More Americans Are Breaking Into the Upper Middle Class (wsj.com) 197
More Americans have moved into upper-middle-class incomes over the past several decades (source paywalled; alternative source), with new research suggesting that group has grown sharply while the lower and core middle class have shrunk. The Wall Street Journal reports: In 2024, about 31% of Americans were part of the upper middle class, up from about 10% in 1979, according to a report released this year by the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute. There is no single, standard definition of middle class, or upper middle class, and what counts as a hefty income in one city can feel paltry in another. The AEI report, by Stephen Rose and Scott Winship, classified a family of three earning $133,000 to $400,000 in 2024 dollars as upper middle class. Households earning more were categorized as rich. The analysis looked just at incomes, not assets such as stocks or real estate.
[...] The gains span generations. Many baby boomers, born to parents who grew up in the Great Depression, are living well on their savings, aided by steady Social Security checks and decades of stock-portfolio gains that they can now tap. Millennials, who everyone worried would be permanently set back by the 2008-09 financial crisis, are earning solid incomes, buying homes and surpassing their parents. Many families are surprised to find that they have moved into this new economic tier, and see themselves as comfortable, not rich. They tend to have jobs that are white collar but not flashy -- think accountants, not tech founders.
This doesn't mean that all Americans are climbing the ladder. Entrenched inflation and higher prices on major necessities have pushed many families closer to the financial edge, or locked them out of homeownership. Those costs weigh on high-earning families too, and for many are the reason they don't feel wealthy. The AEI report divided families into five different groups by income. Three groups were in the middle: lower middle class, core middle class and upper middle class. The authors found that more families now fall into the two highest-earning groups -- upper middle class and rich -- and fewer fall into the three lower-earning categories.
[...] The gains span generations. Many baby boomers, born to parents who grew up in the Great Depression, are living well on their savings, aided by steady Social Security checks and decades of stock-portfolio gains that they can now tap. Millennials, who everyone worried would be permanently set back by the 2008-09 financial crisis, are earning solid incomes, buying homes and surpassing their parents. Many families are surprised to find that they have moved into this new economic tier, and see themselves as comfortable, not rich. They tend to have jobs that are white collar but not flashy -- think accountants, not tech founders.
This doesn't mean that all Americans are climbing the ladder. Entrenched inflation and higher prices on major necessities have pushed many families closer to the financial edge, or locked them out of homeownership. Those costs weigh on high-earning families too, and for many are the reason they don't feel wealthy. The AEI report divided families into five different groups by income. Three groups were in the middle: lower middle class, core middle class and upper middle class. The authors found that more families now fall into the two highest-earning groups -- upper middle class and rich -- and fewer fall into the three lower-earning categories.
Good (Score:2)
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile two thirds of the nation cannot afford a $500 emergency expense https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/3... [cnbc.com] and are one hospital visit away from the streets https://www.marketwatch.com/st... [marketwatch.com]
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a son who's in this category, unable to pay a $500 emergency expense. It is *NOT* because he doesn't make enough money. It's because if there's money in his account, he thinks he has money to spend. Therefore, his account is always below $500. He and his wife have $400 smartwatches, streaming subscriptions galore, two cars, and gadgets everywhere.
I suspect many Americans who can't pay for a $500 emergency expense are in this category. They haven't learned how to budget, or the importance of setting aside money for a rainy day.
Grandma's advice about money is still good. People have just forgotten to pay attention to her.
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Sound like you still have some parenting to do...
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Sounds like you don't have children. They tend to have a mind of their own.
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My other son makes *less* money, and has $12K in the bank.
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My liquid assets have varied from less than $500 to almost 6 figures, mostly depending on how badly I'm letting it burn a hole in my pocket, so I'm inclined to agree.
The "doesn't have $500" measure is utterly meaningless without more information.
I'm not typing this on a $7,100 laptop because living expenses are kicking my ass, but I've spent some time in that category while being dumb.
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the country is no the right track
Edit your post and fix the "no".
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Re:Found another commie troll account (Score:5, Informative)
Nonsequitur.
"More Americans have been entering upper middle class" is not inconsistent with "the economy has not improved over the past few years."
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Liquidity is very different than "the economy".
If you add enough asterisks, they can be pretty analogous, but at the worst, they're almost entirely disconnected.
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as long as you're doing well, it doesn't matter about the other 8 billion eh'. you're so short sighted and blinded by dogma that you can't imagine how good we could all have it, far better than any of the billionares, and your only retort is calling people communists lmfao. what a fucking loser.
Re: Found another commie troll account (Score:3)
"Upper ranks of middle class grow" together with "lower ranks of middle class shrink" is pretty much the same is "middle class is disappearing".
Which is the epitome of a REALLY BAD economy, grounded in strong wealth inequality, not a good one.
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"Upper ranks of middle class grow" together with "lower ranks of middle class shrink" is pretty much the same is "middle class is disappearing".
Correct.
Which is the epitome of a REALLY BAD economy, grounded in strong wealth inequality, not a good one.
Hate to play the Devil's Advocate here, because I do agree that it's REALLY BAD for other reasons, economically- I don't see it.
I'd say the better argument is that we should be evolved enough now to know that a highly successful capitalist economy is maybe not the best goal for human happiness, even if it does seem, empirically speaking, to produce the most powerful economies on the planet.
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Honestly- no fucking clue.
Obviously communism, for a litany of reasons, isn't a workable solution with human culture being what it is at this point in our history and/or development.
"Socialism" is vague enough of a term that I feel like you threw it out there as a trap.
There are many socialist aspects of every single democracy on this planet. Are more of them better? Sometimes. Are less of them better? Sometimes. Are none of them better? Universally not.
All I know is that when you'r
Re: Found another commie troll account (Score:3)
For one, the P and R are irrelevant. They were not part of the statement.
Well, then this is a fundamental part we disagree upon.
You only see "the statement", while I see the purpose of the statement, the context it was made in: to support a highly political agument, namely that of whether the economy at large is "doing well."
When the economy polarizes rich vs poor, depleting a middle layer, it's not "doing well". (It may be doing well by some artificial metric, but it's not serving the wellbeing of the majority.)
And this is exactly what's happening - only you can't see if you're
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You can not look purely at income without looking at the cost of living. If income goes up by 5% but the cost of living has gone up by 20%, sure, people are earning more money, but effectively are less wealthy. No numbers are required to understand that concept, and for those who live in places with a higher population density, that trend of "wage increases go up MUCH more slowly than the cost of living increases".
That is why people say the economy is doing poorly right now, because the cost of living r
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My wife and I are about $100k a year short of what the article calls "rich", and yet my funds availability has fluctuated from nearly nothing to $80k liquid at any point in time depending solely on my consumerism.
So to call into question the dated surveys isn't asking anything about the economy, per se.
It's asking if the old pattern of consumerism vs. wages sti
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Do you think anything has improved since 2018 or 2023?
Have you bothered to look around lately?
Yes (Score:2)
Do you think anything has improved since 2018 or 2023?
Focusing specifically on the two cherry picked data points:
In 2018 two thirds of the nation cannot afford a $500 emergency expense.
I have watched too much Dave Ramsey to know this is a lie in 2018 and in 2026, it is not a number problem, it is a people problem.
They can afford $500 emergency expense if they fixed their spending, not because of some economics class issue.
But no I suspect just as many people if not more would get devastated by a $500 emergency expense.
However I am happy to believe more people
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Interesting to see you haven't seen problems with working at the shelter. How many are short term visitors moving on? How many are there because of real medical bills? Remember you only see a snapshot at that shelter.
All that being said, I am one of those one hospital visit away from poverty. I spend fairly wisely, but not perfect. I have a medial prescription that is over $7,000 per month. I was lucky. I was able to get the last slot for assistance from the pharmaceutical company for that drug. I a
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I think that the real issue is that the idea of "upper middle class" hasn't been properly adjusted for inflation.
$133,000 a year would have been a decent income 5 years ago, but now it's the minimum for meeting your living expenses in some higher cost of living states.
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wsj ...
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
It does not sound grounded in reality as well.
This. The lower end of those "upper middle class" numbers may qualify for welfare in some tech hub cities.
They do point out that it varies by location, but really their number range is terrible. "classified a family of three earning $133,000 to $400,000 in 2024 dollars as upper middle class." From the HUD Section 8 income limits [huduser.gov], expensive places the lower end of that is considered low income, like San Jose 143,600 qualifies for Section 8, versus cities like Akron where 72,250 is low enough to qualify. Location, location, location.
As this is /. lots of us live in tech hubs that even though we don't like the costs, they're very expensive places to live. In my current city despite being a full hour commute from the city center 130K is still solidly middle class. Not poverty, but not upper crust either. That income wouldn't require a trailer park, but would have a hard time affording a 3 bedroom / 2 bath home (they'd add another 45+ minutes to the commute distance), one or possibly two small vacations per year.
In tech hubs especially, those household incomes can be very middle class, not upper-middle, and in some places, lower class lifestyles.
Re:Good (Score:4, Informative)
The lower end of those "upper middle class" numbers may qualify for welfare in some tech hub cities.
Yes, and that's what they said. From TFS: There is no single, standard definition of middle class, or upper middle class, and what counts as a hefty income in one city can feel paltry in another.
For the comprehension impaired, that's why stated range of $133,000 to $400,000 is so wide. In one city, $133,000/year would be "upper middle class", while in another, $400,000 would be the threshold.
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
Seems you're missing the point. The article says anyone over 133K was classified as upper middle class, and ignored the location. We agree on that bit.
They counted millions of people who are low income for their region and even potentially on welfare as being upper middle class. They said 10% of the population was upper middle class in 1979 by one metric, but then using a different metric that 31% were upper middle class in 2024. They wrongly and quite openly counted millions of households with welfare level incomes, lower class incomes, and middle class incomes and claimed they were in the upper middle class. Everything that follows from the conclusion that upper middle class has grown so much is fundamentally flawed.
A huge amount of the population are millionaires if we define a millionaire as someone with thousands of dollars. That's effectively what they did here. Count millions of household that middle, lower, and welfare-level as though they're upper middle class, and suddenly the upper middle class triples in size. The claims that follow that the lower rungs of the middle class are garbage because they just reclassified them as upper middle class, even though by the author's own admission they are not.
Re: Good (Score:2)
Now that we've broken in... (Score:5, Funny)
... let's make off with their TV! :D
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I've got the keys to their Rivian!
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Good luck. The starter in my Rivian is broken.
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Good luck. The starter in my Rivian is broken.
That's nothing. I'm so poor I can't afford a new serpentine belt for my Bolt.
Really? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Really? (Score:2)
It could be upper-lower class.
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Indeed. The whole thing is MAGA assholes lying about reality.
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Informed on Assholes (Score:3)
But I still have nothing to refute the article, but at best an ad hominem attack inferring that it was written by MAGA.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
133K is upper middle class??
Well, it is definitely a politically-loaded question... but it doesn't seem totally unreasonable, at least based on population percentages. They said "middle class" not "rich"; this is for a family of three, which nowadays means two incomes in the majority of cases; and $133K was chosen as the very bottom of the "upper middle class" window.
Pew is considered rather less politically biased than the Wall Street Journal; but in 2022 they gave the following broad-brush definitions for a family of three:
Lower-income (28% of US population): Under $56,600 per year
Middle-income (52% of US population): Between $56,600 and $169,800 per year
Upper-income (19% of US population): Above $169,800 per year
There are certainly a lot of political side questions one could ask, like - should we really consider it to be "middle-class" if a person can't afford to buy a house?
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should we really consider it to be "middle-class" if a person can't afford to buy a house?
This is how I see it. A solidly middle class income for a given area should be able to buy at least a modest house or at the very least a condo. In San Diego county, you are hard pressed for find a 1bedroom condo for $350k. 2bedroom around $450k. Those are properties about 25 miles from the beach, where it's 90F all summer.
The average income is around 75k here. So if you had two adults making that, you could maybe afford the bottom one, if you had no other debt anyway.
To me, that hardly feels middle class.
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To me, that hardly feels middle class.
Income classes are based on your earnings relative to the rest of the labor market, not what you're able to buy with your earnings. It wasn't long ago that you'd have to be fairly well off to have a flat screen television in every room - now you can do that even if you're living in poverty.
Having to rent because you can't afford to buy doesn't mean your income is no longer "middle class", it means the housing market has gone nutty foo foo.
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I remember a documentary from decades ago (1970s or 1980s) where they made the point that, at that time anyway, middle-class people had an equivalent standard of living in many ways to what turn-of-the-20th-century rich people accomplished only with a fleet of servants, simply because of technological advancement - we now had microwaves, toasters, instant TV dinners, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, automobiles, etc. etc.
This is mainly intended as a tangent, and is not intended to be relevant to the current di
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
These numbers are for two different things. "Upper income" is just a measure of income. "Upper class" includes other factors that may influence a person's place in society. Someone making $170k (at least in 2022 dollars) is upper income in the context of Pew, but they would not necessarily have the indicators of being "upper class" (i.e. being in upper management or other influential position, significant property ownership, being close to political power) in a high cost of living area like Manhattan where that income might represent a blue collar couple. Class is impossible to measure objectively.
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Wow, I have been a lot richer than I ever thought.
A lot of people don't realize how well off they are. Take the median income for example - if you earn more than that, half the US population earns less than you.
It's probably also a bit of a contributing factor to why so many folks on here underestimated how popular the MacBook Neo would be. A cheap computer is a lot easier to dismiss when you've got the budget for something better.
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Actually, it's more about perspective than math. If you only got 51% of the answers on a test correct, that's pretty bad. If you had a 51% chance of waking up dead tomorrow, you'd probably not be feeling so great about those odds.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
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Notice how all of the luxuries have dramatically come down in price, while the cost of essentials like home ownership and healthcare, has become unreachable for many. Appendectomy for example, costed about $400 in the 1950's, which is about 30 days of income. Today it costs about $20,000, which is closer to 80 days of average income.
You're also not being completely honest with some of the characterizations. Lead paint was common, but not because they couldn't afford better or safer paint. They simply thoug
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Let me guess, you bought a house 30 years ago and it has tripled in price since.
Congrats! You are rich! (Score:2)
I live in a major US city and $133K a year will do pretty well.
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... Maybe in some flyover town that is big money...
Yep. Please keep flying over us.
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You're right, in California and New York, it takes a lot more than $135K to be upper middle class.
In about 45 states, you're doing just fine on that income.
Re: Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
So the only way to qualify as middle is to be able to afford two of the most expensive neighborhoods in the country? I tend to think "middle" or even "upper middle" would include a lot more than that.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
At this point, living in a place like Manhattan is luxury consumption. Yes, $133k is a stretch in Manhattan (below 120th at least) unless you have subsidized housing, but New York City isn't just Manhattan. You can live just fine on $133k in the Bronx or Staten Island. Likewise, living in SF proper is a luxury choice, others live in lower-cost bay area locales like Oakland.
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It's a stretch above 120th as well.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's doable above 120th. You can get a decent 2bedroom apartment for ~$3k/month north of 120th. That's doable on $130k.
How do you define upper middle class (Score:4, Insightful)
133 K /yr is going to be the bottom of middle class or even upper working class in San Jose, but a decent living in Indianapolis or Tuscaloosa.
Income of $2M a year, however, is upper class no matter where you live. Even in Boston, the median home is only a million dollars. You could argue that it is toward the bottom of upper class in the super-expensive cities in the US.
Living where? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Where exactly does supporting 3 people on $133k/year count as 'upper middle class'? You could be doing a lot worse, and many are; but that's not just tons of money in a HCOL area; and that's also lower than twice the median salary for full time employees with bachelor's degrees; so you are calling either a single income household doing a bit better than median or a dual income one doing worse 'upper middle class'; which seems pretty ambitious.
Pittsburgh.
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Tell me about it. I can't find a single tamale lady.
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Tell me about it. I can't find a single tamale lady.
Especially since January 2025...
Re: Living where? (Score:5, Insightful)
A cynic might suggest that the threshold was chosen in part to make the numbers work out for a pre-determined conclusion.
you're absolutely right, don't trust AEI (Score:5, Insightful)
A cynic might suggest that the threshold was chosen in part to make the numbers work out for a pre-determined conclusion.
They just want to justify tax breaks for the wealthy by saying 31% of Americans will benefit...when in reality, only 2% or less truly get more than they lose from a typical Republican tax cut. Nope, those tariffs are not failing!!! Look, more people are getting wealthy!!! No need to look into tax reform or making sure billionaires pay more!
Proving my point (Score:3, Insightful)
I might be dumb. Not sure I could claim to be part of the red hat wearing MAGA people, I did not vote for Trump or Republicans.
The "Again" part in the MAGA is what I do not much care for, plus "Great" is a bit to ambiguous for me as well.
Maybe I do not have the working braincells required; but it you provide anything I am sure someone here could confirm or dispute it and I would have something to point to and claim the Wall Street Journal lied. But pointing to you saying so on Slashdot is pretty weak.
It jus
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Here in central Florida that's a pretty decent living if you bought your house before the market went crazy. As with a lot of things relating to wealth, there's always the "fuck you, I got mine" factor in play.
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Where exactly does supporting 3 people on $133k/year count as 'upper middle class'?
That's not what TFA said. It said "a family of three." That would, on the average, be 2 adults and a child. Two incomes, one dependent. Maybe that's what you're saying, but "supporting 3 people" makes it seem like you're talking about dependents.
Not for long (Score:5, Insightful)
Reasons:
1. Stupid tariffs
2. Reduction of healthcare benefits in insurance plans (Employer, ACA, Medicare) to pay for the war.
3. Higher fuel costs will drive up transportation costs.
4. Food will get more expensive due to transportation and fertilizer costs.
5. Social security benefits will be cut to 70% of the current benefit due to the government not being able to pay out full benefits.
6. Medicare advantage plans will be significantly cut back for seniors.
7. There will be a crisis in private lending which will affect the stock market.
8. Punitive taxation on electric vehicles, solar and wind due to the oil crisis.
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Good points. Execpt for one that confuses me:
8. Punitive taxation on electric vehicles, solar and wind due to the oil crisis.
We may be living in upside-down-world right now, but I can't imagine that even the current government would punish the use of non-oil sources of energy during an oil crisis. Maybe for some other reason, but not "due to" the oil crisis.
Re: Not for long (Score:2)
"Punative taxes" on EVs? Explain.
When the federal gov't stopped SUBSIDIZING EVs folks called that punative, it's not, it's prudent.
When states talk about assessing road usage fees on EVs to make up for lost road taxes that would normally have been collected on gasoline purchases, some call it punative, it's just prudent.
People aren't 'owed' $7,500 for an EV purchase, nor are EVs entitled to use our public roads for free - so please, don't try and claim treating EVs like ICE vehicles as "punative."
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I think you're confused. I'm not saying EVs shouldn't be taxed in general. I'm saying they shouldn't be taxed due to the oil crisis. Governments should encourage, not discourage, the use of alternate energy-sources when one of them has supply-chains that are threatened.
And I made no claim that treating EVs (tax-wise) like ICE vehicles is "punitive"(*). But taxing EVs more than ICE vehicles because of the oil crisis certainly seems to be so. But see below...
You make a good point about road taxes, but not muc
Re: Not for long (Score:4, Interesting)
Many of these road usage fees assessed on EVs greatly exceed the equivalent costs gas buyers pay. For example, Texas drivers pay $400 additional fee to register a new EV over what they would pay for a gas car. The gas tax is 20c/gallon. That would require buying 2,000 gallons of gas per year to equalize. That's like driving 60,000 miles in an average sedan getting 30mpg or 30,000 miles in a truck getting 15mpg. That's is absolutely punitive.
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If they had eliminated gas taxes and charged ALL car owners the same milage tax then it would have been fair. All the proposals certainly are punitive and are based on assumptions that the EV is driven far more than the majority of cars.
So "lower middleclass" is homeless then? (Score:2)
What you have trouble paying for your expenses and a medical emergency could bankrupt you? Its all just in your mind!
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If you're making at least $133k a year and can't afford your bills and health insurance, you've overextended yourself. That'd be a genuine case where the proverbial "stop eating so much avocado toast" advice actually applies.
There's no amount of high-end income that is immune to bad budgeting. It would take some extraordinarily bad spending, but even Elon Musk could waste his entire fortune if he really put his mind to it.
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This is $133k for 3 people.
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This is $133k for 3 people.
If you divided it by three people and expected each of them to live on about $44k/yr, yeah, I'm pretty sure that'd qualify as poverty. But that's not how a family budget actually works. Plus, usually the 3rd person is a dependent child, which confers tax benefits (and health insurance for a dependent child is usually employer subsidized).
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You probably overlooked that this is for 3 (!) people. Dumb and dumber.
The problem with the analysis (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with the analysis (according to the article I read -- didn't read the formal analysis) is that using income as a measure of class misses the high variance of goods in the US. For instance, the article mentions that the median price of a home is about $500k. This likely isn't enough to buy a studio apartment in lower Manhattan. So, a more accurate measure would be a dimensional analysis that uses income as a ratio with respect to what a median priced basket of goods (eg, a house, average grocery bill, etc) in various parts of the US.
In other words, it would give a normalized unit measurement of how much, say, earning $130k in Des Moines, Iowa differs from making the same amount living in Cambridge, MA. Then, "upper middle class" would, I assume, be a measure of a standard distribution on a normal distribution (eg, the top 1/3 of the distribution).
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True. If more people in the US beat the $133k bottom edge of their definition, but most of the growth is in expensive metros, then that is pretty suspect. And given that metro areas are concentrations of population, well, it seems reasonable to assume that most of the people in this basket are in metro areas and not in Sioux City.
[I just looked up Des Moines housing prices, and now I am sad. Not sad enough to move back to the Midwest, but still.]
Re: The problem with the analysis (Score:2)
For instance, the article mentions that the median price of a home is about $500k. This likely isn't enough to buy a studio apartment in lower Manhattan.
Manhattan isn't considered "typical" by most measures. 'Middle class' Americans don't buy apartments in Manhattan, wealthy American buy in Manhattan, middle class Americans rent.
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Manhattan (and NYC more broadly) is also a heavily distorted housing market due to subsidies and the fact that it was not a very expensive market until relatively recently (things started going up in the 1990s). There are a lot of middle class people living in Manhattan but they usually in rent controlled or public housing and don't pay market rates. There are also people who bought Condos/Co-ops 40+ years ago (or their parents did) who could never buy anything like the places they are living if they had to
Class hard to quantify by income (Score:3)
People like to use "income" as a proxy for class, but it's really a much broader topic. For one, there's a social component that has nothing to do with income. For example, a doctor making $150k is treated differently by society than a plumber who makes $150k with a bunch of overtime. There are also social networks. You may only make $80k as a college professor, but if most of your friends are doctors, lawyers, and investment bankers who would have no trouble spotting you $1k, it's a very different position from a welder making $80k whose friends and family are mostly on food stamps. Finally, as you go up the ladder wealth becomes far more important than income. Someone with $10 million of assets and $100k income is in a very different position from someone with a negative net worth and $100k income.
This sounds weasel-wordy (Score:2)
OP says: "More Americans have moved into upper-middle-class incomes over the past several decades (source paywalled; alternative source), with new research suggesting that group has grown sharply while the lower and core middle class have shrunk. The Wall Street Journal reports:"
The above looks very weasel-wordy. It is only talking about those people that are shifting within the middle class. It doesn't say at all how many people fell out of any level of "middle class" entirely and firmly into "poor" (i.e.
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They define 133-400k "family of 3" as "upper middle class".
Which is just patent bullshit.
All it is, is they keep the same old income brackets for "middle class" while inflation pushes wages and COL higher. There are actually far fewer people able to maintain a 1990s "middle class" lifestyle, and I'd argue most of these "upper middle class" people are living month to month. "Middle class" used to mean you were financially secure and had investments and retirement. That's a joke for most people under 50.
The middle of the "K" (Score:4, Interesting)
I noticed when our income (we're DINKs, double income, no kids) got us to the point where we could easily make capital expenditures, take significant vacations, or put aside/invest reasonably significant money. That was probably when we hit $100k in 1995, and that's $215k now (https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1995?amount=100000 ) As DINKs, we were pretty much always able to contribute 401k money to the amount matched by our employer. And we owned a house (albeit with a significant mortgage). Within 20 years, our retirement savings had grown substantially, our house appreciated and mortgage payments produced substantial equity, and our savings and investments were doing well. We had one relatively expensive car and one cheaper car, that we'd keep for 8-9 years before replacing. Wife had some employee stock grants, I had larger retirement matches from my (generous) employer.
All this is to say that, once you're over the hump and on the upper half of the K in our K-shaped economy, things are good. Stock market returns have been great IF you could put money in the markets. The huge challenge is reaching that point. I'm sure there are economists out there calculating the income that represents 'the middle of the K'.
Wage gap! (Score:2)
But, but - what about the wage gap?!?! I hear it's worse than ever...
So, to be clear, that means Senators & Congressmen are "upper middle class" by virtue of earning about $175K/yr, right?
By conservative AEI w/o clear middle class definit (Score:2)
Without a clear definition, it is difficult to see what you are comparing: 'By our definitions, using contemporary benchmarks, 36 percent of American families composed the core middle class in 1979, while just over half (54 percent) fell short of core middle-class'.
The 1979 post 2 time oil embargo great inflation and recession was their starting point and benchmark.
It's called... (Score:2)
...inflation.
No funny? (Score:2)
I blame the weak FP?
Disingenuous (Score:5, Informative)
They're defining upper middle class as " family of three earning $133,000 to $400,000 per year". So that's 2 middle aged adults + an adult child as the upper barrier.
What's that mean for your typical "family of 2"? Do they normalize on 3 incomes and play funny with the figures, using extrapolation for the third?
Because the cost of living has increased. $133k is going to just barely buy you a house in most of the country. Is starter home ownership "upper middle class"?
Absolutely not.
This is just inflation, and a disingenuous bullshit article in the NYT (as you can expect, at best). The middle class is markedly smaller, not larger, and they're just using old income brackets to define "upper middle class".
From the Daily Mail, uh huh... (Score:2)
The Article originates from The Daily Mail, and that explains everything - right wing populist and aimed at the same demographic all the populist right wingers woo. It's TL:DR is that Trump really is making America great again.
Along the lines of Zimbabwe's "billionaires"? (Score:2)
I'm not sure what this means. Upper middle class as in money, or actual buying power. Dollar amounts don't mean much when one sees 3% raises, but tarriffs and fuel costs make goods cost 20% more, or like in 2020, prices hikes were done just because companies felt like it.
Buying power, like we had in the US in the 70s, where the average person could afford a house, car, even an airplane or some other hobbies is well behind us. Stuff that people took for granted back then is virtually unattainable now.
The problem is obvious (Score:2)
Classes aren't about money but lifestyle (Score:2)
Upper middle class means going on holidays twice or more a year. Lower middle class means holidays at least every 2 years.
This is a total lie (Score:2)
What is "very comfortable"? (Score:2)
I think there is some confusion.... (Score:2)
... what they reqally meant was that more American's are breaking into the places owned by the upper middle class...