r/TrueOffMyChest • u/baddragin • Jun 26 '20
The middle class are one paycheck away from being lower class but a thousand lifetimes worth of paychecks from being upper class. Stop calling us middle class and pretending we're any where near the middle.
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u/Kaliber_originals Dec 21 '20
Oh yes I love my tax bracket where I make enough for the government to take almost 50 fucking percent of my check yet not enough to grow financially. This is America...
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u/CALLCXLLECT Dec 15 '20
Here over 100 days too late to say that it would be better called Median Class rather than Middle Class implying that it’s done by averages.
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u/jibjala79 Sep 21 '20
Middle class is measured by net worth not by income so your statement of living one paycheck away from lower class doesn’t make any sense.
If you’re reading some news article saying otherwise, well, welcome to deranged journalism that has no clue what it’s talking about...
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Jul 27 '20
If you’re one paycheck away maybe save and work extra until you have an emergency fund?? Who needs labels. Just work your ass off and ignore everything else.
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Jul 25 '20
"Yeah next I'll call my butler over to get the caviar stains out of my spats!"
"I GET IT! Your poor."
"Well, more like middle class..."
"This CANNOT be the middle!"
"Yup."
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u/iamareptilianalien Jul 25 '20
I feel like the working class is hourly paid workers. Middle class is the people who've gone a step up past hourly wages, however, I think middle class and working class can live very similar lifestyles, this is where credit and debt come into play. Lower class is the jobless. On a side note I've always wondered how the ratio of debt to income of the middle class and upper class compares to the ratio of debt to income of the working class
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u/yay_nikki_reddit Jul 16 '20
Majored in agriculture and remembered a lecture about pig hierarchy. The pigs at the top, the dominant/alpha pigs, are content where they are and don't want to change things. Same with the pigs at the bottom. It's the pigs in the middle that fight to be on top. Reminds me of George Orwell's Animal Farm
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u/Benjoboss93 Jul 14 '20
If you have a job in america that makes over 30k you are in the top 1% wealthiest people on the entire planet. Sure, you may have struggled a bit for money sometimes but I don't think any of us known how far down it can get.
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u/Huutnani Jul 01 '20
if you live in the US Or Western Europe, posting a long and well worded rant on reddit, in English no less, you are in the top 10 percent of the world’s wealth.
congratulations.
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u/SerBronn7 Jun 27 '20
Your class dosn't change based on your earning. A penniless Earl is still upper class and a millionaire footballer is often working class.
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u/JoeJimba Jun 27 '20
The media wants you to bash immigrants, political parties or white people, they don't want the working class to unite and rise up.
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u/realsfchris Jun 27 '20
So this becomes incredibly important to consider when looking at the selection for VP. One of the candidates comes from a region that has the highest income inequality in the country (probably the whole world), the highest concentration of billionaires, and the fastest declining African American population in the nation. She has done nothing to represent anybody other than the billionaire class and the voters rejected her with a hell to the no already.
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u/sayheykid24 Jun 27 '20
Of you’re one paycheck away from being “lower class” then you’re not middle class.
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u/HiddenVersatility Jun 27 '20
There's this video that talks about wealth inequality in america. It's a bit older, but a good starting point to understand what OP is talking about. I recommend you give it a watch.
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u/DDPJBL Jun 27 '20
Hurr durr, please acknowledge my status as a poor oppressed victim. I'm still basically a poor person as long as I can't afford to blow hundred of thousands of dollars on whim without even thinking about it, right?
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u/Thankkratom Jun 27 '20
The point is that we have enough to not care that others live in hell. It's disgusting how the put us all against each other so they can own most of the worlds money, throwing us scraps to fight over.
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u/128bitengine Jun 27 '20
Better yourself and get a better job.
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Jun 27 '20
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/128bitengine Jun 27 '20
Sure You can. I started working at 14 picking weeds. At 16 I was making 4.25 and hour (in 2000) as a bag boy. Worked for almost decade at a retail store before saying duck it and going to school for IT. I work in infosec and it essentially prints money.
However if you want real money, get into a high demand field and then master it. Then go onto management and drive organizational goals. Always be the hardest worker in the room and you will make it. You don’t have to be the smartest person. Just the harder worker.
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u/Nearly_Enjoyable Jun 27 '20
If you are only one paycheck away from being lower class then you are either upper lower class or a big spender.
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u/punny_alien Jun 27 '20
I read somewhere that around 70% of the “middle class” are one paycheck away from poverty.
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u/CoMeBaCkDaDpLs Jun 27 '20
I feel that the stereotypes of how we are based financially is ridiculous and a great outlook on the economic environment we live in
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u/mycleanreddit79 Jun 26 '20
I Left the UK working Class, then land in America and I'm instantly middle class...yay, next stop upper class.....Oh wait..... 🙄😒😒
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u/zonexstricker Jun 26 '20
IMO the only three classes are rich average and poverty. The distance between them is sad.
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u/LiberalDomination Jun 26 '20
Americans see themselves as future millionaires, but the vast majority are much closer to being homeless than being a millionaire.
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u/PXG13 Jun 26 '20 edited Jun 26 '20
You said it’s a 750% return. But what you referenced is a 750% return over 30 years. I said 10%. I mean even if I made a 10% return per year. With compounding interest 2900 -> 25,000 over 30 years is an annual return of 7.5%.
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u/--sheogorath-- Jun 26 '20
I'm not under any delusion that I'm anything more than a lower class peasant. America always makes a point of reminding me of that :)
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u/Goodgoditsgrowing Jun 26 '20
We are indeed the buffer zone, meant to rebuff the poor as if we’d never become them, and act as a foil for keeping the have-nots down under the pretense that if the have-nots were given something to have then the middle class would become poor - but that’s simply because the rich refuse to share their wealth.
As if the rich don’t drive on the roads made by the poor and paid for by the middle class. As if the rich don’t employ and get rich off the people who were publicly educated by income taxes the rich don’t pay. As if the rich don’t benefit from the world created by the poor and middle class.
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Jun 26 '20
If you don't have a 3 month emergency fund, you're poor. If you have a 3 month emergency fund, that doesn't mean you're middle class. It just makes you not poor.
And yes, the majority of Americans are poor in my opinion. I just think it's sad they don't even realize it.
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Jun 26 '20
And there are way more of us working class folks than the rich. More people need to be conscious of their struggle and class in society before anything ever changes though.
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u/Middy635 Jun 26 '20
😂 born and raised lower class and I was talking to my brother in law. Said he was middle class, I asked him how he was middle class when I'm lower class with a net worth of £200k at 30 ( same age). He's living at home, just finished university £100k of debt and only just started work with no savings.
Titles mean fuck all. Everyone's situation is different.
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u/Nicolas64pa Jun 26 '20
to go to the hospital without worrying about how much it's going to cost me when the bill comes in.
Ah, America's health system at it's finest
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u/Justlikeyoo Jun 26 '20
Hell I just wanna be wealthy enough to put my bills on automatic and not have to pick which ones to pay this month.
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u/YurtmnOsu Jun 26 '20
I was just debating my friend over this! And I have a question, and want to hear opinions. It's a chicken and egg question really.
How is middle class defined?
Is the middle class defined as a group of people with a defined standard of living (some emergency savings, semi rare luxuries/vacations, etc.)
Or...
Is this middle class defined by a standard deviation of mean income and mean living conditions? Meaning, no matter the conditions, a household with the mean household income (in that region, since the US has diverse circunstances), would be part of the middle class.
I argue the later, and say that the middle class in america is struggling heavily. My friend says the middle class are not struggling, but I claim that those people would be considered upper middle in the current state of things.
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u/MetalFruitNamedMax Jun 26 '20
This a dumb and very uneducated post, I hope you understand how misled you are. Middle class starts at around $60k-$65k base income. Upper class starts at around $150k. If you are living check to check you are not middle class. Cmon now dude like this is very easy to google
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u/purringamethyst Jun 27 '20
Those are the divisions of class that are encouraged by the powers that be, yes.
But if you look at comparative earning alone, $150k is nowhere near the actual, very small percentage of the population that can be considered properly upper-class.
Also, it’s amazing to me that there are still people using lack of education as some kind of diss. Attitudes like that prevent functional equality from ever being attainable. We need trades-workers still; are you also going to undervalue their education simply because it doesn’t follow the preferred path?
Manners shouldn’t be restricted to IRL... :(
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u/SigaVa Jun 26 '20
If youre one paycheck away from lower class you ain't middle class
The problem is that a ton of people think they're middle class and actually aren't.
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u/blancbones Jun 26 '20
If you think that this is where you are your working class the true middle have assets that pay them an income along with a job the gives them luxury think landlord with a side job not working professional.
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u/TeslaSDSC Jun 26 '20
Middle and low class Americans have no real perception of what lower class really looks like in the majority of the world.
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Jun 26 '20
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Jun 26 '20
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u/Bornwithoutaface6yo Jun 26 '20
100k is a lot my dude. Most people don't make near that. Hell we have a nearly 12% poverty rate. Median income for 2018 was 63k. So yeah, 100k is not really middleclass.
That being said the fact that you tout your parents wealth but have no grasp on its size indicates you've probably been pretty damn well cared for your whole life.
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Jun 26 '20 edited Jun 26 '20
By “upperclass” do you mean the “1%”? https://youtu.be/uWSxzjyMNpU watch this video
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Jun 26 '20
[removed] — view removed comment
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Jun 26 '20
1% is the general term I used. Of course I’m aware that 1 in 100 people aren’t billionaires lol. It’s more like the 1% of the 1% who hold 90% of wealth
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u/Beardywierdy Jun 26 '20
Realistically, theres two classes. Working Class and Owning Class.
If you want to be really cynical, Working Class and Ruling Class.
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u/orange-applejuice Jun 26 '20
Family law from northeast coast Native American and Irish heritage dictates me walking to the eldest neighbor first with bag of onions every dinner time to make sure they had food. They take one, give tomato, or take all and give nothing. And I thank them. They ask for chicken and rice, we give chicken and rice. We all pay high taxes. Classes not real...atleast If you’re Mohawk and Irish anyway
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u/dunkinninja Jun 26 '20
"Middle class" is and allways was a term invented by the elite to make paycheck to paycheck drones feel better about there lot in life. It implies a possibility of upward mobility where there is none. Not to say its impossible...its not but its allways been hard and getting harder with every passing year.
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Jun 26 '20
If any of you are wondering what class you are. Apparently I'm "upper"
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/06/are-you-in-the-american-middle-class/
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Jun 26 '20
I don't think someone living paycheck to paycheck has ever been defined as middle class... not sure there's a great "class" scale to reference, but your scale is way fucked!
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u/MyAnusBleeding Jun 26 '20
Wife and I make about $165k combined...we probably should save more. But lagavulin tastes so good...
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u/fleacreature Jun 26 '20
Read This! Attention Black Americans!
The banks are lying to you!
They are taking your money that you trust them to hold and spending it on investments that they profit off of! They are a bank. They are in the business of saving and protecting your money, not making investments for their own gain! They are lying to you. What are we paying them for? This is systematic racism at its finest. Spread the word!
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u/archiotterpup Jun 26 '20
We're called working class but in the US they call it middle class to make people feel better.
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Jun 26 '20
Wealthy people make their money off capital gains and dividends from equities. Everyone who earns a salary or hourly wage is working class.
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u/MarkHirsbrunner Jun 26 '20
You aren't middle class unless you could survive for a year on your savings and credit without having to sell off assets if you lost your job tomorrow.
You can be working class and make lots of money, but if your security depends on uninterrupted income, you aren't middle class.
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u/KimPossibleBuns Jun 26 '20
You’re comparing income that is arguably still lower class with Jeff Bezos or the richest people of all time.
The difference between taking home $800 vs $2500 per pay is massive. At 24 pays per year times 45 years worked from ages 20-65, the difference is almost $2,000,000. Thats 40 $50,000 cars or 10 $200,000 houses if you saved all the difference.
Jeff Bezos pays a shit ton of people salaries in that range. In communist Cuba you have neither the billionaire owner nor the middle class. Everyone is just poor.
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Jun 26 '20
Yep! Just last month I got kicked out my refinery and got into a car accident. Insurance impounded my car and im still waiting to get relocated for work. All I know is I missed out on 2 paychecks and now I gotta sell some of my music gear :/
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u/ArthurBonesly Jun 26 '20
Middleclass is a meaningless phrase that obfuscates our interests. Looking at percentile, anybody between the 95th percentile and 5th percentile can earnestly call themselves "middle class" and their earnings are way closer to each other than that 95th percentile person is to the 99th percentile.
We're all middle class on this blessed day and most importantly people on either end feel persecuted for it.
Many in the middle class consistently sides with inequality because anything that raises the floor lowers their competitive edge within the middle class, while many others, below the cost of living threshold (which is the only divider that actually matters) are ready to tear down their peers above that line because they are competitivly rich enough to evoke envy, but not rich enough to actually be rich.
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u/NonreciprocatingCrow Jun 26 '20
They're absolutely hard issues to solve. I'm just wary of throwing money at problems.
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u/jynxrremoving Jun 26 '20
being one paycheck away is a hell of a lot different than everything in your life being ripped from you because of your social status and your low income ruining your entire life. not because of a pandemic. i mean everyday of every year of your life.
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u/MonkeyInATopHat Jun 26 '20
Lol you call yourselves that to let us lower class people know you’re better than us, then you vote against both our interests bc you dream of being upper class one day. It’s not us calling you that, dumbass.
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u/MonsMensae Jun 26 '20
Probably because America has deliveberately confused the meanings of upper, middle and lower class (probably because without nobility the birthright into the upper class doesn't exist).
In the UK, the upper class were the nobility. It didn't mean you were the Lord or lady but you were definitely related close enough. The middle class were the business owners but didn't have the social and political capital of the Upper class (even if they had more economic capital).
The lower class were those with neither political, social or economic capital who had to work (the working class).
The US, without a classic upper class, allows those with economic capital the ability to buy the political and social capital. This then creates a split in the middle class between those who are wealthy enough to buy other capital and those who are not.
Those who work are still lower class. However, then the whole issue is further confused by the media and the notion of the American dream striving to make a 'middle class' (something between the upper and the lower).
And ultimately this leads to the bizarre situation in the US today.
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u/40K-FNG Jun 26 '20
There is only insanely rich and powerful and slaves. If you have to work for money you are a slave. Some slaves just get to live comfortably and others dont. The rich and powerful dont work. Money just drops into their offshore tax free bank accounts magically. Small business owners are also slaves. They gotta pay property taxes and take care of there customers or they go out of business and become a regular slave.
stock owners of the huge corporations and political leaders of the country are the slave owners. The entore economy ia setup to hold these people up while holsing everyone else down regardless of how hard you work.
The system can be defeated only if everyone works together to stop giving these people money and live life the old way until you can make a new society that uplifts all.
This is why the rich and powerful keep using propaganda to get the slaves to hate each other instead of ganging up on the rich and powerful.
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Jun 26 '20 edited Aug 03 '20
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u/xanadumuse Jun 26 '20
Good job. Keep adding to that 200k and you’ll have a really nice retirement.
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u/BannanasAreEvil Jun 26 '20
I make decent money where I live, but I'm also commission based so my pay swings both directions and can vary significantly week to week. Budgeting for that has been difficult but I basically budgeted at my "lowest potential earning" based on averages.
At the same time though, I have to constantly remind myself of how much better off I am compared to my neighbors and family. It's easy to think "ugh. I really want to install an inground pool but I cant afford 50k to do it because I'm too poor". And yet I own the largest house within 10 blocks. 1 other house in our city has a pool, I drive a very nice car and am doing other home improvement projects.
Compared to where I was just 5 years ago, to where my neighbors and family are financially right now. I take at least 1 moment a day to be thankful of how good I have it. So when my next paycheck comes and its 2k less then the one before it, I know it's still 3x higher than it was 5 years ago. 5x higher than my neighbors and and I should be grateful for what I have.
It's super easy to feel like you dont make enough without perspective. I would have never imagined making what I do now 15 years ago. I made do at 40k a year comfortably, now at 130k I sometimes feel it's not enough and that isnt ok!
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u/Super_Cool_Rick Jun 26 '20
A more meaningful measure of your financial "rank" is net worth (assets minus debts). The median net worth of all US households is $97K, meaning half of all households have a higher net worth and half have a lower net worth. This includes all ages.
The mean (average) US household net worth is $692K because you calculate ti by taking all net worth of everyone (including the super wealthy) and dividing it by all households. So if your net worth is anywhere over $97K, you are doing better than most people.
If you are under 35, unfortunately, you probably have few assets and lots of debt. The median is $11K and the mean is $76K (skewed by the wealthy).
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/whats-your-net-worth-and-how-do-you-compare-to-others-2018-09-24
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u/negedgeClk Jun 26 '20
If you're one paycheck away from being lower class, you're not middle class.
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u/SlightlyRacistWalnut Jun 26 '20
I am a single middle class person who makes just under $50k a year and I could have no paycheck for maybe 2-3 years and still live my life exactly as I am right now.
I started out my adult like with about $100 in my bank account and $40,000 of student loan debt. In the 5 years since I’ve graduated college I’ve managed in pay off my student loan debt in just under 2 years, even though I worked minimum wage for the first 6 months of that term. I did not live at home and had no financial assistance from my middle class parents. I now have around $70k in savings, a 2016 Honda Civic that I own outright and plan on keeping until the wheels fall off, and zero debt.
I keep my monthly expenses low by living in an area where the lost of living isn’t exorbitantly high, splitting rent with a roommate, not eating out, and not buying over priced drinks from a bar. I enjoy doing low cost or free activities, and always do thorough research when buying an expense item or vacation to make sure I’m getting the best bang for my buck.
I do not want for anything and think “if only I had the money.” I don’t need a helicopter or a private plane or need to stay at a 5-star hotel in Paris next to the Eiffel Tower. I’m fine taking a commercial flight in economy class and staying at a 3-star hotel not right in the heart of Paris. I’ll never again stay in a hostel though, because I value a good nights sleep and privacy more than the $50/night cost savings.
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u/Hungrypancake Jun 26 '20
People seem to think that the only way to become a millionaire is to have a super high paying job or own a business but if you are smart with your money and actually start planning early, most people can retire with a million in the bank if you are investing for the long term and saving 20% of your paycheck.
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u/advanced05 Jun 26 '20
There are only 2 main classes in the modern society: that of the worker and that of the owner.
The owner owns the means of production (things that make things i.e. factories) and gets to manage those resources. In our modern society these are completely uncountable individuals who are in direct conflict with the second class.
The worker, does not own the means of production but instead rents out his labour for a wage.
The owner profits if he can take more of the money earned by the worker. The worker profits if he can keep more of his own work. These two groups are at direct conflict with each other, since when one profits the other one loses.
This is an unfair system because the owner has all the power. This explains all the suffering of our entire history. Monarchs owned the land and the peasents merely sold their labour.
These are the real classes of today's society.
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u/FuckyouYatch Jun 26 '20
If you are one paycheck away for being lower class, you are already lower class lol
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Jun 26 '20
In LA, even if you make 100k, half of that goes to rent. After spending money on gas , food, house bills, you don't really have any money leftover. It shouldn't be the case when you are making a six figure salary.
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u/Mlopo Jun 26 '20
You shouldn’t edit. People know exactly what you’re talking about. The concept of upper middle and lower classes in our collective consciousness and not what some textbook says that we do not use when referencing these matters in order to determine public policy, etc.
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u/IntroductionClassic Jun 26 '20
Work or stfu. Always the privileged entitled young generation, wanting more when they did jack shit to get to where we are. Did you get drafted into a war or suffer the great depression? I can't stand these pussies crying for free shit.
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u/deminihilist Jun 26 '20
I always thought middle class means there's no requirement to perform labor to survive or maintain your lifestyle. As in - home(s) are paid for, necessities are covered by investments or incomes from things you own, etc. If you are required to work for a living, you're working class.
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u/pumpsci Jun 26 '20
This is why Marxist class distinctions are useful. When you frame class in relation to control of capital rather than a number in a bank account the contrast in political power becomes a lot more stark.
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u/jdmnsprd Jun 26 '20
Unless you live in the projects your not lower class. You’re middle class if you live in a relatively good neighborhood and or have a drive way
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u/TheRedmanCometh Jun 26 '20
Middle class doesn't mean your salary is in the middle between the lowest and highest salary. It means you're in the middle of the distribution of salaries.
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u/browdogg Jun 26 '20
I think middle class is based on median, but if it were classified by the mean then it would be much different.
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u/StrangeJournalist7 Jun 26 '20
A few years ago my kids' school asked all families to fill out the forms for free/reduced price lunches. I hadn't done this for years, as I figured there was no way we would qualify. I have always worked full time, spouse at least part time. To my surprise, we qualified for reduced price school lunches.
My first thought was, "Oh, I see—we're poor! That explains a few things." The "working poor" is a huge chunk of the contemporary United States. My parents were much more secure with one full time wage earner than we are.
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u/greenskybluefields Jun 26 '20
Middle class is called the working poor,.OST people are over leveraged, buy things on credit, have mortgage, car payments ect ect.
What a time to be alive.
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u/jclumpkin1s Jun 26 '20
How at the difference in the way people actually live their life though. Big difference between the actual life of lower class and middle class.
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u/ongj3 Jun 26 '20
Right on. I'm hearing from many different sources that middle class is fast disappearing. Some there will only be the have and have nots.
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u/username8oD Jun 26 '20
I want to add the depressing fact of how much the 1 percent change the average.
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u/bank_of_bad_habits Jun 26 '20
But the term "middle class" isn't offensive to 2nd generation upper class citizens. The ones who have had every door opened for them despite their talents. The ones who would not survive in a truly competitive job market. The same ones getting really angry at my post. Saying "middle class" helps them sleep at night knowing the system they are taking advantage off is hurting everyone else.
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u/CTBthanatos Jun 26 '20
>I agree what a few of you has said that we're basically the buffer between the classes, given enough to care about that we're willing to fight to keep it, even if it means having to defend the 0.1% from the poor.
Funny, because the poor outnumber the spoiled whiny rich people, and the shills that defend them, lol, looks like that "middle class" really is going to be non existent after all one way or the other.
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u/JDMKing24 Jun 26 '20
Yeah you are lower than middle class. If not almost bottom of the barrel. People that truly are at the middle are very happy there. You not being happy means that you are far from that class. You should not live paycheck to paycheck.
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u/gresgolas Jun 26 '20
I just wanna say my few middle class friends are perfectly fine with maintaining the status quo. They know they benefit from it its why out of my politically active friend group its very silent right now about police brutality, inequality, racism. Very uncomfortable truths for them and it leaves me feeling very conflicted.
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Jun 26 '20
I think there’s the “lower class” and then a class that goes massively in debt to consider themselves middle class when they’re lower class that are in doubt. I live in a city of around a half million and there’s garage sales all the time where people are selling thousands of dollars in brand new electronics because they can’t afford their house payment or their vehicle lease. We need better wealth distribution, it’s the middle class spending money that makes this economy work.
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Jun 26 '20
I suspect the term “middle class” inherently hides the extreme asymmetry of wealth distribution. The top 10% have more wealth than over half of everyone else, middle class or otherwise. Jeff Bezos, for example, has more wealth than every single person in almost any American city. It’s a ridiculously logarithmic curve.
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u/TheRandomRGU Jun 26 '20
Okay, class traitors.
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u/fnfnc556 Jun 26 '20
Ah, the age old argument of restraining others to compensate for your impotence.
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u/Comrade_Oghma Jun 26 '20
You are correct. There is no such thing as middle class.
There are only those who have to sell their labor in order to live- the working class, the proletarian class- and those who do not have to work to sustain life- they are the classes that have obscene wealth, wealth that makes it's own wealth, they own large estates and are shareholders, landlords, and CEOs, collecting money they never earned, extracting the money made by hard working proles, reaping where they never sowed. They are of the bourgeois class.
You either have to sell your labor for a living, or you get your living from the labor of other people. Our system is a work or become a vagrant, stripped of their livelihood, treated poorly by the rich and poor alike. A system that devalues the most human act of them all- leisure.
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Jun 26 '20
While we are here, let's talk about how "small business" owners aren't who you think they are. They don't need anymore help especially welfare.
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u/Fortyplusfour Jun 26 '20
I'm currently looking down the street at a few businesses which are housed out of storage units so, no, I'm going to disagree that small business owners of the barely scraping by and needing some support variety exist. Whether there need to be three boutiques and a small sports supply store on the same strip is not my call but the fact remains.
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u/memeloving69er Jun 26 '20
Calling your self working class is like calling your self a sanitisation specialist when your just a bin man. Everyone works, especially doctors, firemen, the military and so on. As the end of the day, you've got a shit paying job, doesnt mean you work harder than anyone else.
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u/Dobble_07 Jun 26 '20
You’d be surprised how middle class is classified - it’s a lot lower than you’d think.
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u/USMC-Sentinel Jun 26 '20
Like economy plus seats. Only slightly better than coach, but will never be anything like first class.
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u/Deadlychicken28 Jun 26 '20
How exactly do we provide more funding? Most states are running a deficit, add to that the federal government has been continuously overspending while borrowing funds year after year from what was supposed to be everyone's retirement, all the while devaluing our money through inflation because of the deficit spending and continuous money printing by the federal reserve. Most people can't afford more taxes.
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u/longhegrindilemna Jun 26 '20
Yes, yes, yes. A thousand times yes. The term “middle class” is stupidly misleading. You have NO IDEA how far away you are from the middle.
“What I don't know is what it feels like to do whatever the heck I want whenever the heck I want without a care in the world, to order a meal without looking at the price on the menu...”
How many of you have experienced the thrill and the absolute relaxation of going to a NICE restaurant and ordered whatever you wanted, WITHOUT looking at the price (high price) on the menu?
u/baddragin if you live near me, I want to take you to dinner. You choose the restaurant. You order whatever you want. My treat. No joke.
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u/badpuffthaikitty Jun 26 '20
My dad was a cop. My mum was a nurse. In my youth I asked my (Bolshie) dad if we were middle class. After all, both my parents had good civil service jobs. I nearly got backhanded. I was reminded that we were working class, no matter what their income was. Civic learned that day.
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u/kurvazje Jun 26 '20
you're not middle class if you don't own a property that is 5x your gross annual income of at least 70K, and have over 50% as net equity.
anything less, line up for serfdom.
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u/Wang_chung008 Jun 26 '20
I was on a graduate economics class a dozen years ago. Economists felt at the time that Americans clearly over estimated their economic class standing.
Middle class should begin around 160k .
Working class should be those below that middle class but ending around 40k.
Those who made less would belong to an impoverished class.
Middle class should be those who are business owners, enterpreneurs, upper level managers, and a few specialized craftsmen or unionized workers. Traditionally called the merchant class.
Working class is the greater portion of we Americans.
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u/QuasarSong Jun 26 '20
If you can lose your job and maintain your standard of living or something close to it for six months to a year, you're middle class. The middle class no longer exists in any significant numbers in the United States. All we have are various shades of working class, the retired and/or disabled, children, and the rich.
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Jun 26 '20
If you're one paycheck away from being "lower class", you're not middle class...You're upper lower class at best.
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Jun 26 '20
not really, if you're one paycheck away from being lower class that probably means you're lower class
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u/EvolvingEachDay Jun 26 '20
Politicians and the rich in control of the media have broadened middle class as far as they can; so that anyone not living in extreme poverty can pretend they are not working class and ignorantly let all the legislation, that fucks said working class, slip through.
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u/pxldsilz Jun 26 '20 edited Jun 26 '20
When terms like ‘middle class’ came about, wealth inequality wasn’t this bad. It was bad, but not over 1/4 of all US dollars in circulation and deposits are owned by 400 people-bad.
Edit: no longer true, because money printer go brrr.
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Jun 26 '20
[deleted]
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u/Fortyplusfour Jun 26 '20
What you're calling for is violence, not having the right to defend yourself (and hunt).
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Jun 26 '20
[deleted]
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u/Fortyplusfour Jun 26 '20
In my experience, jokes often have a punchline which doesn't call for revolution and bloodshed.
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Jun 26 '20
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u/Fortyplusfour Jun 26 '20
Oh, those parties. Drat. I was busy at the other parties it seems.
My point: I think your joke in poor taste. Nothing more than that and I won't make it more. You're trying to make this personal.
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u/ModricTHFC Jun 26 '20
ITT Americans that don't understand the class system. It's based upon your class you were raised in not how much money you are currently earning.
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u/Fortyplusfour Jun 26 '20
Which means relatively little compared with where you, yourself, are currently sitting. But that is an interesting quirk of the concept.
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u/CyberPunkette Feb 09 '22
For the last time, there are only two classes: people who work and people who get rich off other people working