Dictionary.com - "having wealth or great possessions; abundantly supplied with resources, means, or funds; wealthy: a rich man; a rich nation. " Works for me.
It depends on what middle you are looking at. You have provided the average income of everyone in the country and shown what the median/middle is. But you ignore that “middle class” isn’t a number, it’s the center of a scale of quality of life.
Depends on where you are. In Tijuana, my husband and I would be rich. Here in Orange County we are middle class. You simply cannot say that “rich” starts at X dollar amount - you haven’t even factored in the number of people in a household. If we had any children, we wouldn’t be so solidly middle class; we might not even be middle class at all.
What exactly is your definition of middle class? I live in NYC on a household income significantly below $250K. Although we don’t go on European vacations, we do take a couple of vacations every year in addition to a few long weekend trips , own a house , have two vehicles ( one brand-new) , contribute to deferred compensation accounts and are currently paying tuition at the city university for a grad student and an undergraduate. The 2007 mean household income in NYC was $75,809 and the median was $48,631. There might be zip codes (like the Upper East Side ) where a $250K household income is the the middle quintile, but not large areas.
Boofuckinghoo. Poverty in Orange County, maybe you could get yourself a reality show.
Of course it’s possible to put a dollar amount on rich, what the hell do you think it measures? Don’t tell me that you’re going to give me the dictionary definition of a high fat cream sauce next?
You mean you can’t be bothered to do your own work? I’m sorry, but what you want (and what you should be able to figure out by yourself) would take quite a bit of time and I’m just not up for that. If you actually want the info instead of just stomping your feet and insisting your definition of rich must be right, looking at what it costs to pay a mortgage, taxes, buy gas, food, send kids to school, pay utilities in places like Orange County CA, the Silicon Valley in CA, NYC, Hawai’i, Alaska and probably Boston. I’m sure there are others that I can’t think of off the top of my head.
A cite for what constitutes middle class? You are aware there is no such animal, right?
And yet Implicit just posted that the top 5% starts at a million - who is right? Actually, it doesn’t matter because middle class isn’t a number. It may have been that in the '50’s you could have averaged out everyone’s income and that median would have also been middle class, but that was a long time ago. It simply doesn’t work that way any more - the average person in the US is no longer in the middle class.
You’ve led a very sheltered life.
Mine essentially is you can easily pay your bills, you probably own a home (with a mortgage, not outright), if the car breaks down you don’t freak out trying to figure out how you are going to afford to fix it. Essentially not living paycheck to paycheck, being able to save some, not living on credit cards.
Another thing to consider is what “household” means - four people? That’s kind of what I’m going on since IIRC that is what the average household is. So how much income can be called “middle class” also depends on how many people it is supporting.
Well, if nothing else, unless your zip code areas are much smaller than ours (well, your states are so maybe…), I’d consider that to be a large area.
I also can’t comment on the east coast since I’ve only rarely been there, and only once to NYC - I was going by what others in this thread have said. NYC has houses? I thought it was all businesses and apartments/condos. I also thought essentially no one owned a car there due to the expense.
How is supporting your claims my work? I provided figures for my own claims, you should be able to do the same for yours.
You mean you don’t know, you have no idea how to find out, and you think I should do your research for you because…why? Just because I’m a nice person?
Well, okay, here’s the US Census fact sheet on Orange County, CA. (If the link doesn’t work, go here and search for Orange County.) It gives the median household income as $73,738 per year in 2009 dollars. Using my new friend the inflation calculator, I get $78,825.92 per year in 2011 dollars. This is indeed well above the US household median…but less than 1/3 of $250,000 per year. In other words, $250,000 per year is still far above average even in Orange County.
You can look up any place you like using the same tool. Please feel free to check the median household incomes for Palo Alto, New York City, Boston, etc. I’ve just looked them up myself, and while I hate to ruin the surprise I will say that they’re probably a little less than you imagine.
That’s a million in assets, not annual household income. As for who’s right, well, I feel pretty comfortable saying it isn’t you.
What rich is is a matter of opinion. Its subjective. Like beauty. And its highly subjective. Its very relative. As was said, you are rich compared to most residents of Tijuana. I am not rich compared to Warren Buffet. There isn’t a “right” answer to “what is rich.”
(Democrats have been defining “rich” as “upper middle class” for a long time. Other than politicians though, I don’t know anyone who is upper middle class that considers themselves rich. On the other hand I’ve met plenty of not very well off people who define themselves as rich - if not in wealth, in resources they believe are more important.)
Done by plenty of people in NYC on much less than $250K
Mine is four people- but I know people with larger families and less income who are doing fine.
My zip code covers 1.2 square miles - not a large area by any definition. The NYC metropolitan area is about 6700 square miles. I’ll consider a 60 miles square area a large area- at 3600 square miles, it’s a bit more than half of the metro area and 60 miles is a reasonable commute on the East Coast. Where is there a 3600 square mile area on the East Coast where a family of four ( or even six )cannot live a middle class lifestyle on less than $250K?
That’s true of certain neighborhoods, but not the whole city. It’s not even true of all of Manhattan , which usually has not only the highest income census tract in the country, but also the lowest.
Do you have kids? Two kids, four years of college. My kids are tweens, I have twelve years before the last one graduates. Right now, public college for kids in my state is about $20k a year. So that is $80k x 2. If they want to go out of state or to private school, twelve years from now, it will be well over $60k a year.
Is that “entitlement?” No. My kids aren’t entitled to college. However, I wouldn’t consider my wealth “abundant” unless I could pay for them to go to college. For starters. Would you consider yourself wealthy if you couldn’t pay for college for your kids?
People who believe everything they see on TV are sad enough, but someone who believes a “reality” show? Oh dear.
Ah, yes, I did miss the word “assets”. Didn’t bother with the link on those who make $5M tho.
Because I don’t know much about NYC, a place 2500 miles away? OK.
You mean you are completely unaware of the sheer number of things that can affect the cost of living in any given area, and how the cost of living in any given area can be radically different than any other given area? You are seriously telling me that you have no idea how much research that would take?
No, specifically, I don’t know how much housing and gas and food and utilities and education and taxes are in five or six different places in the US - sorry. Yes, I know how to find out but as I said, I’m not going to put in the research for you. If nothing else, it is common knowledge that the cost of living some places in the country is much higher than others.
That’s nice - has nothing to do with what you are responding to however.
No, that isn’t - your zip codes do appear to be much smaller than ours.
Wait, what? What does commuting have to do with it? Also, 60 miles is a reasonable commute for you all?? How long does that take?
Wait for it - you’ll get told that since Implicit’s kids (or failing that, someone’s kids) don’t get enough to eat, you are supposed to take the money you worked for and give it to them instead of investing in your kids’ futures. Because, you know, you are rich…
Are you saying $250,000 a year isn’t enough to send two kids to college? It’s kind of late here and I suppose I may have made some humiliating mistake with my math, but going by your figures it looks like people with a $250k annual household income shouldn’t even have to plan ahead for their children’s education. Even if both kids are at a $60k a year school at the same time for a total of $120k a year, that still leaves $130k a year for the parents to live on until the kids graduate. If the parents bothered to set money aside in a college fund while their children were growing up then it would be even easier.
No, I have a pretty good idea how much research it would take – probably a much better idea than you do, given that I have actually provided a number of cites in this thread while you have provided none. What I remain unclear on is why you think it is my responsibility to spend my free time doing all this research for you in order to support the argument that you are making.
Maybe you shouldn’t have brought it up, then.
It’s not for me. I’m quite happy believing that there are no large areas of the country where a household income of $250k/year would put one in the middle quintile. If you’d like to just agree to disagree on that then that’s fine with me, but if you want to prove me wrong then you’re going to have to produce some cites. If you can’t be bothered to do that then I am perfectly content to continue believing that you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Actually curlcoat, I’m fine with that. Someone else’s kids EATING is more important than my kids going to a private liberal arts college. What I’m not fine with is not being able to send my kids to college because I can’t afford it due to tax rates and ineligibility due to income, while Implict’s kids get grants and we fund crappy public colleges with my tax dollars.
Lamia, you are forgetting a few things - one is the taxes we do pay. Out of our take home income, after we contribute to 401ks (remember, I think we will get means tested, so thats really important - the last thing I want is to be a drain on a stressed system because I decided flying first class was more important than saving for retirement), medical insurance, taxes (we live in a high tax state - I pay federal, FICA, sales, property, state), all the rest of the crap that comes out of my check - we don’t see $100k a year in our pockets - I know, that is STILL a lot of money, but it isn’t two kids in college at the same time paying out of pocket and still afford to eat, pay the mortgage, and heat the house money. Most of our income is ordinary income - and its two incomes - so while we do get SSI tax capped, the vast majority of our income gets SSI taxes, and the vast majority of it is not LTCG. Yeah, that is still a LOT of money, but now I also have a brother in law we heavily subsidize, a mother in law we subsidize, a sister I just got done subsidizing, a Girl Scout troop that does cool things selling very few Girl Scout cookies because I subsidize that (one of my girls is poor - food shelf to feed the kids living with friends or they’d be homeless poor -, another has her middle class parents funding a trust fund for her highly autistic sister - a few years ago I took five girls to camp out of my own pocket) and about $20k a year in charitable contributions. AND I overpay my taxes.
I am NOT saying we struggle and don’t know where the money is coming from each month to pay this months bills. Or that we struggle to pay LAST months bills. But we are a long way from a second home in the Hamptons or a penthouse on Park Avenue or his and hers matching Mercedes S classes. We have a nice home on a street where our neighbors are teachers and mechanics and insurance salesmen - but without granite countertops and cherry woodwork. Our cars are less than six years old - mine is only a year old and bought new. I clean my own house, mow my own lawn (well, we have kids - they do much of that now). We have a second house in a working class neighborhood that we “rent” to my brother in law for about what the property taxes are. We DO splurge on travel, I think that is important - but frankly Diossa and Even Sven are both better traveled than I am (airfare for four gets expensive, its way cheaper to travel single).
I can’t imagine (and I bet you can’t either) who lives in those remodels featured in House Beautiful or wears the clothes that are “Vogue Bargains” ($300 blouses and $400 shoes). Cause I can’t afford that.
You have perhaps forgotten taxes. I make considerably more than $250,000 per year, have one kid in college at about $60,000 and have some lean times. I’m not complaining, I feel very lucky. But, it’s a mistake to think gross income is anything close to net income. And to the issue raised in the OP, I think my taxes should be a bit higher.
Nah..fuck those kids. And stop pretending you actually believe that unless you actually plan donate your children’s college fund to UNICEF or something.
See, this is the cool thing about life. It only has to be internally consistant with me, not with Mr. Smith up there.
I fought with that nut for a bit, working downtown near the panhandlers. If I gave EVERY LAST DIME to other causes, I’d be right out there with 'em the next week. Some of my money, I use to take care of my own, some of it goes to worthy causes, and some of it doesn’t.
