Well, one thing is clear to me. People do not know where “the middle” is. According to the Census Bureau median income is $51,900. I haven’t been able to dredge up a reliable standard deviation but I’m guessing around $15,000.
Well, one thing is clear to me. People do not know where “the middle” is. According to the Census Bureau median income is $51,900. I haven’t been able to dredge up a reliable standard deviation but I’m guessing around $15,000.
I think you’re not too far off. This Wikipedia article is incredibly detailed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States
The chart “Distribution of Household Income” shows that a 33rd % aisle is somewhere between $30-$35k and the 67th %aisle is a little bit under $75k. Of course, assuming a normal distribution is a slightly crazy assumption (there’s an obvious and very long tail on the right of the graph; no one makes less than $0 (according to the Census though obviously some households do nave negative net income in a year) and some people make countless millions.
It’s worth noting that this is HOUSEHOLD income, not personal income. (So if a married couple both have an income of $50k post-tax, they’re actually making basically double the average household income, and would be near the top 20% according to that Wikipedia page).
Well, at least I didn’t know what it was in 1984. Thanks for correcting me.
But I don’t really agree with the idea that it’s ridiculous to count debt or to make a middle-class American couple as poor as a Nigerian farmer. After all, the same Nigerian farmer would be amazed that there are humans who are barely able to make ends meet when they’re being paid 50K a year.
To me there’s a slick kind of lie going on, as if you can just earn your way into wealth. You can’t.
There’s a huge difference between someone who has the money to pay for four years at a private college and then have their parents/inheritance/trust fund help put money down on a house vs someone who can’t. The result of inequality has been to make the person with parents/inheritance/trust fund upper middle-class rather than filthy rich.
Modulo,
“But I don’t really agree with the idea that it’s ridiculous to count debt or to make a middle-class American couple as poor as a Nigerian farmer.”
I’ve never been to Nigeria, but I’ve spent some time in east Africa and South Asia which are places that are about as third-world as one can get. Places where there is no government or one that is barely functioning. Places where the economy is based primarily on bartering. Places where there is no access to credit except through informal networks. Places where people literally die in the streets. Places where poverty has forced the locals to innovate and “make do” in ways that most Americans cannot even comprehend. I’ve seen kids make their own shoes (flip-flops actually) out of used 1 liter plastic water bottles and they actually work pretty well.
It is completely ridiculous to compare the third world poor with an American middle-class family with high debt. The standard of living is worlds apart. The comparison of net wealth is just lying with statistics as it ignores all the other factors that contribute to wealth beyond simplistic math.
Dave,
“People do not know where “the middle†is. According to the Census Bureau median income is $51,900. I haven’t been able to dredge up a reliable standard deviation but I’m guessing around $15,000.”
I think people do not know where the middle is because it’s not dependent on income. There is a huge difference between the same income in a high cost vs. low cost area. Just to give an extreme example, I knew several people from my days in the Navy who married Filipinos while stationed in the PI and, upon retirement, moved to the Philippines. They could live like kings on their modest enlisted pension.
I think I’ve pointed out before that my sister-in-law works in fashion in NYC and earns a bit less than my wife and I combined. She has a nice 1 bedroom Brooklyn apartment and pays almost the same amount of money as we do here in Florida for a 3k square foot house in an upper-middle class neighborhood. And that doesn’t even consider the other expenses from living in NYC. Sure, the lifestyle has benefits but those come at considerable cost and she’s single.
In short middle class is more than income.
Well, whatever, apparently my wife and I are rich again, for if I understand it nothing Obama proposed tonight would do anything to help us. Drinks are on me, everybody!
And did anyone else catch the bit about Steve Jobs being gleeful about getting some recruiter at Google fired? “Eat the rich before the rich eat you,” seems to be good advice these days.
People also seem to have stricken “wealthy” and even in part “upper middle class” from their vocabulary. It’s always the struggling middle class and the rich with the only discussion whether “rich” should be reserved for the top 1%.
What concerns me more is that when they talk about “the rich” the photos and examples are of the top .0001% but somehow the measures proposed always affect a much, much larger group.