What do you define as "middle class"?

[TheSlamma]

One thing I notice is that many people today have inherited considerable wealth. My siblings and I just inherited our father's estate. Twenty years before, he and my mother inherited money from the estates of their parents. None of these people were rich, but the wealth accumulates. I have no children that will inherit anything, but I can assure you that my sister's kids will be _very_ well off in the future.

Yeah I do know that is going on too. You are lucky, my parents and all their siblings were all broke their entire lives. When my papa dies all he'll leave us is alone.

 

[Ken g6]

The median is also the 50 percentile - meaning that 50% of the population makes less than the median value. You can get more specific knowledge of incomes by looking at other percentiles. Wikipedia provides one such table.

• 2011 Household income
• 20%ile 20,262
• 50%ile 50,054
• 80%ile 101,582
• 95%ile 186,000

:thumbsup:

A little further down there's income statistics from 2005 which say that anyone making $350,000+ per year is a 1%er. A 1%er is not middle-class.

This guy is making over 800,000/year on average.

 

[Hugo Drax]

I don't think there are many people who would buy a house and then get a six-year-old super-economy car. There are only four cars for sale in America today that cost less than $14,000 new (I've included the Smart Fortwo, which is actually a hair over). The average new car price is over $30,000, which would get you something comparable to the average sedans of the 1960s. So you're a bit off in your estimation of new car prices. Now if you mean $12-14k as the used price, then I think you're on the right track (although there are an awful lot of people who overspend on cars so they can have something new).

In 1960 a new car cost about 12-14K (todays dollar, inflation adjusted)there was quite a few to pick. And people kept them for at least 6 years.


There are lots of Used cars you can buy today for 12-14K, and plenty in the 6-8K range as well (Corollas etc..)

 

[TheAdvocate]

Yahoo is jumping in on this topic:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/university-michigan-student-insists-earning-183000778.html

While her assertions of middle class-dom clearly rub a lot of people the wrong way, US News & World Report points out, "there is no universally accepted definition of middle class." Their best guess is that the American middle class earns somewhere between $25,500 and $76,500, based on the 2012 median household income of $51,017. The mayor of New York City has declared the city's middle class to earn $47,040-$97,020 for a single person and $67,000-$138,000 for a family of four.

Yep. Sounds about right.

It would probably devolve into P&N idiocy, but I was surprised no one commented on this particular graph:

There is the an excellent example of why people say the middle class is disappearing - here is a root cause. Again, hard data, not opinion.

 

[jlee]

Lots of people make $1 mil and only have $50k/yr in expenses. Its not how much you make, its how much you save.

Absolutely - but if the guy in the OP is claiming he is middle class with a $1mil income, I guarantee he's not spending only 50k/yr.

 

[brianmanahan]

One thing I notice is that many people today have inherited considerable wealth. My siblings and I just inherited our father's estate. Twenty years before, he and my mother inherited money from the estates of their parents. None of these people were rich, but the wealth accumulates. I have no children that will inherit anything, but I can assure you that my sister's kids will be _very_ well off in the future.

yep, one of my goals is to leave my nieces and nephews and their kids millions when i die

 

[ninaholic37]

The new middle class is people who make $10 an hour.

:thumbsup:

and only work part-time

 

[AMCRambler]

There is no such thing as middle class. It is an contruct dreamed up by the working class to give them something to strive towards.

You are either born upper class or marry into it, everyone else is working class.

Edit.

After reading the whole thread I now see that what you (Americans) call upper class is a lot different to what we (Brits) call upper class.

Here that's called having family money(aka you're rich because your father's rich) and inbreeding.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

yep, one of my goals is to leave my nieces and nephews and their kids millions when i die

I'll never understand this mentality. You live life once and only once. I hope my wife and I travel and are able to see everything we want to see in the world and enjoy life to the fullest before we die penniless, with nothing to pass on to other relatives. :awe:

 

[CZroe]

For me, middle class is anyone who could afford a mortgage, vehicle, and normal family expenses.

 

[xeemzor]

I'll never understand this mentality. You live life once and only once. I hope my wife and I travel and are able to see everything we want to see in the world and enjoy life to the fullest before we die penniless, with nothing to pass on to other relatives. :awe:

Economists say that your life goal should be to maximize consumption, not savings.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

I'll never understand this mentality. You live life once and only once. I hope my wife and I travel and are able to see everything we want to see in the world and enjoy life to the fullest before we die penniless, with nothing to pass on to other relatives. :awe:

Problem is simple. How do you balance how fast you spend your money versus how long you think you're going to live?

What if you end up being a centenarian but spent your retirement savings at 80?

 

[purbeast0]

I'll never understand this mentality. You live life once and only once. I hope my wife and I travel and are able to see everything we want to see in the world and enjoy life to the fullest before we die penniless, with nothing to pass on to other relatives. :awe:

unless one of my mobile apps goes viral and becomes hugely successful, or i come up with some genius idea that no one has thought about, i doubt my wife and i will ever be able to do EVERYTHING that we want to do as far as traveling. there are just too many sites to see and not enough time/money.

 

[jlee]

unless one of my mobile apps goes viral and becomes hugely successful, or i come up with some genius idea that no one has thought about, i doubt my wife and i will ever be able to do EVERYTHING that we want to do as far as traveling. there are just too many sites to see and not enough time/money.

Depending how you do it, travel can be cheaper than living in the States. Cookie & I spent a week in Baja for ~$150 USD plus gas.

 

[purbeast0]

Depending how you do it, travel can be cheaper than living in the States. Cookie & I spent a week in Baja for ~$150 USD plus gas.

i can't even get to many places i want to go for 10% of what you spent that week.

 

[jlee]

i can't even get to many places i want to go for 10% of what you spent that week.

I believe that. $15 doesn't go far these days. :awe:

Seriously though, long term travel is generally lot cheaper than short term travel. Unless you're staying in resorts/etc, the bulk of the travel cost is the flight, no?

 

[brianmanahan]

I'll never understand this mentality. You live life once and only once. I hope my wife and I travel and are able to see everything we want to see in the world and enjoy life to the fullest before we die penniless, with nothing to pass on to other relatives. :awe:

oh i definitely want to travel the world as well... leaving millions to my family is just a stretch goal :awe:

in order to greatly exceed expectations, i need to get a building named after myself

 

[moonbogg]

That's not even the 1%. Having enough money to never work and live solely off investment income is in the domain of ultra high net worth households, of which there are about 100,000 worldwide. So, you know, the middle class and rich is ~100,000 or so people, and the poors are 7,296,000,000. Because that's what "middle" means, apparently.

Never share an apple with Carson, moonbogg or Slew. If you ask them to cut it down the middle, they'll hand you back a strip of peel.

I understand why you say this. We are using different methods to identify what class someone is in. It seems like you are doing what most do by using averages with regard to population and income. I do no such thing.
Instead, I take an average lifestyle, which is between the worst lifestyle and the best lifestyle. That's really what people care about anyway. If you are suffering and poor, you don't care if you are doing better than 60% of other people. You are still suffering and poor. That's not a middle class existence. That's a statistical average with regard to income numbers and it means nothing with regard to quality of life.

You have very few people in this world who are free. Very few who have the one thing we all actually care about, and that thing is time combined with ability to do what you want. If you make 200k per year and you work 60 hours doing some genius IT work somewhere, you don't have either of those things anymore than the guy packing meat at the local market does.

To give an example, the middle class of north korea is probably nothing to strive for. No one lives well in north korea except for the few in charge. You have freedom, and then you have what is practically slavery. If you take a qualitative average between those two, you find no one that matches that description. If you take a qualitative average between America's best lifestyle and worst, you find very very few who are privileged enough to live a real mediocre existence. 99% of us don't get to ever know what its really like to be middle class.

 

[brianmanahan]

I believe that. $15 doesn't go far these days. :awe:

LOL!

 

[purbeast0]

I believe that. $15 doesn't go far these days. :awe:

Seriously though, long term travel is generally lot cheaper than short term travel. Unless you're staying in resorts/etc, the bulk of the travel cost is the flight, no?

it can be.

but i don't like going on vacations and worrying about money. i don't want to go halfway around the world only to have to be a penny pincher and not worry about what i can and can't do due to not having the funds. when my wife and i go on vacation we splurge and do whatever we want to do, because who knows when/if we will ever be back.

 

[jlee]

it can be.

but i don't like going on vacations and worrying about money. i don't want to go halfway around the world only to have to be a penny pincher and not worry about what i can and can't do due to not having the funds. when my wife and i go on vacation we splurge and do whatever we want to do, because who knows when/if we will ever be back.

It's all in what you want to do. Are you in it for the travel/experience, or for tours/resorts, or etc.

 

[purbeast0]

It's all in what you want to do. Are you in it for the travel/experience, or for tours/resorts, or etc.

both. as i said, i don't want to be limited by what i can do somewhere due to money.

staying in an overwater bungalo in the french polynesia is on my bucket list. those are like $500-$600/night. the flight there is like $2k/person. just getting there and getting a room is going to be ridiculous. and everything is going to be expensive as balls over there too. there's simply no way to even do a budget trip there.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Problem is simple. How do you balance how fast you spend your money versus how long you think you're going to live?

What if you end up being a centenarian but spent your retirement savings at 80?

You obviously can't tell when you're going to croak, but you guys are missing the point I'm making. Setting a specific goal of leaving millions of dollars for kids/nieces/nephews is not the goal to have IMO.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

unless one of my mobile apps goes viral and becomes hugely successful, or i come up with some genius idea that no one has thought about, i doubt my wife and i will ever be able to do EVERYTHING that we want to do as far as traveling. there are just too many sites to see and not enough time/money.

Time is the big problem for me. I just don't have the time necessary to do it at least right now. Going on huge vacations for 2-4 weeks per year isn't hacking it.

 

[moonbogg]

Time is the big problem for me. I just don't have the time necessary to do it at least right now. Going on huge vacations for 2-4 weeks per year isn't hacking it.

Of course it isn't. What kind of life is that anyway? Freedom for 2-4 weeks per year? Does that sound like a good deal to you? What the fuck happened and who sold us this shit? That's not middle class bro. Sorry to tell you. If you ask someone what class they would be if they only had 4 weeks of freedom per year, they would tell you the fucking slave class, regardless of income.
Imagine your best vacation ever that lasted 4 weeks. Now imagine your whole life being like that all the time, but better and you are guaranteed that your kids will have the same life as you. That's upper class.