S/O What is middle class?

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We are considered upper class and i sure don't feel like it LOL!!! We live in a modest home and drive Fords. My neighbors drive luxury cars and I don't mean BMW. We're talking Maserati and Bentley.

Umm Fords can be very pricey too. In-laws just picked up their custom built 2017 King Ranch F350 2 weeks ago. It was something like $80,000-$85,000. The truck they had before that was a 2015 F150 Platinum Edition custom as well I believe they spent around $65,000 on that one.

 

[MomToOne]

I am considered upper class, but I think a simple salary-based tool is misleading. I have no pension and so I have to put a ton of money into retirement on my own. Someone else with a lower salary, but a pension, might actually have more available money to spend than I do. If I remove the amount I dump into retirement each year, I drop down into middle class.

 

[MillauFr]

Having 60% of your net worth in your house isn't necessarily an issue.

I thought that having 60% of your net worth tied up in one asset significantly increases your risk??? Just because Seattle housing prices haven't taken a big drop in the last 45 years doesn't mean that they won't in the future. The economy here is highly dependent on global trade and exports. I would buy insurance on a crash in the housing market but I am not sure that anyone is selling such a product.

 

[tvguy]

I thought that having 60% of your net worth tied up in one asset significantly increases your risk??? Just because Seattle housing prices haven't taken a big drop in the last 45 years doesn't mean that they won't in the future. The economy here is highly dependent on global trade and exports. I would buy insurance on a crash in the housing market but I am not sure that anyone is selling such a product.

I've had my house 34 years, it has never been worth less than I paid for it. But I'm not in Seattle, so I can't speak to that city, or that state.
My parents had their house 53 years, same thing.

 

[KarenAylwood]

Upper class my A$$. There's no way. We'll only be able to afford a second in daycare when baby #2 comes in June if I get this job I just interviewed for...

I agree with havaneselover on these definitions. This only takes income into account. What if you had a 5 million dollar inheritance in savings/investments and made $30K per year? I'd think that would qualify you as upper class. In the past (meaning history) upper class often meant more of what your total wealth was rather than your income.

I think it'd be more reasonable to say "where do you land on income in your area?"

 

[mrsabbott]

Interesting. It says that we are middle class for our area, but I think that we are on the lower end of that middle class bracket.

 

[AnnaS]

Interesting indeed. Middle class here along with 48 % of the people in my area (NY). I think it sounds about right. There is so much to consider though about "feeling" like one is in a certain bracket - what is the expression checks and balances?

 

[Mrs. Ciz]

It says we are upper class for our area (in the top 24%), but I think we just squeaked into the upper class category. When I shared this news with DH he laughed! We sure don't feel like upper class.
Some months we live paycheck to paycheck and are scrambling to buy groceries the week before payday.
We drive old cars (mine - 15 years old, DH - 7 years old, kids - 7 years old).
We clean our own house and do our own yard work & home maintenance.
We also are digging our way our of some credit card debt we accumulated when the economy hit the skids. (DH is a 100% commissioned sales rep, which explains some of this.)

But...
When we sat down and really looked at what we have and what we spend our money on, we feel pretty fortunate.
I was able to be a SAHM for 7 years and then worked part time as a substitute teacher/preK aid until the kids (now 19 and 17) started high school.
We vacation 2x a year (Our vacation budget is small. We have a timeshare, mostly drive, and I hunt for deals, which helps).
Our house, while not in the ritziest area with the best schools, is in a safe area with ok schools, and it is large (2900 sq ft) and updated.
Our 2 kids went to parochial school for k-8 (more affordable Catholic school vs super expensive private school).
DS graduated from a Catholic all boys high school (He got major merit scholarships, so we only paid a total of 1 year tuition over the 4 years).
We belong to a low end country club (not one of the super ritzy ones, but a country club none the less. We use it for the pool, work out facilities & golf).
We are both funding our retirement.
We are able to pay for 2 kids' in state college expenses with no loans using Prepaid 529 Tuition Plans, savings and monthly income.

All in all, we are very careful with our money and have stuck to a tight budget over the years to make sure we can fund the things that are important to us (family time, retirement, education).

The words "careful with our money" and "tight budget" don't seem "upper class" to me though.

 

[Dakota731]

We come out right in the middle of middle class and friends though family have always called us upper class. I think a lot depends on how you handle your money. My husband has co-workers who make the same money he makes yet are always in financial trouble. We both went to community colleges and worked out way through, so we have no student loans, we don't buy new cars constantly, we don't take expensive vacations or spend beyond our means. We never have had credit card debt and have always been frugal and put money away for retirement even when it hurt.
I do think we should worry less about what our neighbors make - there will always be someone who makes more and always someone who makes less. Comparing creates envy and resentment when you have no idea of someone else's situation. Even the poorest of the poor in this country have self phones and computers so we should all just be grateful and stop obsessing if someone else stays in a deluxe hotel or takes a longer Disney trip than us.

 

[supersnoop]

The problem with comparing your situation to others is that you only notice the folks who are living better than you. You might not feel like "upper-middle," but that's only because so many people live beyond their means. And reality television has distorted our view of how the "wealthy" really live. If you're comparing yourself to the top 0.05%, you'll always feel poor.

 

[MillauFr]

The problem with comparing your situation to others is that you only notice the folks who are living better than you. You might not feel like "upper-middle," but that's only because so many people live beyond their means. And reality television has distorted our view of how the "wealthy" really live. If you're comparing yourself to the top 0.05%, you'll always feel poor.

Agreed. The vast majority of us on these boards are living far better than the average person on the planet.

 

[AquaDame]

The problem with comparing your situation to others is that you only notice the folks who are living better than you. You might not feel like "upper-middle," but that's only because so many people live beyond their means. And reality television has distorted our view of how the "wealthy" really live. If you're comparing yourself to the top 0.05%, you'll always feel poor.

Agreed.. I feel like a lot of people on these boards can't live a "rich" lifestyle so are antsy about using the word "upper". We have a tiny household (just my husband and I) so of course it says we are upper for our area.

 

[havaneselover]

Agreed.. I feel like a lot of people on these boards can't live a "rich" lifestyle so are antsy about using the word "upper". We have a tiny household (just my husband and I) so of course it says we are upper for our area.

I also think upper has a connotation that some aren't comfortable with. I grew up in a very well off family but my parents were self-made, humble midwesterners (stuck in the suburbs of NYC). My brother interviewed my dad for a high school project and my dad said we were upper middle class. He would never have called us upper class even though his income was in the top 1% of the country.

 

[havaneselover]

Another thing I'll add is when they poll people about which class they are in, only 1-2% say the upper class. So there is clearly a large gap between Pew's methodology and common usage of the terms.

 

[angierae]

Everyone thinks they're middle class, regardless of where they actually fall.

 

[ellie05]

I think there is different picture to consider. In this board we have people from all over the country and the world and also many different ages and stages of life. We all come from different backgrounds and therefore our view or upper or middle class is different.

What a middle class family could afford in the 60's is not what we can afford today. College expenses have gone way up therefore more people have to carry loans. For us millennials the middle class that was for generations before looks different. Also retirement and what employers offer have change drastically. For example my MIL works for a big corporation she has for the past 30 years her retirement package is incredible yet for the people coming in that is not even an option not even a quarter of what was offer. Some people might not feel as upper class (which in the case of page provided here I feel upper just means upper middle class) but in comparison to the rest they probably are. There is also ranges in each category.

According to the webpage we are in the upper income that to me doesn't mean upper class that to me means upper middle class as I think probably less than 10% of the country would actually be consider upper class. For me upper class would mean well off not have to worry about money at all. Upper middle class still budget but have enough and a little extra. Middle class can live comfortably, budget and probably have some savings but I think a large percentage of the middle class now live paycheck to paycheck.

 

[dclpluto]

Agreed. The vast majority of us on these boards are living far better than the average person on the planet.

I sure hope so. A while ago I heard that half the world that works doesn't even make a dollar a day.

71 percent of the worlds population lives on 10 dollars or less a day

If you make 34k or more a year you are consider the global elite top 1 percent in the world

 

[MillauFr]

Everyone thinks they're middle class, regardless of where they actually fall.

Agreed. The term is really meaningless since the definition varies so much.

 

[havaneselover]

Everyone thinks they're middle class, regardless of where they actually fall.

Not according to Gallup. Lots of people think they are working or lower class.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/182918/fewer-americans-identify-middle-class-recent-years.aspx

 

[crisi]

It's not about a statistical distribution to me--it's about how the term has been used historically. I guess what this calculator calls upper class I mainly consider upper middle class.

I tend to agree with this. There is a better breakdown on class that divides out wealth, professional class, middle class, working class and poor - or something along those lines (with even more divisions) - but my Google Fu is weak at the moment.

There is also a change that creates debate among sociologists. If you have one person making $65k a year (lets say a teacher with a master's degree and years of experience), that's pretty middle class. But does two teachers making that in the same household suddenly make that household an upper class household? If you have two people making $20k a year - each person individually has a poverty level income - but together, do they become middle class - even if they are working two part time jobs each at $10 an hour to get there?

When we think of upper class, we think of people who can quit their jobs (if they have one) and maintain a very nice standard of living. You aren't doing that on $200k a year. $200k a year is the Professional Class - or the Ownership Class (tradesmen who own businesses, for instance) - they still need to work for a living, but they can afford luxuries in their life.