What Does it Mean to be Middle Class in the US?

[blithe spirit]

We hear a lot about our eroding middle class...we can all think of examples and anecdotes and may have an idea of we used to be able to afford but now we can't...or things we think we ought to be able to afford but maybe we can't.

Do you have a number in terms of income that could be considered middle class?

Heres a place to start a conversation about it if your interested...
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/02/15/politics-counts-who-is-mid...

Or share something else if you wish..but what do you think being middle class means to you? Cause for sure it's been taken to mean lots of different stuff depending on politics and where you live.

[Wayne Goodwin]

I haven't a clue . I've always considered myself in the lower class of making money , living . To me , some one making 30 thousand a year is hi class . Can't comprehend the life of luxury making those incomes . Good post ...

[Wayne Goodwin]

Born poor Die poor !

[frenchy]

well its not an easy question to answer cause from state to state the cost of livin is different .. i think that has to be established first and then go from there .. if the median price of a home in your county or city is 200k then start from there . some places it will be higher and some places less .. but my opinion ( and this is just an opinion now mind you i'm certainly no expert on this subject ) is that if you can pay your mortgage , and all your other bills includin a car payment and still be able to save at least 500 dollars a month ( and this is after you can still afford to go out to a movie and dinner once a month and maybe a weekend getaway a few times a year and a nice vacation too ) then i'd say you're middle class .. again the house you live in and the car you drive will make or break you so livin within your means is important.. you can't drink beer and piss champagne .. but then again you can't drink champagne and cry that you're broke if its 300 dollars a bottle either ..   

[blithe spirit]

According to the article I linked... a definition researchers often use for the middle class, is the middle 60% of households in an area,(they used county as an area).

In some of the wealthiest counties in the country – primary urban and suburban places – the middle 60% is impossibly large. In New York County (Manhattan) the bottom end of that middle class group is $20,171 and the top end is $171,942. That’s a range of $151,000. In Fairfax, Va., (suburban Washington), the bottom of the middle class would be $52,184, but the top would be $194,716. That’s a range of $142,000.

The article also referenced a map and a chart using this formula and it shows how wide the gaps are and confusing when trying to tweek policies to help the middle class....which middle class?

[crestofwaves]

I don't think you can pinpoint the middle class just with money.  It's about values, too.

I watched a documentary about 1964 and the "middle class" was thriving.  People like my father and my uncles and my mother and her friends made up what we call the middle class.  Most of the friends I hung around with in  my first marriage--middle class.  Plant managers, factory workers, printers, Ford car plant workers--people without college who had jobs that made enough to buy houses, have cars, have a little family vacation, send a kid to college, etc. 

I think today's "middle class" is made up of mostly public workers, Police,firemen, teachers, DPW, people who work in the offices of agencies.  The range you poste, Blithe, seems about right.  The high end, $194,000 for a household seems just about right, too;the high end can do little investing as well as the other things I mentioned.

[Wayne Goodwin]

Do you feel you are in the upper middle class ?

[blithe spirit]

I did some more searching and I discovered the Census Bureau is the source for much of the basic numbers used in many stats for income and home prices and are split by area (county)

So I looked up the info for my County: all median numbers
Income: $43,606 compared to $47,309 in FL
House: $120,000 compared to $170,800 in FL
Seems reasonable in my experience, and our poverty level is 15.5 % of the population.
My income is in the median so is my mortgage.
I can pay my mortage: No car payment...I save more then $500 a month...I eat out sometime, seldom do a movie..I go places but not weekend getaways...I do vacation during the Summer.
If I didn't have health care through my work or have a partially funded retirement, I wouldn't be able to have savings at all or save for a rainy day. I have no kids and I'm single. If I had a monthly car payment I wouldn't be able save for retirement or would have give up vacations. It is about choices and sometimes hard to make.
My state government decided they longer should totally fund my retirement so now I have to contribute to it, about $600 a month. My income taxes increased about $700 a yr last year. This year I no longer will be able to get a tax credit for teacher expenses. I haven't had a pay raise in over four years.
Just my opinion but the tea party faction of the republican party has not done me any favors.
Interesting excercise...and politics have a lot to do with how the middle class will do going forward. I ask myself which party will do more to do to help.

[crestofwaves]

Teaching in NJ is quite different--or has been for lots of years.  Christie increased how much we paid into retirement--my last two years teaching I made $250 less a paycheck.  But raises, whoeee, we got raises. One time my pay jumped so much I thought someone had made a mistake. And that's why my boss, also a friend so he knew I wouldn't turn him in for agism, kept asking me, "SO how much longer do you think you are going to be working?"  I made over $100,000 a year the last couple of years I taught, and that didn't include my stipend as newspaper advisor. And we also have my husband's salary--less--but we also have FOUR kids and we have helped them a lot.   

If I didn't have to contribute $500 a month to my daughter's health insurance, I could save money as well.  Horizon wrote her and told her she wouldn't be cancelled until July.  Until we find out if she can keep her current doctors( she has lots and lots of issues), I am still helping her with insurance, but then, ACA can take over. She just finally got diagnosed correctly after years and years.

My pension is small because I only worked in public school for 13 years, but since I was at the top of the pay scale,  It and SS make retirement possible.  I'm just used to seeing a LOT more in my checking account at the end of each month.  My adjustment is psychological.

[dwalt]

I have been very fortunate.  I have also made good choices with money and work my rear off.  I'm not a shopper and both my cars are paid for.  That being said I see people with gadgets and wearing clothes that cost out the kazoo and aren't even woking.  How the hell do they do it??

[grammyk]

i suspect they do it with heavy use of credit cards.  I work with people like that.  I can't answer for people who aren't working - probably a hidden source of income of some kind.

[blithe spirit]

After looking at these numbers and stats...It's hard to imagine having a couple of kids and loosing one income...you go from middle to low income poof.. Also not hard to think they would have to rely on SNAP and food banks...and the house payments and car payments and cell phones and yes even those wasteful tattoos don't just disappear...but I bet any savings do quickly...and pray nobody gets sick if the one who lost the job was the one with health insurance. Folks can do all the right things and make good choices and circumstances can change in a flash...illness...car accident..job loss etc. and things start spiraling downward.
Is that what our safety net is for or is it no longer our responsibility as a society to try to help folks down on their luck because we feel we are being snookered so we take it away from all in case some are ripping us off...I dunno...and what about corporations...is it still our responsibility to prop them up too... providing tax incentives and not even having to pay any tax at all. Does anyone feel like we are being snookered by corporations that are too big to fail? Maybe take it away from them too cause we really know some of them have been ripping us off.
The government policy decisions and how our taxes are spent have a big impact in a real way on each of us. There are some real differences between the how politics are changing how we live...

[grammyk]

I definitely think we are being ripped off by the big corporations - and our politicians that they buy.  There's no reason we should have to give them tax incentives and they should definitely be paying taxes.  For that matter, investment income should be taxed the same as income from work.  

It really makes me angry that politicians think that anybody making use of the safety net is a "taker".  You're right that circumstances can change things so quickly, that you can do all the "right" things and still find yourself in need of help.  People born into wealth will continue to be wealthy; it's very hard if not impossible anymore for most of the rest of us to "move up", particularly those at the lower end of the economic scale.