I knew that we would be over the middle class cut off for where we live, thanks to going back to 2 incomes this year. The past few years while DH was in school, my income kept us firmly middle class, which isn't as high here as it is in a lot of other places.
FWIW, the county I grew up in lists middle class as $27,568—$48,083. I think those numbers do a lot to shape how I feel about the amount of money we make now, even though it is not as much as a lot of other people make.
No, I'm not middle class. Though I'm not surprised given the county I live in. What does surprise me is looking up the richest counties in the country and still not being middle class. That shocks me and is an eye opener.
Look, if you're divorcing the socio from the economic than many of you, many of MM are still not middle class.
DEAL WITH IT!
Per MM, if you are not a Kennedy then you are not upper class.
Haha, I'm one of the people who said something like this. I used the Kennedys as an example because they're so famous that we all know about them. But there are a lot of fancy boarding schools out there - places like Andover or St. Paul's etc. or expensive private schools in big cities that are full of people who are not well known to the public. They're the people I was referring to as being what I typically think of as "upper class." I'm hesitant to wade back into this subject because it is so touchy that it's hard to talk about without ruffling feathers. But what I was trying (and apparently failing lol) to convey is the idea that saying you're "upper class" implies something about your background that may not necessarily be true: that you went to private school (or a "good" public school) and sleep away camp, you took riding, tennis, skating, skiing, or sailing lessons (in other words, you did the more expensive extracurriculars that involve more than a ball and maybe shin guards), your parents took you on vacations and possibly even international ones, you went out to dinner a lot. You were exposed to more of the world than less well off people typically are. You were probably taught to speak a foreign language and play a musical instrument. You likely studied abroad in college and went to a top 20 "name" school. Your parents have social capital. They knew what you had to do to apply and gain admittance to a good college. Your parents read and talked to you about political events. They tried to teach you about art and culture. And even if these things are not true of you (the general you)specifically, they were opportunities available to you that you might not have taken up out of interest. But they were options. Do you see what I'm trying to say?
Post by iammalcolmx on Sept 16, 2014 9:54:30 GMT -5
OK I will be serious. Yes, in our area we are currently a bit more than Middle Class. My Mom is Upper Middle Class, which is why I have NO ISSUE with her offering to pay for my 10th Anniversary dinner, which will easily cost $500.00 ( Cicero if you are reading this there will be four of us and H eats ALOT of that Nigiri Sushi not to mention I won't be driving ) so there's that.
I agree with a lot of what you're saying @mrsbecky. I guess what I'm trying to say is that who you are/how you've been conditioned to approach the world for the past twenty or thirty years doesn't suddenly change because your bank account swells, kwim? I think people who grew up with money tend to approach things differently than people who didn't and that difference colors their social class. It affects how you see things, how you expect to be treated, what you take for granted. I remember reading an article once in which Oprah Winfrey talked about going in to an expensive store and feeling guilty about wanting to buy some nice sheets. And then she thought, this is silly, I can buy the whole damn store. We are absolutely no where near her level of wealth but I kind of get what she was talking about. A lot of your social conditioning as a child stays with you as an adult. A family moving up the SES ladder over one or two generations is different from a person doing it within the span of five years or even within their own lifetime.
eta: And no I agree that not being able to afford a European vacation isn't what makes one UC or not. But my point was, for poor people, for LMC people, that isn't even on their radar. It's different.
I agree with a lot of what you're saying @mrsbecky. I guess what I'm trying to say is that who you are/how you've been conditioned to approach the world for the past twenty or thirty years doesn't suddenly change because your bank account swells, kwim? I think people who grew up with money tend to approach things differently than people who didn't and that difference colors their social class. It affects how you see things, how you expect to be treated, what you take for granted. I remember reading an article once in which Oprah Winfrey talked about going in to an expensive store and feeling guilty about wanting to buy some nice sheets. And then she thought, this is silly, I can buy the whole damn store. We are absolutely no where near her level of wealth but I kind of get what she was talking about. A lot of your social conditioning as a child stays with you as an adult. A family moving up the SES ladder over one or two generations is different from a person doing it within the span of five years or even within their own lifetime.
eta: And no I agree that not being able to afford a European vacation isn't what makes one UC or not. But my point was, for poor people, for LMC people, that isn't even on their radar. It's different.
But isn't MC Hammer and the like the other side of the coin? If you grow up not being able to afford anything, it doesn't necessarily make you frugal. It makes you want ALL THE THINGS. Though I guess that's an extreme example.
I agree with a lot of what you're saying @mrsbecky. I guess what I'm trying to say is that who you are/how you've been conditioned to approach the world for the past twenty or thirty years doesn't suddenly change because your bank account swells, kwim? I think people who grew up with money tend to approach things differently than people who didn't and that difference colors their social class. It affects how you see things, how you expect to be treated, what you take for granted. I remember reading an article once in which Oprah Winfrey talked about going in to an expensive store and feeling guilty about wanting to buy some nice sheets. And then she thought, this is silly, I can buy the whole damn store. We are absolutely no where near her level of wealth but I kind of get what she was talking about. A lot of your social conditioning as a child stays with you as an adult. A family moving up the SES ladder over one or two generations is different from a person doing it within the span of five years or even within their own lifetime.
eta: And no I agree that not being able to afford a European vacation isn't what makes one UC or not. But my point was, for poor people, for LMC people, that isn't even on their radar. It's different.
But isn't MC Hammer and the like the other side of the coin? If you grow up not being able to afford anything, it doesn't necessarily make you frugal. It makes you want ALL THE THINGS. Though I guess that's an extreme example.
It's probably the opposite extreme. I actually think he's a good example of what I'm talking about though. Running through many millions of dollars within the space a few years and basically wasting it and then going broke is hardly an UC characteristic, is it? Usually they've been taught to be pretty good with money and how to invest it. Or at least they know to hire someone who knows these things.
Here's another example for you. My parents wanted me and my brother to go to college. It was always assumed we would go. That's sort of a MC characteristic, right? But it was always taken for granted by them that we would just go to Rutgers. If you were *really* smart and hard working at my HS, you'd go out of state to Penn State or U of Delaware. It wasn't until I was at the end of tenth grade that I finally looked up what you had to do to get into Rutgers and I learned that there were tons of other colleges out there, some of which offered scholarships to kids with good grades. This was pre Internet so things are probably different now but still. Looking back on it, it kind of boggles my mind. It's a shame. Especially for my brother who was/is a lot smarter than I am and a very good test taker. But my parents never pushed him properly. The problem is, you don't know what you don't know.
Wait I thought the middle class was gone? Or going away? Maybe that's why it's so hard to define.
It's hard to define because no one knows what it means. Literally and technically I guess is means the 40th-60th% percentile of income. Does that count retirees, who have no wages and a paid-off house? Only wage-earners? How do assets figure into the equation? How much do the REALLY super high .1% earners skew the numbers? If you're in the 60%-80% are you upper middle class? And if so, is that really middle class?
Does it have anything to do with what you can afford? Owning a modest home and having 2 kids and 2 cars, for example. Middle class dream, right? That's something my grandfather could afford on 1 blue collar income in the 50s and 60s. Can most people afford that on what is literally middle income today? And how do you classify that - by their county/metro area or as an average in the country overall? How do increased health care and child care costs factor into that?
Because if earning $75k makes you middle class in your county but you literally can't afford to buy anything other than a 1 bedroom condo, but you can afford a 4 bedroom house in a LCOL area, then we're getting into the "why don't poor people just move?!" argument.
Why can't people just own it? What's the big deal??? You can say it without coming across as someone who is bragging.
I'm just as middle-class as a plumber. Except for my retirement savings, earning potential, savings account, and stuff like that. Just like.
Right? I mean, when I do not have enough money left to summer on the Vineyard, and have to slum it with a week at the beach, I know I think to myself, "man, this must be exactly like what it is like to hurt your back on the job and be out of work for a week without pay."
Post by cattledogkisses on Sept 16, 2014 10:57:51 GMT -5
I think perceptions of class have a lot to do with the environment that you grew up in, so out of curiosity I checked our income for the place I grew up, and there we would be considered middle class.
My idea of middle class lines up a lot more closely with the area I'm originally from rather than the area where I live now, and I wonder if that's throwing other people as well.
Right? I mean, when I do not have enough money left to summer on the Vineyard, and have to slum it with a week at the beach, I know I think to myself, "man, this must be exactly like what it is like to hurt your back on the job and be out of work for a week without pay."
Also, that plumber's wife who can't afford to work is SO FUCKING LUCKY, right? We pay $2k every month in childcare costs.
According to the MM thread, some plumbers are rolling in it, so I guess now it is them who cannot relate to li'l ole me, what with my student loans and expenses and all. I am JEALOUSE.
Haha, I'm one of the people who said something like this. I used the Kennedys as an example because they're so famous that we all know about them. But there are a lot of fancy boarding schools out there - places like Andover or St. Paul's etc. or expensive private schools in big cities that are full of people who are not well known to the public. They're the people I was referring to as being what I typically think of as "upper class." I'm hesitant to wade back into this subject because it is so touchy that it's hard to talk about without ruffling feathers. But what I was trying (and apparently failing lol) to convey is the idea that saying you're "upper class" implies something about your background that may not necessarily be true: that you went to private school (or a "good" public school) and sleep away camp, you took riding, tennis, skating, skiing, or sailing lessons (in other words, you did the more expensive extracurriculars that involve more than a ball and maybe shin guards), your parents took you on vacations and possibly even international ones, you went out to dinner a lot. You were exposed to more of the world than less well off people typically are. You were probably taught to speak a foreign language and play a musical instrument. You likely studied abroad in college and went to a top 20 "name" school. Your parents have social capital. They knew what you had to do to apply and gain admittance to a good college. Your parents read and talked to you about political events. They tried to teach you about art and culture. And even if these things are not true of you (the general you)specifically, they were opportunities available to you that you might not have taken up out of interest. But they were options. Do you see what I'm trying to say?
DH went to Andover. But not a top 20 "name school." I went to a private school to keep me away from the public schools with guns and ended up at an Ivy League law school, despite my no name undergrad. My parents are Puerto Rican, so being taught a foreign language doesn't really seem like a class issue.
We still make less money combined than your DH does alone.
So where does that leave us in relation to each other?
This is why income is seen as the major indicator. You have the income to exert political power; that you choose not to do so does not change your class status. You could do all these things for your kids (and I thought you said you rode horses?). You have all the options for international travel, etc. So why is it that you are not upper class? Is it just your kids because they can be raised that way and you weren't?
I started riding in hs because I had a rich friend who let me borrow her horse. You and your H sound more traditionally UC to me but, like I said, I've never seen it in purely economic terms (for instance, are we really going to categorize someone like Britney Spears as UC? She's very wealthy but she is still willing to walk into a public restroom in her bare feet, lol). My kids will have more options growing up than I did, for sure.
If you want to define middle class as middle income I have no issue declaring myself as upper class based upon that definition.
I just think that definition is crappy. What is the point of taking about socio-economic status if the only part of it you care about is the economic one? Why even say SES?
ETA: It is actually probably better for me to call myself upper class because it means H went from extreme working poor to upper class in 35 years. Woot!
Oh good lord Britney Spears is middle class now?? I quit life.
It sounds like the argument is that she'll never be anything but trash, regardless of how much she makes. Which is patently ridiculous because she'll get better/faster/more exclusive service (anywhere) because everyone knows she has money.
So what should we label the brackets now?
Destitute - Poor - Middle - Has Money - Has All the Money
Dude, the reality is that the socio part of socio economic often changes with economics. So you can declare all day that growing up poor means your social status should be lower but it doesn't. When your social landscape changes drastically, so does your socioeconomic status. Growing up poor is rather irrelevant if you live a lifestyle that sees you spending time in upper class situations with other upper class people in an upper class neighborhood.
And it goes the other way too, fwiw. My husband is the child of college educated upper class parents who raised him in a 23 room house with a fucking pony. A goddamned pony for god's sake. My husband went into the military and then got out and works in a fucking warehouse. He married me and my ass was raised by military parents, dropped out of college after one semester, and I've never worked a job that paid much more than minimum wage. Is he upper class?
No and fuck no.
To me, your socioeconomic status is a blend of four factors, income, education, neighborhood, and profession. Any of those factors can trump another, all things dependent. And those factors can also influence others.
The real difficulty is that we don't have the static class lines of the past or other real class designations for anyone to clearly see. But that doesn't mean people get to sit here in households where companies pay what they do, provide the benefits they do, the perks of that status, etc and try to say they are middle class.