. I know a guy who is making something in the $50,000 range and I'm pretty sure he's wealthy. And that wealth has nothing to do with his job or salary.

And, that's the point. Wealth has to do with ASSETS and NET WORTH, not income. There tends to be a correlation, of course, but not always. A better question might be at what NET WORTH one considers someone wealthy. It used to be a million bucks, but millionaires in net worth are a dime a dozen and a million bucks doesn't go as far as it used to. I think "net worth" (assets minus all debt) of something north of $5 million is probably getting close to "wealthy."

 

[bdcp]

Hardly, but as others have said, wealth is not dependent on income. There have been people who made minimal salaries, but put a lot away and left millions when they died.

Where we live 100K salary is very common and many households make double that, if not more. You can't even buy a condo here for 100K. The average household income in my county is over 100K. Both my DS (29 and 31) are closer to 100K than they are to 50K salaries and youngest DS and DDIL's household income is just over it. But, it's all related to COL. Even a small single family home in our area is over 400K. Everything is relative, especially COL and those that think just anyone who makes 100K is wealthy doesn't understand why that's not so in most cases.

 

[nugov2]

What would you think "Middle Class" is in your area?

I would say $150,000+ is middle class near me.

This is probably accurate around here too. We are solid middle class we are a one income home which is about 50/50 around here, but we live quite comfortably. We do not vacation 3 times a year lavishly while doing major home improvements like many we know can do with 2 incomes. If I worked I'd consider us upper middle class based on what I could earn. Around here the average income is 120,000 and the average home cost is 330,000. Our taxes are what kill us coming in around 1,000 a month.

 

[palavra]

I definitely consider a family that makes over $100,000 to be wealthy in my area. I do not live in a high cost of living area, but it isn't cheap either. The median income in my county is $45,000 for a family, so a family making over $100,000 is making more than twice the median income.

 

[kydisneyfans]

We make a bit over that, 1 kid, low housing costs, in central Kentucky.I can assure you we do not live like kings. Most days I feel like we are poorer than when we only made $25k total. Granted, back then we were college students, no kid, rent was cheaper, no student loans or car loan to pay on. And we never vacationed.

I'm not complaining about our life now at all. We have some expensive fun and we eat a lot better these days, but I would not say we live like kings.

We are in the same boat. Central KY is our home, 1 child, and make just over 100K. Comfortable is the word. It's enough to give a few dollars here and there to others that need it. It gives us the vacation we want, but in no way would I consider it wealthy. It just means we pay more of our income in tax, which in KY is way too high to begin with.