What income class are you?

[dolphins4life]

I'm in the middle class

[Fau Teixeira]

this thread title should have been "what income class do you (incorrectly) think you are?"

Alot of people that think they're in the "middle class" are actually the working poor.

[pondwater]

Net worth would be a better measure.

[CF DolFan]

Based on information I found online the middle class actually varies. Middle class depends on where you are located but is considered those with incomes between two-thirds and twice the national median income. That works out to a national salary range of roughly $52,000 to $156,000 in 2020 for a three-person household.

That's a national average but depending on your location that actually changes. What does it take to be middle class? Roughly $82,000 a year in household income in San Francisco, $74,000 in Seattle and $60,000 in Washington, D.C., a new study says, but only $24,000 in Cleveland.

[Dave Gray]

Based on all of these, I'm pretty firmly middle class.

My wife grew up as working poor, so she sometimes will talk about thinking that people like we are now were rich, because we did stuff like go to the dermatologist and buy Capri Suns and stuff like that.

[CF DolFan]

Based on all of these, I'm pretty firmly middle class.

My wife grew up as working poor, so she sometimes will talk about thinking that people like we are now were rich, because we did stuff like go to the dermatologist and buy Capri Suns and stuff like that.

I've said it before but I grew up poor white trash. Besides having my power and or water turned off I can remember my mother working at convenience stores. She was robbed but continued to do so because it was literally the only money we had. I've got nothing against people who work in those stores but we all know what that means. I say that because I sometimes feel I need to apologize because I'm probably upper middle class now and some people don't realize I grew up on the other side with pretty much nothing. I literally was called rich guy today as one of my inspectors was teasing me about things we have acquired. It could be embarrassing but I'm plenty ok with that because I know the road it took to get here.  Honestly ... it easier to be happy with less but most of us don't realize that until we have more.

[Spider-Dan]

As a child, I would have considered my current status as incredibly rich.  Unbelievably wealthy.  I mean, I could have pizza delivered to my house - the good stuff, not Little Caesar's or Papa Murphy's - every day indefinitely, and it would not make any appreciable difference in my finances.  Any new video game, or even game console, that I want, I can just go out and buy, and the cost is similarly irrelevant to my ledger.  Clothes, shoes, movie tickets... I can do all of that stuff as much as I want, and the only real restriction on it is that I just don't want to do that much.

As someone who grew up in section 8 housing, getting free lunch and other gov't assistance for nearly all of my childhood, this would have been literally incomprehensible to me.  I would have seen that level of income as a multimillionaire who doesn't even need to work.  The very concept of a middle-class income where you can be a person who works (and must work), but also have a good income that allows you to pretty much do whatever you want, was completely foreign to me.

[masterfins]

Based on all of these, I'm pretty firmly middle class.

My wife grew up as working poor, so she sometimes will talk about thinking that people like we are now were rich, because we did stuff like go to the dermatologist and buy Capri Suns and stuff like that.

Your wife is right, Capri Suns were for the rich kids.  In the summer we had the 10 cent unsweetened packs of kool-aid that was mixed with a cup of sugar and water.  Always running out of sugar.