The only people who are thin are either the desperately poor or filthy rich. One has no food to eat the other can afford surgery or personal chefs.
The middle class is where the fat is.
So, Middle class it is. and I bowl.
As explained to me by a friend once.
Evil Captor, thank you. That was funny as hell.
Working poor here all the way baby! I earn seven bucks an hour, work 45 hours a week sweating over a hot grill in a restaurant, and support a wife, a two year old and a cat. Heck, I even got food stamps for a few months a year or so ago (and got an ass-reaming for admitting that in a thread here at the time).
I’ll probably be working poor the rest of my life. Not that I’m complaining or anything. I have enough to give my family what they need, so I’m content. I just look at it as the price I’m paying for spending 30 years of my life high on pot with no motivation to improve my station in life. Of course, some of the blame lies in the fact that I live in central Pennsylvania, where high paying jobs aren’t real easy to come by, but it’s all good.
Thank you. However, I would be more flattered if I had intended my post to be funny.
Where I live sucks in economic terms. I often see job offers that require a bachelors degree barely offer $20,000 a year. In the past, that wasn’t such a problem as the cost of living was so low here - but that is rising.
I have recently been hired at the university here, but I won’t start until August. I really need a job for the next two months, however I don’t know where to go for that…before it usually takes me three months or so just to find one in the first place.
Yeah, here too. That’s why, ever since we’ve been here, every single decent joby hubby’s had has been in Baltimore. He’ll go down to Baltimore all week, and only be home on the weekends. Soon, though, I suspect he’ll have a job with the Federal Gov’t. He’ll still have to work in Baltimore for a couple of years, but after that, it will be easy for him to transfer anywhere, including commuting distance to here!
But it shouldn’t be a surprise for them to do so on an anonymous message board. If I tell you all I’m incredibly wealthy, it won’t make me any more of a target than I already am - unless, of course, I say it all the time. Which is true of just about any character trait, when you think about it. If I mentioned in every thread that I am fat or that I have four wives and two girlfriends, I’ll be targeted as an Obnoxious SonofaGun.
I’m a single mother of two making ten dollars an hour. Y’all think this is my computer? Ha.
I see myself as working class.
I have an honours degree and a post-graduate degree.
Own house (mortgage of course)
Lots of debts.
Earn approx US $45k per annum.
Politically I’m slightly right of center.
I’m guessing from that I’ll be classed as middle class but being a scot from a working class background I don’t want to be labelled middle class.
I’m not posh enough for that.
If it was meant as an insult, I didn’t get it, and I see no reason for it.
I think the OP made an observation using a keen sense of the obvious and judging from the subsequent posts he was right on target.
I recently heard that the upper class is hiring personal concierges to accompany them on vacations. Afterall who wants to have to buy tickets and other menial tasks while on vacation? Therefore if there are any dopers who are upper class, they most likely are having their butlers handle posting to the SDMB. 
No, it wasn’t intended as an insult. More of a joke at my own expense.
In this thread, I have yet to see anyone confess to great wealth. I’ve been on the Dope for years, it’s happened two or three times at most, though I have my suspicions about several more Dopers based on what I suspect are slips in their posts … “Well, the cost of tropical islands isn’t what it used to be…” – that sort of thing.
The anonymity of the Dope is not something I trust greatly in. Granted, we are all anonymous on a superficial level, but I doubt if most Dopers’ identities would remain closed to a determined hacker, psychopath, cop or brilliant whacko.
I agree Evil Captor. *Oops, got to make this short. My limo is waiting to take me to my airport. Can’t have the girls waiting, huh. They’ve waited for TWO days, to get their new Porshes. Off to Italy. *
but I agree. 
Well, now that we have the definition of Middle Class all sorted out :rolleyes: , I’ll say that I grew up in a middle class polish Catholic Family in Connecticut. My wife was the same way. Luckily, we are both extremely hard worker’s and are dedicated to eachother first, and our professions second. We are both 34 and living a fairly wondrous lifestyle. Our bills are paid, our debt to invcome ratio is where it should be, but we both know and understand the value of a buck.
I believe I ate nearly 2.45 tons of Raman Noodles in Grad School
But now we are living a good life. Children will bless us when they are ready to. But as for the attitude of the board, I’d say we are primarily Middle Class. Regardless of income I believe most are fair to one another about keeping certain things private and other things open. 
According to the median household income for Tarrant County (year of data, 1999), I’m well above middle class. Certainly not upper class, however. I grew up very lower class: single-wide trailer, food banks, food stamps, etc. Dirt poor in college, too.
Well unfortunately I live in the richest and poorest state in the union. Thus the median household income in Greenwich is 409K - Now in the county I live in the Median household income is 100k. Big Difference. My wife and I fall above that margin, however, due in no small part to our upbringing, we certainly do not consider ourselves in tier 1.
My family barely qualifies as Middle Class.
My personal opinion is that in the same way that everybody here has a 130+ IQ and a 9 inch penis, not many people here are going to identify with being rich. It’s interesting that threads dealing directly in wealth seem to indicate that we are all poor but those that deal only indirectly in wealth have lots of people come in who indicate that they have quite a bit of disposable income.
My guess is that as a board that attracts intelligent, aware people, the average person who comes here is going to be significantly more wealthy than average.
According to the Chicago Reader, 21% of their readers have an income about 100K and I would expect a similar type of statistic here.
yeah, even the female Dopers, which is astonishing when you think about it.
Good point. Yesterday, on another thread someone was talking abuot how they’d netted $80,000 by reconditioning a house, something they do ‘on the side’ so to speak. On this thread they’d probably say, "I’m middle class … and I was raised in a tomato crate … "
This I don’t know about. In public, every business seems to claim to cater to a wealthy upper middle class clientele – even if their business is being crack hos.