# Where are the upper and lower boundaries of the American middle class? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 18, 2013, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888 "2013-07-18T23:01:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888/41 "2013-07-19T15:49:29Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Where does debt figure into the equation? How do you classify people who look like they’re living a middle-class lifestyle, and who have all the things on **Ambrosio Spinola** ’s “middle class wish list”—but only because they’ve charged a lot of it and run up substantial credit card debt, and/or have large outstanding student loans, and/or took on an unsustainable mortgage? Same question. Is class determined by an INCOME + ASSETS - DEBT calculation, or is this too simplistic? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888/42 "2013-07-19T15:53:57Z")
Cash flow, which is probably harder to measure. There are a lot of millionaires with negative net worth, but still live pretty darn well. A guy like Mike Tyson, he’s supposedly broke, but he sure has a nice house. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888/43 "2013-07-19T15:54:22Z")
Absolutely can’t be measured by income alone, as class is really a social construct and mindset. I’d say, though, if you can live off your paycheck in a reasonable manner and save a bit for emergencies/retirement, you’ve arrived in middle-class, and if you don’t have to work at all because your money works for you, then you’ve left middle-class behind. This is a wide gap which I think is why most people consider themselves middle-class. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888/44 "2013-07-19T16:07:47Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > Same question. > > Is class determined by an INCOME + ASSETS - DEBT calculation, or is this too simplistic? To my mind, too simplistic. Class isn’t merely defined by income and assets, to my mind. For one, this raises the objections already raised - that the relative value of these things varies wildly depending on where you live; but more fundamentally, it will not suffice because class isn’t all about income, but also about such things as how that income is derived. This is why I do not agree with an income cut-off; even though it may “seem” that earning in the top 5% “ought” to make you upper-class, that’s too simple. It puts doctors and lawyers - that is, professionals who work for a paycheque, often (in the case of lawyers - and I’m one) essentially as glorified office-workers, in the same category as captains of industry - and there is clearly a difference. I’d say that, in general, earning a salary or paycheque from one’s own services, one cannot be “upper class” except where those services essentially give one celebrity status. Lawyers, doctors and the like thus are presumptively upper middle class (at best), unless they have other strings to their bow such as acting on various boards of directors, or managing partner status; in short, one generally cannot become “upper class” by selling one’s own services - even though the paycheque may put you in the top percentiles, earnings-wise. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888/45 "2013-07-19T16:09:38Z")
Sorta a weird tangent, but Fresh Prince of Bel Air’s aunt and uncle: middle class or upper class? I mean, the guy was a judge, how much do judges make? Yet they seemed to have all the trappings of an upper class family. ---
**Author:** ![Ambrosio\_Spinola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de0a6/32.png) [@Ambrosio\_Spinola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambrosio_Spinola)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888/46 "2013-07-19T16:14:31Z")
My wife has been watching “Princess of Long Island”, which I’ve been trying to avoid, but showcases some upper-class people who don’t have much money (I guess they’ll inherit from their parents?). On the flip side of that, you’ve got people like Sam Walton, who drove a beat-up old truck and was more interested in bird hunting with his dogs than any of the finer things money could buy him. I think most people in the US really are “middle class” in the sense that they have bought into a particular menu of acceptable life choices and goals. But achieving that these days is hard - I’m doing it, but on two fairly substantial incomes when my father was able to do it with one. So I’d say I’ve got a middle class temperament, but since my household is in the top 8% of earners I can’t honestly claim to be “average” in that sense. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888/47 "2013-07-19T16:16:35Z")
“Class” does not refer to income or assets. It refers to a social group. These social groups are amorphous and porous. But when you show up at a party, and everyone takes a look at you and figures out that you aren’t “one of us”, then you’re not part of their social class. In Britain the have the useful distinction between working class and middle class, which has kind of faded in the US. A steelworker making $60,000 a year is not middle class, because he has a blue collar job. You have to have a white collar job to be middle class. A shopkeeper can be middle class, but the guy who sweeps up at the shop is not, even though he works at a shop. A schoolteacher is middle class, the bus driver is not even if the bus driver makes more money. Remember when drinking wine was something no self-respecting manly man would do? Real men drank beer, wine was for the rich and Europeans. Drinking wine was a class marker. Anyway, these sorts of things are dissolving, but still kind of exist. ---
**Author:** ![Trom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Trom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trom)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888/48 "2013-07-19T16:19:53Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Economically, there are only two classes worth worrying about in the US: the robber barons (aka the top 1 tenth of the one percent) and their minions, and everybody else. The robber barons are increasingly making their money through complex financial schemes (think CDOs) that tend on the whole to defraud and degrade the wealth of everyone else, and the result has been that everyone else’s wealth is decreasing while theirs increases. > > For example, suppose you are a furniture maker in North Carolina. You make money by buying raw materials, adding value to them through labor and processing via machinery (lathes, etc.) and turning out a finished product that people can buy and sit on. A dollar that you earn via that work represent real value. > > Now suppose you are an arbitrager. You make money by having a computer program make bets against the value of currencies vs. other computer programs. If your program is better than others, and/or your insights into the values of currencies are better than others. Liberal fundraising icon George Soros literally made billions in that way in the [Black Wednesday debacle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday) by short selling the British Pound. > > Big high profile arbitrage incidents like that are outliers, however. The vast majority of arbitrage is computer programs making trades that involve fluctuations that might amount to the equivalent of fractions of a penny in US currency, at speeds faster than humans can manage, operating against other programs that make trades at the same speeds. > > Basically, the arbitragers are harvesting the wealth that comes from tiny fluctuations in world currencies. Every day they turn their computers on, watch the charts and graphs, and harvest the millions that they make as a result of those fluctuations. > > But at the end of the day, what do they have that is of real value? They are bettors who have won bets, just like high rollers in Las Vegas. Sometimes the lose, sometimes they win, but mostly they win because often they are betting against the economies of nations. > > What do they produce that anyone else in the world can use? Nothing. Yet their dollar can buy as much as the furniture makers’ dollar can, even though the furniture maker has created a real product that people can use. > > Basically, we have one class of people (the financial industry) that plays with Monopoly money all day and then is able to use their Monopoly money like real dollars, while the rest of us have to work to create real products and services that others can use for our dollars. > > Which is why there is so much wealth inequality in the US of late, and why the fortunes of the middle class have fallen so much as they are relentlessly pushed back into the lower class by the economic consequences of the real wealth we all create having to compete with the financial industry’s monopoly money. > > All other class distinctions are meaningless, at present. It is Us vs. Them. George Soros’ Black Wedneday trade as an example of arbitrage? Not even close. I know high-frequency trading is confusing and scary, but the numbers don’t fit your narrative. Getco, one of the largest high-frequency trading firms, made $25 million last year. Net profit for the entire industry last year was $1 billion. A bunch of computer nerds aren’t destroying the middle class. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888/49 "2013-07-19T16:25:39Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > My personal view would be to use the following demarcations. The income values I suggest are guesstimates and may be totally off, the attitude towards money is the main thing. > > Upper Upper class: you can buy anything you want on a whim be it a personal Jet or a Senator. A million dollars could float through your fingers and you wouldn’t really miss it. (Income range $50 million + per year?) > > Upper class: You can buy pretty much anything you want from personal jets to Island Villas but you will have to pay attention to it. (Income range $5-$50 Million per year?) > > Lower Upper class: You can buy most luxury items without worrying about cost. Yo9u can go helicopter skiing on a whim and You fly first class as a matter of course, spending several thousand dollars on your wife’s birthday present is not unusual. But some extreme items are out of reach. ($500K-$5 Million a year?) > > Upper Middle Class: As long as you don’t go for luxuries, you don’t need to worry about money, as there is always enough. You can go to Disneyland with the kids without altering your budget but will probably fly coach. You may need to slightly adjust your finances to send your kid to a prep school and will want to set up a plan to save for their college education, but it is more a manner of planning than it is sacrifice. ($150K-$500K per year?) > > Middle class: You are financially secure and have a safety net built up, but have to watch your money. You can go out to eat now and then but not as often as you might want to. A family vacation to Disneyland is possible but you will have to save up for it. In order to go to college you are either going to have to very carefully save money early on rely on financial aid to send your kids to college. ($40k-$150K? Varies widely depending on location) > > Lower Middle class: You can get by but have to watch every penny. Going out to a nice restaurant to eat is a luxury. A trip to Disneyland would be something you would have to save for many years to achieve. You have little if any savings so an unexpected emergency repair or medical expense can throw your finances into crisis mode ($20K-$40K) > > Upper Lower Class: You have some income but rely on the government and cheritable organizations for your substance. You live hand to mouth and buy what you can with the money in your pocket hoping it will last you until the end of the month. ($8-$20K) > > Lower Class: You have no regular income but get by entirely on welfare. Otherwise you’re similar to Upper Lower class. (Income 0-$8K) > > Lower Lower you are living on the street making any money you can through begging and relying on shelters and soup kitchens for your survival. (Income 0-$5k) I think yours is the most realistic/precise definition so far, except I would add net worth to income in the parentheses in order to make it more exact. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888/50 "2013-07-19T16:27:24Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Middle class to me means you have a stable full time job, you have accessible health care that won’t be taken away when you need it, you have a 6-12 month emergency fund, you can afford to send your kids to college, you can afford a mortgage and 1-2 cars, and you can afford to fund your retirement. The income in dollars it takes to do those things varies greatly depending on the size of your family and where you live. > > A single person in the midwest who makes 30k could arguably be called middle class. But a family in San Francisco would not. I doubt most middle class people have 6-12 month emergency fund. Otherwise, I agree. (They _should_ but they don’t.) > [@Rachellelogram](#): > > Just for my personal opinion on the matter of class, I’d say the top 5% qualify as upper. The bottom 20% are lower. That leaves 25% who are lower-middle, middle, and upper-middle respectively. I disagree with the 5% cutoff; I think it’s closer to 1% if we’re discussing only income, talking about people with no more accumulated wealth than would be typical for the income bracket. I was arguing Bible stuff with my father, and said he was inconsistent, using the line about a rich man having the chance going to heaven as that of a camel fitting through the eye of a needle. He objected to being called “rich” so I mentioned, 3 houses (actually 4), 2 luxury cars, until recently a 28 foot boat, lakefront property, etc., meaning that by world-wide standards, he was rich. But definitely not “upper class” in US socioeconomic terms. He worked hard all his life to get what he has, hasn’t been particularly lucky with investments, but is doing OK in retirement despite outliving his expectancy thanks to conservative habits. My guess is my folks are in the top 2% (or, were until his retirement around age 80 when my mom put her foot down). But they couldn’t have lived a middle class lifestyle (or better) without continuing to work. To me, upper class means being able to live high without needing to work. Also, there are two pretty distinct types: old money and new money. Of course, there are always further distinctions. I’m on the borderline between middle and upper-middle. I live in a neighborhood of upper-middle with some upper, but I got lucky on one of the smaller houses at the bottom of the housing market. I’m a software engineer, and while I’ve saved pretty agressively most of my career, I’m still wondering how I’m going to manage retirement at age 65 in 9 years. Most likely it’ll be 19, and fingers crossed. I don’t know how much longer I can keep up with the damn youngsters. Everything is getting so complicated! > [@Sarahfeena](#): > > Absolutely can’t be measured by income alone, as class is really a social construct and mindset. I’d say, though, if you can live off your paycheck in a reasonable manner and save a bit for emergencies/retirement, you’ve arrived in middle-class, and if you don’t have to work at all because your money works for you, then you’ve left middle-class behind. > > This is a wide gap which I think is why most people consider themselves middle-class. Agreed, with a caveat for retirees. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888/51 "2013-07-19T16:32:07Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > My personal view would be to use the following demarcations. The income values I suggest are guesstimates and may be totally off, the attitude towards money is the main thing. Thanks for putting the effort in here. I do think your numbers are off, however. > [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > Upper Middle Class: As long as you don’t go for luxuries, you don’t need to worry about money, as there is always enough. You can go to Disneyland with the kids without altering your budget but will probably fly coach. You may need to slightly adjust your finances to send your kid to a prep school and will want to set up a plan to save for their college education, but it is more a manner of planning than it is sacrifice. ($150K-$500K per year?) I am in the middle of your income range here, and do consider myself upper middle class (although I am finding it increasingly difficult to define it), but I think your salary range may be too broad for this class. For example, when my household income was $150K I considered myself solidly middle class. I would also rarely fly first class on my dime. Now first or business is all I fly unless it is unavailable, and I fly quite often. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888/52 "2013-07-19T16:37:17Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > **Where are the upper and lower boundaries of the American middle class?** Upper: 71° 50’ N Lower: 18° 55’ N \*:\*\*\*_D&R:_ ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888/53 "2013-07-19T16:39:01Z")
I make $80k a year as a federal civil servant, living and working in Washington, DC - that actually places me a bit below the median of $84k. Nonetheless, I can afford a nice studio apartment, international travel a couple times a year, and assorted smaller vacations. I live quite well, but I’m a single guy. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888/54 "2013-07-19T16:42:18Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > Thanks for putting the effort in here. I do think your numbers are off, however. > > I am in the middle of your income range here, and do consider myself upper middle class (although I am finding it increasingly difficult to define it), but I think your salary range may be too broad for this class. For example, when my household income was $150K I considered myself solidly middle class. I would also rarely fly first class on my dime. Now first or business is all I fly unless it is unavailable, and I fly quite often. I think his numbers are ok if you take net worth into acct. For example, someone whose net worth is $3M or so but income is only around $140K (mostly from dividends and some stock trading realized gains). From income it doesn’t seem like much, but the net worth pushes him in upper middle class. But someone with same income from wages but trivial net worth wouldn’t qualify. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888/55 "2013-07-19T17:30:28Z")
> [@Tracijo67](#): > > I always thought of the upper-middle class as those occupying professions that pay in the high six-figures, such as doctors and lawyers. I don’t think you can necessarily use profession as a guide to class. I work with doctors who earn in the high 6 figures, and with doctors who, because of their practice, specialty, and other factors, earn substantively less than I do. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888/56 "2013-07-19T18:02:17Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > I don’t think you can necessarily use profession as a guide to class. I work with doctors who earn in the high 6 figures, and with doctors who, because of their practice, specialty, and other factors, earn substantively less than I do. I believe it to be a combination of factors, of which income and profession are both significant but not determinative. Take lawyering (which I know, being one). Lawyers have some things in common (a comparatively high level of education, for example) but vary widely in income and indeed job description: some work as civil servants, others as sole practitioners, still others for major law firms; some work with the poor, as criminal defence lawyers; others with the very rich. In general though, the type of work that lawyers do puts both lower and upper bounds on what class lawyers can be seen as. They cannot be “working class” even though a working class, union job could be earning far more than a lawyer (say) working for legal aid money - the fact that they are highly educated and work with words and paper, rather than their labour, determines that. The fact that they generally earn from their own skills also generally precludes them from entering the upper class - even though those at the top of the profession can earn significant income; naturally, top partners at major firms, or lawyers who have vaulted into directorships can beat that. There are exceptions of course, but in general reasonably successful lawyers tend to group in the upper middle class category. ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888/57 "2013-07-19T18:10:26Z")
And expenses matter a lot. My household income is $80,000 and I live in a cheap part of the country. If I were a single person supporting only myself, I’d consider myself upper middle class. Plenty of money for everything I need and I lot of extra spending money. But in reality my household income is $80,000 and that goes to support 6 people. We have enough money for everything we need, but clothes come from Target and furniture comes from Craigslist. I have no complaints, we can always pay our bills on time. But nice restaurants and fancy vacations are out of the question. I consider us pretty solidly middle class. But, it is also a social issue. My husband is a professor with a PhD and I stay home with the kids. A family with one person a hairdresser and the other a mechanic might make the same salary, but they would be in a different social class. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888/58 "2013-07-19T18:28:02Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > I’d say that if you meet _most_ of these with no issues, you are still solid middle class. You don’t have to afford all of them, at least without really scrimping. If most of these are firmly out of your pay grade then you are not middle class. > > If you _can_ afford all of these plus have money left over for _some_ upgrading of cars/houses, etc., then you are upper middle class. > > I don’t really have a working definition of when you become upper class. I’d like to say that it’s when you have enough saved up to live an upper middle class lifestyle the rest of your life, but someone who has just reached a very well paying job of well north of $200K may not have that much saved up yet but doesn’t seem like merely upper middle class to me in most places in America (NYC, not so much.) I’ve just come to the scandalous realization that by these standards my dad and his wife are upper class. They haven’t upgraded their home or cars but they take several world-spanning vacations a year on their generous full state-funded retirement despite the fact that for most of their careers they worked as civil servants. So therefore since I don’t want my dad to be upper class I’d say that you aren’t upper class until you can afford _all_ the accoutrements of an upper middle class lifestyle (i.e. large house, expensive car, big vacations) and still not have to work for the rest of your life. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888/59 "2013-07-19T19:56:36Z")
I’m curious, what do you mean by “nice” restaurants here? I consider Chili’s a nice restaurant, as well as most pizza joints, most Mexican and Chinese restaurants, etc. My idea of “not nice” is fast food restaurants with no table service … places like McDonald’s, Wendy’s, KFC, Jax, etc. I don’t consider such restaurants “nasty” they are just not places where I would go to dine out on a special occasion. I’ve been to local French, Italian, steakhouse and seafood restaurants and for the most part I’ve not been impressed. With one or two exceptions, the food has not been all that good, and the service not much better than what I get at Chili’s (also a “nice” restaurant from my POV). Used to be a Maggiano’s in Atlanta (Buckhead) that had first class food, but it went downhill when their chef left. And I once went to a high-end steakhouse where the only thing that was impressive was the bill. So I’m not sure what you mean by “nice.” ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888/60 "2013-07-19T20:18:07Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > I’m curious, what do you mean by “nice” restaurants here? I consider Chili’s a nice restaurant, as well as most pizza joints, most Mexican and Chinese restaurants, etc. My idea of “not nice” is fast food restaurants with no table service … places like McDonald’s, Wendy’s, KFC, Jax, etc. I don’t consider such restaurants “nasty” they are just not places where I would go to dine out on a special occasion. > > I’ve been to local French, Italian, steakhouse and seafood restaurants and for the most part I’ve not been impressed. With one or two exceptions, the food has not been all that good, and the service not much better than what I get at Chili’s (also a “nice” restaurant from my POV). Used to be a Maggiano’s in Atlanta (Buckhead) that had first class food, but it went downhill when their chef left. And I once went to a high-end steakhouse where the only thing that was impressive was the bill. > > So I’m not sure what you mean by “nice.” I think he is referring to an upscale restaurant. For me, an upscale restaurant is one with a dress code, requires a reservation at all times, has a nice, relaxed, and tasteful ambiance, a professional wait staff, where dishes are prepared with fresh ingredients, nothing frozen (e.g. fish are caught that day, etc…), where the chef will cook a dish to order even one not on the menu, tables are appropriately placed for private conversation with no concern for eavesdropping, and although I am not a drinker, a comprehensively stocked wine cellar accessible to patrons, and a sommelier on site. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-upper-and-lower-boundaries-of-the-american-middle-class/663888.md?page=4)