# NPR's elitism is annoying me today **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 3, 2016, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650 "2016-08-03T17:08:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2016, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650/21 "2016-08-04T12:35:57Z")
In academic writing, “It is thought” means, “I think”. "It is generally thought means, “a couple of my friends think so, too.” This is very similar to the journalistic, “people think”, and “many people think”. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2016, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650/22 "2016-08-04T13:26:32Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > People often say this, but they overlook the fact that in some of those allegedly expensive metros, there are also many people with very low incomes. I’m not sure why this is posted as a response to my comment, or why you’re aping the pattern of my response. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2016, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650/23 "2016-08-04T15:04:51Z")
NPR is the best news source I’ve found, with some amazing in-depth reporting at times. But they never miss a chance to to a social justice story. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2016, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650/24 "2016-08-04T15:07:32Z")
> [@control-z](#): > > NPR is the best news source I’ve found, with some amazing in-depth reporting at times. But they never miss a chance to to a social justice story. To what? ---
**Author:** ![GunnarFranz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/da6949/32.png) [@GunnarFranz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GunnarFranz)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2016, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650/25 "2016-08-04T16:59:31Z")
Depends largely on where you are from, I would have that it would be slightly more due to my experience with income and what constitutes the average household\*. Remember who the average NPR listener is as well… \*_The median household income for Connecticut was $70,048 in 2014_ Edit: Shodan beat me to this analysis. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2016, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650/26 "2016-08-04T18:45:42Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > To what? Doh, “they never miss the chance to do a social justice story.” ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2016, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650/27 "2016-08-04T19:32:11Z")
> [@control-z](#): > > Doh, “they never miss the chance to do a social justice story.” Is “social justice” a bad thing now? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2016, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650/28 "2016-08-04T19:56:52Z")
> [@Duke\_of\_Rat](#): > > [$250K/yr is middle class](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/11/hillary-clinton-middle-class), I ain’t even close. Thing is, “middle class” has at least two reasonable definitions, and they aren’t even close to being similar: (1) Median of the range of income; and (2) By education and occupation. In some places, it can also be measured by inherited social status, ‘manners’, accent, etc. Admittedly, not so much in America. Thus, wiki: > [@](#): > > Achievement of tertiary education. > > Holding professional qualifications, including academics, lawyers, chartered engineers, politicians, and doctors, regardless of leisure or wealth. > > Belief in bourgeois values, such as high rates of house ownership, delayed gratification, and jobs which are perceived to be secure. > > Lifestyle. In the United Kingdom, social status has historically been linked less directly to wealth than in the United States,[6] and has also been judged by signifiers such as accent (Received Pronunciation and U and non-U English), manners, place of education (Public school (United Kingdom)), occupation, and the class of a person’s family, circle of friends and acquaintances.[7][8] > > Cultural identification. Often in the United States, the middle class are the most eager participants in pop culture whereas the reverse is true in Britain.[9] The second generation of new immigrants will often enthusiastically forsake their traditional folk culture as a sign of having arrived in the middle class. > **[Middle class](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_class#History_and_evolution_of_the_term)** > > The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Common definitions for the middle class range from the middle fifth of individuals on a nation's income ladder, to everyone but the poorest and wealthiest 20%. Theories like "Paradox of Interest" use decile groups and wealth distribution data to determi Terminol... It is obvious Mother Jones is using “median income” as what is reasonable to define the “middle class”. But this isn’t the only definition: indeed, it isn’t the _ordinary_ definition. The ordinary definition is one based on education and occupation. So, if a “middle class” is defined, at least at its upper bounds, by “Achievement of tertiary education” and being a “professional” (such as “lawyers, chartered engineers, politicians, and doctors, regardless of leisure or wealth”), there is absolutely nothing odd about having a ceiling on that set at $250,000, as plenty of doctors, lawyers, etc - all of whom were, and as far as I know are, usually considered “middle class” unless they have achieved extremes of wealth - can easily earn that much in salary. Now, I’ll argue that “middle class” isn’t particularly meaningful (in my opinion, society now has basically four classes - at the bottom, an ‘underclass’ who survive on the margins; a ‘have not’ class, who do service type or short-term contract work, characterized by job insecurity; a ‘have’ class, who have transferrable and marketable skills (which would include some of the docs and lawyers traditionally considered ‘middle class’); and the ‘wealthy’, who have control of capital; with some overlaps of course - and that the top two classes are gaining in overall wealth at the expense of the bottom two). In short, that what had been the ‘middle class’ is now sharply bifurcated between the “haves” and “have nots”. But as long as we continue to use such terms as “middle class”, it should be recognized that there isn’t only one way to define them. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2016, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650/29 "2016-08-04T21:19:35Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Is “social justice” a bad thing now? Social justice isn’t a bad thing. “Social justice” on the other hand… ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2016, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650/30 "2016-08-04T21:25:45Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > In academic writing, “It is thought” means, “I think”. "It is generally thought means, “a couple of my friends think so, too.” > > This is very similar to the journalistic, “people think”, and “many people think”. Heh, love this. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2016, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650/31 "2016-08-05T00:10:46Z")
Bernstein wrote an entire book in people perception of their own and others wealth. I think the guys pretty concious of the various issues pepole have raised in this thread, and I’d be pretty surprised if the comment wasn’t referring to some actual piece of research. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2016, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650/32 "2016-08-05T04:14:16Z")
> [@Duke\_of\_Rat](#): > > [$250K/yr is middle class](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/11/hillary-clinton-middle-class), I ain’t even close. To be fair, I think the issue was more about who it makes sense to raise taxes on, and the reality is many people in that income range are not living substantially different lives than people with median incomes in that they don’t have a lot of disposible income to pay more in taxes. They are not “rich” by many metrics. I get that that is a tough argument to make from an emotional or pure statistical standpoint of view, but when we look at income percentiles, being in the top 3% (~250k) on a day to day basis is much closer to living with a median income than it is to making $1mm/year. or more. Yes, much of the reason for this is because of the choices people make, but they are often not choices of extravagance. Many people in that situation are just two married college educated professionals (eg. an engineer and a pilot), or just one professional with a high paying job. You are most of the way there if you are a corporate lawyer, doctor, executive, banker, etc. The issue is that with that income, you often have to live in an expensive area, take out loans to go to college and/or grad school, work long hours, and save money to pay for things that are often subsidized for people making less money (eg. college). Now that doesn’t mean we should start crying for the surgeons of the world, but it does mean we should probably have a more realistic idea of the lives these people lead. It’s not caviar and limo rides. They live with much of the same financial terror that people closer to the median do. It may not be the cost of a new roof that keeps them up at night, but rather funding a life that affords their kids a better life than they had; something most people are trying to do regardless of income. yes, I get it. You cannot compare someone who must clip coupons to get by and is worried about their car breaking down to someone who is worried they need to pay Stanford tuition in x years for their kids. However, it’s important to recognize that those fears and anxieties are just as real to the people involved in both cases. ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2016, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650/33 "2016-08-05T14:31:32Z")
I just put that link up because I seem to remember an NPR piece (NPR is what I listen to on my way to/from work) that suggested Hillary was a little off the mark to suggest that $250K/yr was “middle class”. I see by some of the responses here that others feel $250K/yr is firmly middle class. It seems a little better off than middle class to me, ~5X the median income seems to be a bit on the high side, but I guess that’s “upper middle class”. I was probably confusing “median income” and “middle class”, my thought process was that median would be close to middle, not 1/5 of middle. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2016, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650/34 "2016-08-05T14:34:23Z")
I’m with you. I’m not persuaded that just because people feel financial stresses at $250K, this makes them middle-class. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2016, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650/35 "2016-08-05T14:35:34Z")
> [@Duke\_of\_Rat](#): > > I just put that link up because I seem to remember an NPR piece (NPR is what I listen to on my way to/from work) that suggested Hillary was a little off the mark to suggest that $250K/yr was “middle class”. I see by some of the responses here that others feel $250K/yr is firmly middle class. It seems a little better off than middle class to me, ~5X the median income seems to be a bit on the high side, but I guess that’s “upper middle class”. I was probably confusing “median income” and “middle class”, my thought process was that median would be close to middle, not 1/5 of middle. Both are reasonable meanings for that amorphous term “middle class”. The issue is that the article is using one (median or reasonably close to it) while others, presumably including Clinton, are using another (the upper bound of ‘middle class’ is a professional-type job like lawyer or doctor). The two definitions - which are I say both reasonable ones - naturally arrive at totally different results for a reasonable range of what ‘middle class’ ought to be. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2016, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650/36 "2016-08-05T14:39:14Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I’m with you. I’m not persuaded that just because people feel financial stresses at $250K, this makes them middle-class. Feeling financial stresses isn’t what makes them arguably ‘middle class’. Anyone can feel financial stresses - all that is necessary, is to spend more than you earn, no matter what you earn (obviously, a lot easier to be in that boat if you earn little, because you are spending on necessities … but I digress). What makes them (arguably) ‘middle class’ is that the term can mean ‘having a professional type job like doctor or lawyer’. If doctors and lawyers are ‘middle class’, then the amount they can earn is at the upper bounds of a ‘middle class’ income by definition; and doctors and lawyers can earn $250K. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2016, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650/37 "2016-08-05T14:47:07Z")
I think you could use a fairly expensive definition of “middle class” that includes the three middle quintiles and leaves out only 20% at the top and 20% at the bottom. That would cut off the middle class at $110K, double the median. But even if you went further than that and excluded only 10% at the top and 10% at the bottom, it still would not include people making over $200,000 a year, as the line would then be at $155K. ETA: Doctors and especially lawyers can in some cases earn a lot more than $250K, so I just think that metric is fatally flawed. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2016, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650/38 "2016-08-05T14:53:48Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I think you could use a fairly expensive definition of “middle class” that includes the three middle quintiles and leaves out only 20% at the top and 20% at the bottom. That would cut off the middle class at $110K, double the median. But even if you went further than that and excluded only 10% at the top and 10% at the bottom, it still would not include people making over $200,000 a year, as the line would then be at $155K. I wouldn’t have any problems with defining it that way (or indeed, any other way) for the purposes of taxing policy or whatever. My only point is that someone defining it another way - as was done in this case - isn’t some sort of _definitional_ error: it doesn’t contradict what is meant by “middle class”, which traditionally was based, at least in large part, on education and profession. People traditionally considered “middle class” can, and do, earn that much. Having the limit set so high may be bad social tax policy of course (and that’s, in my opinion, the way to criticize the high limit). ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2016, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650/39 "2016-08-05T15:44:52Z")
> [@Duke of Rat](#): > > I just put that link up because I seem to remember an NPR piece (NPR is what I listen to on my way to/from work) that suggested Hillary was a little off the mark to suggest that $250K/yr was “middle class”. Hillary also said that $100 million wasn’t really rich, and probably for many of the same reasons that NPR listeners are surprised that people can live on an income of $50K per year. “The rich” is somebody else - I’m just comfortable. In much the same way, “old” means “ten years more than whatever age I am at the time”. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2016, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650/40 "2016-08-05T15:47:00Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Hillary also said that $100 million wasn’t really rich, and probably for many of the same reasons that NPR listeners are surprised that people can live on an income of $50K per year. “The rich” is somebody else - I’m just comfortable. > > In much the same way, “old” means “ten years more than whatever age I am at the time”. > > Regards, > Shodan Cite for the Hillary statement? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nprs-elitism-is-annoying-me-today/761650.md?page=3)