# So if $200 000 - $250 000 is middle income... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 15, 2012, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756 "2012-09-15T03:08:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/61 "2012-09-16T02:11:10Z")
“Entitlement” has a lot of baggage around it these day, but it does describe an aspect of human nature. Once you have it fixed in your mind that you do things a certain way, that that is the “real” way, then it’s really hard to adapt or to see alternatives. I think this is one of the main reasons people struggle to keep off weight they’ve lost: permanently changing the way you eat, your underlying assumptions about eating, is weirdly, humbling-ly difficult. Once you are in a life style, it seems like the null-state. If you are a person who flies, taking the bus is hard to imagine. I mean, I can shake my head at people who can’t imagine living on my household income (~$60K/family of three), and say “wow, how out of touch they are!” but I also really have no idea how people who make $30K and have a family of three survive. I mean, they do it, so clearly it’s possible, but, fuck, it’s hard for me to imagine. At my salary, we are comfortable, but we have to be _careful_. I’ve no idea how I’d cut half of it out. ---
**Author:** ![al27052](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/62 "2012-09-16T02:31:56Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > As others have pointed out here, you’re wrong about that. > > But the flip side is that the GOP’s apologists have gone on at great length to show how families pulling down $400K/year are really still struggling to get by, and shouldn’t have their taxes raised at all.\* > > Meanwhile, they’re saying that public schoolteachers in Chicago are overpaid at $70K/year. > > \*I remember that one of the more publicized examples was of a family living in the Chicago 'burbs, FWIW. Always nice to be doing the comparison between households in the same MSA. The hypocrisy is thick on the ground, wherever American fiscal conservatives gather. No shock there, though. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/63 "2012-09-16T04:03:36Z")
> [@al27052](#): > > Small business owners often pay nothing in income tax, because they know how to use the tax law so well that they can claim every bit of their personal property as a deduction…plus they know other loopholes as well.. My Bro used to love to audit them… The IRS takes a while to catch up to those kinds of assholes, but they do. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/64 "2012-09-16T04:03:37Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > No, you’re wrong. > > Let’s designate, for the sake of argument, $100,000 as the cut-off between middle class and rich. That would make Obama’s statement true - he would only be taxing the rich if he only taxed people above $250,000. Obama never said he was going to tax all the rich. He’d be letting off the rich people between $100,000 and $250,000. Indeed. It’s always come across to me as an extremely safe play: he’s talking about taxing people whom nobody but nobody could possibly consider middle-income. Of course I’m not going to criticize him for some tortured reading of the policy made by someone who disagrees with him on everything anyway. ---
**Author:** ![al27052](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/65 "2012-09-16T04:21:25Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > My Bro used to love to audit them… The IRS takes a while to catch up to those kinds of assholes, but they do. Meanwhile, the cheaters fuck us all, by not paying their fair share. That’s a lot of money not getting paid in, over many decades.🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/66 "2012-09-16T04:27:32Z")
[NY Times](http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/defining-middle-class/): > [@](#): > > In a discussion on “Good Morning America” about his tax plan, Mitt Romney suggested the cutoff for middle income was for households earning “$200,000 to $250,000 and less.” President Obama has used a similar threshold in talking about extending tax cuts for the middle class. > > To be clear, both politicians appear to be talking about the ceiling for the middle class, not its midpoint. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/67 "2012-09-16T04:29:26Z")
> [@al27052](#): > > Really? You ask for a cite, then act as if I can’t provide one, in the same post? So is that a no? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/68 "2012-09-16T04:39:56Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > [NY Times](http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/defining-middle-class/): Having followed the [NY Times link](http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/07/09/remarks-president-extending-tax-cuts-middle-class-families), I’m unconvinced that he’s equating $250,000 with the upper limit on “middle class”: he repeatedly refers to the folks earning more than that as the “wealthiest Americans” and then, separate from that number, talks about the “middle class”. However, I’ll stipulate that Obama intends to consider everyone at $249,000 and below to be middle class. Even then, he’s not in agreement with Romney, because “middle income” means something very different from “middle class.” Again however, I’ll call this one a wash, because folks are right: it’s possible that Romney made a minor misstatement, and meant to say “middle class” instead of “middle income.” Fair enough. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/69 "2012-09-16T07:41:54Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > It’s easy to feel like a well-paid grunt. Yes, it’s considerably better than being a low-paid grunt, but it also doesn’t mean you don’t feel like you are in the same rat race as everyone else even though you are running a bit faster, and on a more comfortable wheel. Your post is all too familiar brickbacon and I find it depressing. My job takes me into contact with people of your income level and above, in a capacity where they will be rather more open than they anticipated. The underlying dissatisfaction they have, the “never enough” culture. Ultimately it is destructive because they are never happy with what they have. They tend to work ridiculous hours and their relationships suffer as a result. So many people in their 30’s with no companionship, so many couples that break down due to work pressure. So many people with income levels so high and yet are so insecure that they feel the need to have a certain house, suit, car, phone, pool, watch. etc. They don’t get them because they want them, they buy them out of a ill-perceived need, there is no joy in that. Are there exceptions? Certainly, but if anything those examples of people having it all and being happy merely fuel much of the acquisitive misery in their wake. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/70 "2012-09-16T08:45:54Z")
I would just like to point out that the world average income is around $8,000, and I’m sure hearing Americans claiming that an income of $60,000 represents real hardship is just as outrageous to them. And as I’m routinely reminded, this is an international board. Hell, even by 1st world standards Americans are pretty well off. Nornalized by purchasing power, in 2011 the average American had a disposable income of about $42,000. That’s about $10,000 higher than Canada, my country. It’s about $15,000 higher than 1st world countries like Denmark, Germany, Finland, Belgium, and France. The _poverty line_ for a family in the U.S. is higher than the median income in the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, and other similar countries with a large middle class. By world standards, almost all Americans are ‘rich’. The poverty line in the U.S. is higher than the world average income. So if you’re middle class in America, don’t get too high-and-mighty about the $200,000 people claiming that they’re not rich. Compared to most other countries, you’re rich too. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/71 "2012-09-16T08:53:20Z")
> [@chela](#): > > I got a robo call from the Mitt the other day, he was pleading for donations because he has to outspend Obama in order to win. So I hung on to listen, and pressed 1 for yes to agree to a Romney bumpersticker for a 3 dollar donation. Eventually I lasted long enough on line to get a real live person, she asked if I was going to donate $100 or $200 or more dollars to help Mitt Romney outspend Obama. For a $3 bumpersticker they want over $200! Middle income yepper. > > I told her to we would be voting for Obama and thanked her for her time. Hope she’s earning double time at the call center. Obama will send you a car magnet for a $10 donation. I know because for the first time in my life, I’ve actually donated to a political campaign. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/72 "2012-09-16T11:16:19Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > That word. I do not think it means what you think it means. > > . But it is a need in certain social circles and professions to keep up appearances, people love to deny that but its true. Can you buck the trend? Sure, but you’ll be as popular as a fundamentalist christian at a swingers club. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/73 "2012-09-16T12:11:37Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Compared to most other countries, you’re rich too. Whjy stop there? Compared to the annual income on other planets in the solar system, starving children in Bangladesh are rich; could be worse. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/74 "2012-09-16T12:13:48Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I would just like to point out that the world average income is around $8,000, and I’m sure hearing Americans claiming that an income of $60,000 represents real hardship is just as outrageous to them. And as I’m routinely reminded, this is an international board. This is an excellent point, since Mitt Romney is running for World President. ---
**Author:** ![Simple\_Linctus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/75 "2012-09-16T12:19:35Z")
What’s all this debate about how poor or rich you feel… I would expect that people FEEL about as rich or poor at a billion dollars as they would at twenty thousand dollars, that’s just being human. That debate completely misses that Romney shouldn’t be considering empirical issues like this based on how he FEELS, he should be basing them on objective FACTS. And this suggests less connection to the facts, and consequently reality, than 99% of the populace. ---
**Author:** ![JackieLikesVariety](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackielikesvariety/32/296_2.png) [@JackieLikesVariety](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JackieLikesVariety)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/76 "2012-09-16T12:40:43Z")
> [@](#): > > By world standards, almost all Americans are ‘rich’ I guess those millions that don’t have health insurance should just get _over_ it. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![al27052](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/77 "2012-09-16T13:26:55Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I would just like to point out that the world average income is around $8,000, and I’m sure hearing Americans claiming that an income of $60,000 represents real hardship is just as outrageous to them. And as I’m routinely reminded, this is an international board. > > Hell, even by 1st world standards Americans are pretty well off. Nornalized by purchasing power, in 2011 the average American had a disposable income of about $42,000. That’s about $10,000 higher than Canada, my country. It’s about $15,000 higher than 1st world countries like Denmark, Germany, Finland, Belgium, and France. The _poverty line_ for a family in the U.S. is higher than the median income in the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, and other similar countries with a large middle class. > > By world standards, almost all Americans are ‘rich’. The poverty line in the U.S. is higher than the world average income. So if you’re middle class in America, don’t get too high-and-mighty about the $200,000 people claiming that they’re not rich. Compared to most other countries, you’re rich too. Just accept our overlords and take it and like it? There’s also a little thing called “cost of living”. It’s generally HIGHER in the US, than in all those places you mentioned, for the most part. Also, in those places you mentioned, the government provides free healthcare, and many other things that we pay for out of pocket here, or at least pay a lot MORE for, in terms of percentage of total cost of, here. Public transportation comes to mind. And did you really compare the former Soviet Bloc with the US? Dude, I don’t even know who you think you were convincing. Did you maybe post while extremely tired or sleepy? ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/78 "2012-09-16T13:41:08Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I would just like to point out that the world average income is around $8,000, and I’m sure hearing Americans claiming that an income of $60,000 represents real hardship is just as outrageous to them. And as I’m routinely reminded, this is an international board. > > Hell, even by 1st world standards Americans are pretty well off. Nornalized by purchasing power, in 2011 the average American had a disposable income of about $42,000. That’s about $10,000 higher than Canada, my country. It’s about $15,000 higher than 1st world countries like Denmark, Germany, Finland, Belgium, and France. The _poverty line_ for a family in the U.S. is higher than the median income in the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, and other similar countries with a large middle class. > > By world standards, almost all Americans are ‘rich’. The poverty line in the U.S. is higher than the world average income. So if you’re middle class in America, don’t get too high-and-mighty about the $200,000 people claiming that they’re not rich. Compared to most other countries, you’re rich too. Sure if I took my American salary and moved to a third world country I can live like a king. It doesn’t work that way. Hell if I could earn my current salary and move to Alabama I can live like a king. I don’t think I would have to pay $16000 a year in property taxes. Or 2-3 thousand in car insurance. I could go on. New Jersey is the highest taxed and highest cost of living state in the country. A 100k salary puts you firmly in the middle class not . All this talk reminds me of republican anti-union and anti-state worker talk. Class warfare and governance by schadenfreude. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/79 "2012-09-16T14:09:42Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > A 100k salary puts you firmly in the middle class not . Wait, what? Are you saying that in NJ, 100K won’t put you in the middle class? By my calculation, that’s equivalent to a [$71K](http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/costofliving/costofliving.html) salary in Charlotte, North Carolina. If that “not” was extraneous, my apologies. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/80 "2012-09-16T14:11:29Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Sure if I took my American salary and moved to a third world country I can live like a king. It doesn’t work that way. Hell if I could earn my current salary and move to Alabama I can live like a king. I don’t think I would have to pay $16000 a year in **property** taxes. Or 2-3 thousand in **car** insurance. I could go on. New Jersey is the highest taxed and highest cost of living state in the country. A 100k salary puts you firmly in the middle class not . All this talk reminds me of republican anti-union and anti-state worker talk. Class warfare and governance by schadenfreude. The point is that you actually have both property that needs taxing and a car that needs insuring. For much of the world those things are a madman’s dream. Those two single things alone put you in the category of “rich” to the majority of the world population, I don’t have too much time for people earning a good wage who think they are badly done to. Some people I know do exactly that and yet when you start analysing their spending habits the reason they are skint becomes blindingly obvious. They just don’t have a good grasp of where their money goes and constantly focus on keeping up appearances. Whatever they do have will never be enough to satisfy them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756.md?page=5)