# 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:** 9\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/101 "2012-09-17T04:52:11Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Clearly, Mitt believes you are middle class if you make $99,000, and if you make $101,000. But not $100,000. OMG, Romney believes in the Singularity! ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/102 "2012-09-17T04:57:42Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Nope. He says the “typical middle class family” will get a $2,200 tax cut. The only way he gets that number is to include everyone up to $250,000. He didn’t say that “the typical middle class family, including a buffer zone”. If someone would compute the income level that would get a $2,200 tax cut, then we would know. Since the proposal has a single cutoff point, clearly he is over simplifying so as not to say, middle class, upper middle class, upper, upper middle class all get tax cuts. And since everyone wants to be middle class (or thinks they are) he extends the boundaries a bit. But do you really think he is saying $250K is a typical middle class income? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/103 "2012-09-17T05:14:13Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > Oh snap, so you are a professor! > > You crack me up, deary, honestly, but I’m gonna still have to go with Bob here. You’re not a professor. I know you think you’re encouraging critical thinking by answering questions with questions, but you’re really just dicking around and wasting time. Just make your fucking point already, Jesus. Funny thing is, he constantly berates others for doing the exact same thing. One of his most common retorts is to tell others that they have to actually make an argument before he’ll respond. Don’t forget that he’s admitted to posting just to dick with people. And you guys are losing sight of the fact that he said that $100,000 is not middle income. So if $250,000 is the peak, the middle is obviously $175,000. Since the median and mode in large and diverse data sets are usually quite similar, that’s probably what he thinks the typical middle class person makes. ---
**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 17, 2012, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/104 "2012-09-17T10:49:39Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Nope. He says the “typical middle class family” will get a $2,200 tax cut. The only way he gets that number is to include everyone up to $250,000. Are you sure? That claim reads to me like a median or a mode, not a mean. What’s your source for the claim? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/105 "2012-09-17T13:41:49Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Are you sure? That claim reads to me like a median or a mode, not a mean. What’s your source for the claim? It doesn’t matte whether it’s the median or the mode or whatever, because the first part of that statement makes it clear he’s counting 98% of American families as “middle class”. In fact you can forget about that last part if you want. > [@Obama](#): > > Extend middle-class tax cuts to prevent a tax increase on 98% of American families who earn less than $250,000 a year… ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/106 "2012-09-17T15:12:53Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > It’s clear that he considers $250,000 to be the upper bound of “people who aren’t rich enough for me to raise their taxes.” This is true, of course. But it means nothing other than what it says: he’s asking to increase taxes on those making above $250K, and not those below it. > [@](#): > > No, no one has actually pointed out that I’m wrong about that. President Obama may not have ever specifically said he views “$250,000” as the middle class, but he has specifically said he only wants to preserve middle class tax cuts and raise taxes on the wealthy. I think **LHoD** handled this part already. ---
**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 17, 2012, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/107 "2012-09-17T15:49:11Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > It doesn’t matte whether it’s the median or the mode or whatever, because the first part of that statement makes it clear he’s counting 98% of American families as “middle class”. In fact you can forget about that last part if you want. Again, I think this allows for my interpretation. I might mandate that door heights be 7’ tall, “Extending normal-sized safety regulations to prevent 98% of people from bumping their heads,” without suggesting that people who are 6’11" are normal-sized. But if I’m wrong, all that suggests is that either Obama is out of touch on what the middle class is, or (likelier) the term “middle-class” is so diluted in American parlance as to be virtually useless as a class signifier. Edit: clearly he’s not counting 98% of Americans as middle-class, unless you think he considers the homeless guy living under a bridge to be middle-class. This criticism would apply to Romney as well, except that Romney explicitly said that 250,000 is middle-income, something I don’t think Obama has explicitly said; Obama has just described the so-called middle-class tax cut as protecting $250,000 folks. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/108 "2012-09-17T21:26:32Z")
> [@Simple\_Linctus](#): > > …where abouts would you be on [the income scale, according to Romney](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/9544261/Mitt-Romney-People-earning-250000-are-middle-income.html)? … > > Honestly, until now I had thought that the stuff about Romney being out of touch … I am completely incapable of understanding the kind of incompetence implied by these remarks in a presidential candidate. > > This basically says that not only has he lived an insanely privileged life (usually, frankly, a good thing in a political candidate) but he hasn’t even a theoretical understanding of how normal people live. He’ll be suggesting everyone eat brioche next. > > What the fuck is going on? He has NO clue, and is off in his own private privledged little world. The idea that he is SO far off, tells me he really doesn’t give a damn either way (or is monumentally stupid). Or both. ---
**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 17, 2012, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756/109 "2012-09-17T21:41:05Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > And you guys are losing sight of the fact that he said that $100,000 is not middle income. So if $250,000 is the peak, the middle is obviously $175,000. Since the median and mode in large and diverse data sets are usually quite similar, that’s probably what he thinks the typical middle class person makes. What the hell are you talking about? Incomes follow a power law distribution. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-200-000-250-000-is-middle-income/634756.md?page=5)