Study: Earners high, low think they belong to middle class

[flashl]

A new report by the Pew Research Center highlights a paradox of the American middle class: Most people, no matter where they fall on the economic spectrum, believe they are part of it.

Just ask David Schutt and Elizabeth Gaylord of Berwyn, whose household income is well above the village median, last measured at $43,833. A computer technician and artist, respectively, they enjoy ski trips to Colorado and Wisconsin but are putting off repairing their roof because they are worried about their economic future.

"It's the old story of the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and some middle class scramble up to the top," said Schutt, 50. "But those who don't, they generally find themselves on the down slide."

Many self-described middle-class people share that anxiety. A vast majority thinks it is harder to maintain a middle-class standard of living than it was five years ago, and they blame everything from the government to private corporations to the people themselves. The Pew report suggests at least part of the unease is due to the ever-escalating price tag of a middle-class lifestyle.

Chicago Tribune

[MercutioATC]

1. It'd be helpful if we had an official "middle class" definition.

I consider myself "middle class". I have what I need and a lot of what I want, but I have to work to live...I don't have so much that my time is mine.

[ColbertWatcher]

7. Definition?

I agree. All this emphasis on national average (or median) says nothing about real income.

I say middle class is when you:

* spend no more than 25% of your income on mortgage
* can save at least 10% of your income
* can afford to pay all your bills on time
* can eat out at least once a week
* can afford at least one out-of-state vacation every year
* can afford to give everyone in your family birthday/holiday gifts at any place besides 99 cent store
* can afford to regularly see a doctor/dentist
* look forward to taking on more financial responsibilities because your job is secure.

If you can do those things and more, you're rich. If you cannot do all of those things, you are poor.

[MercutioATC]

8. Interesting definition....and it's probably more practical than a random number.

I qualify "rich" as not having to punch a clock 5 days a week, though.

I meet all of your elements and invest on the side a little for retirement and help out family a bit, but I don't consider myself to be "rich". I work 40 hours a week and my employer sets my schedule. My finances are sustainable only to the degree that somebody else gets to tell me what to do with my time.

[ColbertWatcher]

9. Hmm...what would you add to make it a better definition? n/t

[MercutioATC]

10. It's subjective, but I view "rich" as having a greater degree of self-determination.

I'm not whining about having to show up for work 5 days a week, but the fact that I don't determine my own schedule at all disqualifies me from the "rich" category, IMO.

I may make a decent wage, but that's only the case as long as others schedule my time. I see the truly "wealthy" as not being bound in such a way.

[ColbertWatcher]

11. Maybe I should add upper middle class in there...

...between middle class and rich.

Or add idle rich?

[MercutioATC]

12. It's your scale and you've done pretty well with it...your call.

I'd find a way of differentiating betwen those who have to punch a time clock and those who determine their own schedule.....and those who don't have a work schedule at all.

[abelenkpe]

13. that would be my feelings exactly

If I stop working (for a decent wage in a job I like) I lose everything, my kids go hungry and can't attend a good school, the bills won't get paid. The majority of my time belongs to someone else. I get four hours a day with my kids if I keep them up late. Am I middle class, or am I a wage slave? 'Cause honestly it feels like slavery. It's a nice trap, but a trap nonetheless.

[ColbertWatcher]

14. But, if you run your own company...

...does that mean you've become the master?

[abelenkpe]

19. yes and no

Maybe it'd be better because you can arrange the time you spend working serving others more to your advantage. My pop ran his own business, and since he never was a morning person he could go in to work around 10:30 every morning. However, he still spent 10 hours everyday working for his clients. So there was a little freedom in time management. My dad was a very hard working individual (still is at 75 actually) but I've never really spent any time with him. Every once in a while growing up my Mom would make him take me with him to the office or to the hardware store. That was about it. But at least Mom was home with us and we were close. Now it takes both parents working to afford a place to live and good school for the wee one. Who's bringing up my little guy? I'm bitter and conflicted about the whole thing. Love my job, need my job, love my baby....don't know what to do. It's gotta get better, doesn't it?
Great picture btw!

[ColbertWatcher]

20. It has to get better...

...but we have to survive these last few months with the GOP in charge.

And make sure the next GOP isn't installed.

[notesdev]

2. Middle class:

the new 'poor'.

[Warpy]

3. Everything has been shifted downward

People look at those who make $100,000-$500,000/year and think "rich." They're actually just middle class, as are retirees with assets between $2 million and $10 million. Entry into the rich man's world of private airports, mansions on huge acreage and hidden by winding roads and forest, and never having to rub elbows with the rest of us is $10,000,000---minimum.

The middle class was traditionally people who could afford household help, whether or not they hired it, who could easily save for retirement, who could afford the type of vacation that required a passport, who could afford to educate their children through university without student loans, scholarships, and multiple jobs.

The working class, now those of us who make less than the six figures, could buy a home with a mortgage but do all the inside and outside work themselves, go on vacations that required driving and a cheap motel, and sent their kids to college if they were lucky on a patchwork of loans, scholarships, and multiple extra jobs. Their net worth is often in negative numbers when their total debt load of school loans, car payments, and mortgage is considered. Credit card debt, used to supplement inadequate wages, is generally what will break their backs.

The poor, or what we've been trained to call the poor, are actually the destitute. They often don't have homes at all. If they do, those homes are rented and are not safe, with conditions that would never pass inspection. They don't earn enough for nutritious food and they typically don't have benefits like sick days, paid holidays, and health insurance. They are the marginal workers, and they're considered too wealthy to get services. Forget about saving for retirement. They don't make enough to live on. Their net worth is limited to what they have in their pockets.

The middle class, defined by lifestyle and net worth, is just about gone in this country and the working class is slipping very quickly into poverty and then destitution.

But hey, as long as we can pull down $30,000/year, we're MIDDLE CLASS, aren't we?

[leftyclimber]

4. Many, many moons ago

Okay, about 264 or so of them, my high school American Government teacher had us line up against one wall if we thought we were middle class. Everyone lined up against that wall. Oddly, my high school consisted of the richest and the poorest kids in town, with no in-between. He didn't let us down easy, either -- told us exactly what our parents had to make to be middle class, and that none of us belonged (he didn't move us to upper and lower class; just told us we had been deceived, more or less). Luckily the students didn't hold any class differences against each other, but we were all, to say the least, shocked.

Sad to see that things haven't changed.

[MichiganVote]

5. middle class=middle child=working class=dumped on by everyone

[Speck Tater]

6. I am poor, but comfortable and happy.

I live in a "middle class" house, but I bought it WAAAAY before real estate went crazy. My income is definitely at or slightly below the poverty level, but I eat well, and I live a rich and fulfilling life, with a relaxed and easy-going life style, and loads of involvement in cultural activities. So am I "middle class"? Actually I think that in spite of being significantly poorer than the "official" middle class, I'm better off (and certainly happier) than most "middle class" people who are running their tails off in the rat race.

I like to think that I live a life style that doesn't fit into such categories, and so transcends "class", middle or otherwise.

[Hannah Bell]

15. nice thought, but not true. The weather exists, whether you're

inside or outside, whether you like it or not. So does class structure.

[Speck Tater]

17. Better analogy:

Chess exists whether you play it or not.

Somebody else who is playing the game may well find it useful (for their own purposes) to pigeon hole me into some class or another, but if I, myself, am not playing the game, then to me it doesn't matter whether the bishop does or does not move diagonally because I'm playing checkers, not chess.

My system of classification might not be socio-economic class, but something quite different like enlightenment, or level of satisfaction, or mathematical sophistication, or any one of a number of other measuring sticks depending on what game the participant is playing.

What "class" did Gandhi fall into? Where do you place a person who's only material possessions are a pair of glasses, a wooden rice bowl and a few books? Is that person "middle class"? Or was Gandhi "lower class"? Or was Gandhi playing checkers while everyone else was playing chess so that labels like "Lower class" simply don't apply?

[Hannah Bell]

18. You still live on the board, & your consciousness is shaped by

the game, which you are playing, whether you're aware of it or not.

How much you formally own has nothing to do with your class position.

That's just the idiocy of american education & media.

[notesdev]

16. You have the right idea

My situation is a little bit different than yours but the fundamentals are the same... keep the important stuff at the top your list, and when it comes time for fun and games there are plenty of ways to entertain oneself outside of consumer-driven lifestyles.

Folks like you and I will never die of stress-induced heart attacks, like so many of the rat racers do.

[bobbolink]

21. I'm not clear how this applies to me, or the thousands in my situation, including many DUers.

We are DEFINITELY Low-Income, and we don't fool ourselves or anyone else about that.

My point, and yes, I do have one, is what I've been trying to get across to DUers ever since this "housing crisis" hit the press:

You are ALL focusing on this muddleclass "housing crisis", and are NOT looking at WHY there are so many of us homeless, and have been so for years... Waaaaaay before this so-called "housing crisis" became a household word.

Low-Income housing has been decimated, and we can't get any support from the "progressives" who say they care about poverty. All the response we get is "more shelters".

You all seem quite content to have shelters become permanent housing for those of us in the Low-Income bracket, without any thougt of what that is doing to us, and can't seem to get your minds around the fact that *this* CRISIS is not only long standing, but is with the concensus of Dems and "progressives".

[Kat45]

22. You're right. And they never build affordable housing these days.

Progressive folks my be for affordable housing in principle, but unfortunately it's a NIMBY situation for most. Whenever anyone says "affordable housing" most people immediately think projects, which to them equals drugs and crime, meaning a dangerous neighborhood (and the more materialistic folks will immediately think of their property value declining). In my opinion, affordable housing means just that: housing that people can actually afford. We have to take back that term somehow.

There is still homebuilding going on, even in today's situation, but it's all luxury housing. Don't know who's supposed to afford it. In my town, there are a couple or proposals to develop apartments/condos. The neighbors are up in arms because of the increase in traffic they will bring, a typical reaction. But interestingly, one of the proposals is for extremely high-end units, and people are against such a building because these are places that nobody currently living in the town would be able to afford. The attitude is, why put such a building here? Who are these people who would live there and would they even give a shit about the town itself?

[bobbolink]

23. Low-income vs "affordable" --- two completely different animals.

I read your understanding post, and I feel rant coming on..... ^_^

Being homeless myself, I KNOW how people think, and it ain't pretty.

All they can say is, "Go to a shelter". "Shelter" has become permanent housing for people like me. Never mind the lack of real housing... being kicked out at 6am, and left to wander during the day. NO privacy, so no real sleep. No privacy, so no way to keep personal belongings. Rampant disease, including the treatment-resistant TB and the treatment-resistant infection... forget the name now. None of that matters to people, and I'm including "progressives" in that.

So, the truth is, people, including "progressives" don't really CARE.. it's just "get out of my eyesight". THAT is the truth of the matter.

I used to think it was just a lack of information... a problem with ignorance. I no longer believe that. There are a few of us on DU who have preached this stuff over and over and over..... yet, it's still the same thing.. they don't get it. That's called WILLFUL IGNORANCE.

Now, the difference... "affordable" has been taken by developers to sell more homes, and it's the same muddleclass stuff that is the "housing crisis". There are condos for $300,000 that are termed "affordable".

Those of us on disability have NOWHERE.

NOTHING.

And that won't change, no matter who is in office, because, let's face it, those of us on the bottom rungs are not deemed worthy. We have VERY FEW who actually give a rip.

[flashl]

24. You might be interested to know about this ...

Tear Down the Ghetto: The Price is Wrong

The global capitalist system is way past recession, beyond old definitions of depression; it has lost all cohesion and is, essentially, beyond salvaging. Unable to produce anything but horrific and perfectly predictable bubbles, incapable of tallying up its collective assets to within any order of magnitude, the defeated organism turns on itself. The latest scheme to redeem the system would bulldoze overpriced bubble housing - destroy much of the inventory - in order to produce scarcity and eventual price stability. Capitalist health through amputation - a solution that can only be attempted a few times.
...
Here's the latest criminal enterprise hatched by the ruling sectors of U.S. society: tear down all that overpriced housing, the stuff that was only recently built but can no longer be financed for sale. No, don't convert it to useful purposes as rental units or reasonably-priced family homes to satisfy the desperate needs of millions of families - and of people who wish they could successfully constitute themselves as households in this jungle-like environment. Just make it all go away, with the federal government paying the bill for the massive destruction.

It is now proposed that the "excess" housing stock of the United States be knocked down, bulldozed until a renewed shortage of shelter will render the housing that survives worth something close to the prices advertised before the bubble burst.

Editorial DU Post

The invisible hand at work that artificially create shortages which in turn inflate prices of basic necessities leaving more Americans to wonder, if they are still middle-class. Or, force those who cling to the notion of middle class to work two or more jobs as they struggle to maintain their status because the monetary measure of that class is changing. See: Rise of the 'middle-class millionaire' is reshaping U.S. culture

[bobbolink]

25. Yes, I saw that. They can get away with it because "liberals" don't care about the desperate

need for housing among poor folk.

It's not in the realm of "development", so it doesn't matter.

Neither does this.

Look at all the low-income housing that was fairly recently torn down in NOLA. Where was the outrage?

It was only poor folk who screamed.

Yet, "liberals" will then moan and groan that we poor folk have given up on the political process, and that includes the Dems.

You shut us out, but then expect us to contribute?

HA!