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That's not middle class...
I don't know if it has its own name, but it's like the Overton window in politics.
Average people assume that they're average and middle class means average, so they're "middle class" despite having three figures in saving, no home equity, and a retirement account that will never be enough to retire.
Prior generations at least built up home equity over a lifetime.
As one of these middle class fucks I don't know how to refer to myself. I'm supporting myself and a dependent adult on barely six figures a year (plus some disability money).
I know I have it way fucking better than folks working in a warehouse or migrant agricultural workers so I don't want to falsely describe myself as lower class when I've clearly got it better... but I'm also being fucking squeezed and each month I eat into my savings. I will say that I am not carrying debt because I aggressively saved early in my career but I am slowly whittling down what should be my retirement savings.
So, what the fuck am I?
Scrapping by
People focus on income, income ain't the whole picture, it's wealth that's important.
It used to be owning a home built wealth passively, as you lived and paid your mortgage, you gained equity.
If people cant afford to buy a home, it's almost impossible to build wealth. You just flush more money away on rent as you earn more money.
It's what happens when they charge as much as people can pay for something we all need.
Towards the end, Medicare/medicaid/whatever takes the house too if you don't plan ahead, and no doubt they'll close the "loopholes" for planning ahead too.
Look up filial laws that states are passing. There will be no great transfer of wealth except from boomers to corporations.
Fucked.
If you are struggling and you are not living above your means then you are not middle class you are lower class.
You’re lower class. (No offense)
No offense taken, certainly... that's even true if I'm in the 97th percentile of earners (by age range) nationally?
Well, it’s hard to put you in a class without knowing your income. But if you don’t have a good chunk at the end of the month, you’re not in that stable middle area.
That's extremely fair, I guess my point is less a question of what precisely am I and more about the fact that as someone in the top 3% of earners if I'm not in the middle class who the fuck is - is it the .3%-1.5% slice? I know I personally have some awful extenuating circumstances, but the past half a decade have felt like a game you can't win no matter how lucky you get. (I also might clarify that I am Canadian and our CoL is really high atm).
Oh for sure. It feels impossible. We had a retirement savings person come into my office and they were doing math based on today. Saying that by the time I’m ready I would have “This much” Money. But if we adjust for inflation in the future, based on inflation in the past, that amount would actually be worth about a third of what it is today. I can’t survive on that at all. With the prices of everything going up across the board, it feels like most of the people I know have a lot less spending power than they did when they were making even less than today. I guess I just missed that sweet-spot for retirement (the boomer).
My retirement plan is a bullet. 🤷♂️
The "middle class" is currently defined by arbitrary income levels, not purchasing power. Considering the cost of living disparity across the US it's an absolutely useless measure.
To be in the middle class 50 years ago, you were able to buy a reasonable family house on one income. To do that today if you're in an area where the cost of living isn't absolutely bottom of the barrel you've got to make what is currently considered "upper middle class" income or slightly above.
Middle class living is relegated to upper middle class incomes while middle and lower middle class have to rent that lifestyle.
The middle class died the day they had to make the "upper middle class" a thing...
That's the wealth distribution middle class was supposed to be. But it shrank down so much they had to make new class distinctions up.
In pre-revolution France, the bourgeois were the middle class.
99% in poverty.
O.99% bourgeois
0.01%, the aristocrats!
That distribution wasn't sustainable back then, it's not sustainable now.
As wealth concentrates at the top, there's less for everyone else, and we're all poor.
Yup. The traditional American middle class is essentially an endangered species