# What Did You Consider "Rich"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 28, 2019, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672 "2019-03-28T17:29:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/21 "2019-03-28T21:55:05Z")
When I was a grade school kid we lived on a mainly working/lower middle class block. We were better off than average, but the rich people, and the rich kid, were definitely at the far end of the dead street, after if branched off to another street. They drove a Cadillac, had a swimming pool and season tickets to the Mets. Their house wasn’t that different though. In the 1960’s. When I was in junior high/HS in 1970’s I lived in an area Charles Murray later listed as a ‘super zip’, though it’s much more upscale now than then. There are just a lot more people in the NY area who make very high incomes relative to the median now than then, as is generally the big change in US income distribution but particularly NY area. Anyway, even then things changed from us being better off than average but the one obvious ‘rich kid’, to most people being, or at least seeming, better off than we were, and sometimes ‘rich’. Which I guess meant much bigger house than ours, those kids I knew from pick up sports games who went to private (other than Catholic) rather than public school like I did, in a few cases there were new cars for them in HS. One kid I knew was heir to Ohaus brand scales, though I don’t know if that was really a lot of money in his nuclear family. I guess it was a semi-adult view though and more realistic than my previous view of the ‘rich kid’ in my former neighborhood. Even the fully adult view some posters assumed the OP is looking for is somewhat arbitrary. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/22 "2019-03-28T22:02:20Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > … They probably went skiing every year, or to exotic resorts, rather than camping or the YHA… Oh my Lord, **Filbert** , the YHA! To explain to those who don’t know (I’m assuming most US) the Youth Hostels Association provided ultra-cheap accommodation for young persons on walking, hitch-hiking and cycling holidays at close to zero cost. Crammed into dormitories of bunk beds with dozens of hairy-arsed twenty-year-olds. It was channeling Wandervogel (this old person would now say). I was 10, 11, 12, 13… and on family holidays. I swear in every hostel my parents were twenty years older than the next oldest person. No, I guess there were others, like the pensioners you see at Glastonbury. This was the very opposite of rich - but it was oddly aspirant, because it meant we actually could go on holidays. And - returning to the OP - where I grew up I had no role models at all for “Rich”, no real concept of what it meant. And even referring to TV (which we didn’t have for a chunk of my childhood, now I think of it) doesn’t really help - British TV told grimy stories - it was the era of kitchen sink drama and all that. So no, I don’t think I really had a concept of rich as a kid. Outside my frame of reference. j ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/23 "2019-03-28T22:56:49Z")
When I was a kid? Big mansions, fast two-seater cars or stretch vehicles, decor in gold and white with literal dollar signs printed on their stuff. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/24 "2019-03-28T23:08:14Z")
Having a million dollars in the bank/investments. I arrived at this conclusion because Publisher’s Clearing House, the Illinois Lottery, and related win-big-money situations treated a million bucks as the default grand prize. And also because Mr. and Mrs. Howell were the Millionaire and His Wife, and in my mind it only took one million to qualify. And the Howells were obviously rich. ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/25 "2019-03-28T23:19:51Z")
Living in a big house, particularly one with a second floor. We lived in a one-story house, so a house with a staircase seemed exotic and rich to me. ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/26 "2019-03-28T23:26:43Z")
When I was a kid I thought of my friends’ parents who made $100k a year or more were rich. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/27 "2019-03-28T23:35:41Z")
1 million net worth, though that went up to 2 mil, and over 100K per year. 1980’s ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/28 "2019-03-28T23:38:42Z")
I think Gordon Gekko said it best “I’m not talking a $400,000 a year working Wall Street stiff flying first class and being comfortable, I’m talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player, or nothing.” Maybe you don’t need $50 million to $100 million. But to me “rich” implies a certain financial independence that comes from passive income and control of revenue producing assets. Doctors, lawyers and working Wall Street stiffs are “upper middle class”. People with advanced income tied to their labor and profession. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/29 "2019-03-29T00:05:37Z")
> [@Translucent\_Daydream](#): > > People that… > > Anyone that… Someone is rich (and smart) if he knows the difference between “that” and “who”. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/30 "2019-03-29T00:14:35Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Someone is rich (and smart) if he knows the difference between “that” and “who”. Ooh, I know this - they’re spelled differently! I mean, it’s clearly not that that that was wrong in that sentence. ---
**Author:** ![River\_Hippie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/river_hippie/32/26_2.png) [@River\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/River_Hippie)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/31 "2019-03-29T00:39:52Z")
When I was a kid an in ground pool convinced me you were rich. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/32 "2019-03-29T02:28:49Z")
When I was in high school, I had a friend who dated the daughter of a local real estate developer who had built a bunch of 1950s subdivisions. Her family had a big two-story house and she went to private school. That was rich. Of course, in St. Louis, we had [Gussie Busch, brewery head and baseball team owner.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gussie_Busch) He was **mother** _king super-rich_\*! As for my own family, my parents were teenagers in the Great Depression, and they knew what poor really was. We were, to quote my father’s exact words, “doing okay.” ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/33 "2019-03-29T02:36:03Z")
> [@River\_Hippie](#): > > When I was a kid an in ground pool convinced me you were rich. Yep. Wondering about the people quoting particular incomes and net worth. When they were a kid, like grade school (when I thought an in ground pool was rich), they had any idea of the distribution of incomes or wealth in $'s? Although I guess you’re still a kid in HS or college. But I wonder how many HS kids even have a good idea of that kind of thing. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/34 "2019-03-29T04:44:27Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I think Gordon Gekko said it best “I’m not talking a $400,000 a year working Wall Street stiff flying first class and being comfortable, I’m talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player, or nothing.” > > Maybe you don’t need $50 million to $100 million. But to me “rich” implies a certain financial independence that comes from passive income and control of revenue producing assets. Doctors, lawyers and working Wall Street stiffs are “upper middle class”. People with advanced income tied to their labor and profession. Definitely how I think of “rich” now, but too advanced for me as a kid. Back then, doctors & lawyers were rich! What you’re talking about, I probably thought there were maybe like 5 people on the planet, mostly kings or something, who could just not work, and live off the money their money makes. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/35 "2019-03-29T07:01:34Z")
Having an inground swimming pool and a holiday house was rich to me. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/36 "2019-03-29T13:51:26Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#): > > Definitely how I think of “rich” now, but too advanced for me as a kid. Back then, doctors & lawyers were rich! > > What you’re talking about, I probably thought there were maybe like 5 people on the planet, mostly kings or something, who could just not work, and live off the money their money makes. I think the earliest concept of “rich” I had as a kid would have been cartoon characters like Richie Rich or Scrooge McDuck. Maybe the episode of Bugs Bunny where Bugs gets hypnotized to believe he is Elmer J Fudd and owns a mansion and a yacht. 80s movies about “class struggle” like Wall Street or Trading Places came out when I was a bit older in my teens. Also, having family in Pittsburg, I had kind of a vague notion about industrialists like the Carnegies and Mellons. But basically, I grew up considering “rich” to be these absurdly wealthy people who lived in big mansions off in their own world of other rich people. Like celebrities or CEOs or people in families with the same last name as Fortune 500 companies. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/37 "2019-03-29T13:59:57Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > Having an inground swimming pool and a holiday house was rich to me. An inground pool sounded pretty rich to me when I was very little. But then a couple of streets over some installed an inground pool that took up the entire backyard of their modest house. I was certainly jealous of such a luxury, but it didn’t seem to qualify them as rich anymore. It would be a while later when I was 16 and my first plane trip. Looking out the window after takeoff I was amazed at how many people had pools, and the neighborhoods around airports aren’t full of mansions. ---
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/38 "2019-03-29T14:02:13Z")
> [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](#): > > When I was a kid, a rich person: > (1) Lived in a much nicer house than mine in a better neighborhood. Three bathrooms, central air, and a two-car garage were the minimum if you lived in the suburbs. A pool would be expected. An indoor pool was really nice. If you lived in the city, it should be at least a 3-bedroom in a nice doorman building in a good neighborhood and a parking spot in the garage. > (2) Had a nice vacation house. > (3) Traveled extensively. You had certainly flown to Europe many times and taken several beach vacations. You had opinions about restaurants and hotels in many American cities. > (4) Drove nice cars. Cadillac was good but an S-class Mercedes was better. You didn’t necessarily have to have a Rolls-Royce. > (5) Expected your kids to go to a competitive college, if not necessarily Harvard, and would never tell your kids there was any place they couldn’t attend for cost reasons if they got in. > > I don’t think I knew any rich people by my definition although I knew people who checked most of those boxes. All of that would have been way beyond my imagination for real people to have. That was the stuff of movies and TV. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/39 "2019-03-29T14:02:55Z")
> [@River Hippie](#): > > When I was a kid an in ground pool convinced me you were rich. Same here. I didn’t know anyone with an in-ground pool, and I didn’t even want one. But that would have been proof that they were rich. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/40 "2019-03-29T14:09:45Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > Yep. > > Wondering about the people quoting particular incomes and net worth. When they were a kid, like grade school (when I thought an in ground pool was rich), they had any idea of the distribution of incomes or wealth in $'s? > > Although I guess you’re still a kid in HS or college. But I wonder how many HS kids even have a good idea of that kind of thing. I’m wondering the same. I guess I should have been more clear. When I say “kid” I mean before teen years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672.md?page=3)