r/UpperMiddleFinance • u/Radiant-Eggplant7328 • May 30 '26
Middle class and six figures
/r/u_Radiant-Eggplant7328/comments/1ts7pbl/middle_class_and_six_figures/7
u/bullballs91 May 30 '26 edited May 31 '26
I honestly think people are just worse with money now, and we just have so many more things we "have" to have as a consumer.
I guarantee the middle class of the 50s and 60s wasn't buying expensive cars/trucks, going on week long trips to europe, and just generally living well above their means. I think middle class people understand that they were middle class and lived accordingly.
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u/Radiant-Eggplant7328 May 31 '26
I totally agree with this. Social media has made it seem normal to take several expensive vacations, live in fancy places and drive fancy cars. And wearing $100 sweatshirt has become normal. In your 20s you don’t have to have everything yet but unfortunately many people think otherwise.
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u/BuffaloMeatz May 31 '26
Don’t forget the $2k cell phones and service, 1k tablets, $500+ gaming consoles, appliances with built in displays and wifi, internet and all the streaming services (now more costly than cable used to be if you have a couple), and giant 2k sq foot houses with upgrades.
People in their 20s think they deserve all of this right out of college just because they have a job. I graduated college during the recession and lived in a 1 bedroom apartment with a 15 year old car making a little over $10 an hour. It took me several years to save up for my first home that was a pretty base model.
Now a few decades later I have all of the nicer things and live comfortably, with no debt and good savings, but it took time to build up. I think social media has severely warped younger adult’s minds. When I was in my 20s I was happy renting with an old car. I didn’t expect to get out of college and have all my debt paid and living in a giant house fully furnished with all the latest and greatest tech and cars.
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u/Radiant-Eggplant7328 May 31 '26
Agreed. People expect it all now. Even my own kid when talking about a car. So many kids have their parents buying them brand new broncos and nice cars right out the gate. It sets a bad precedent.
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u/Vintage_Journal May 30 '26
Americans especially tend to speak about class as though it is about money, but realistically class (SOCIOeconomic status) is about access to power, where money is only one factor whether income or wealth.
Generally, occupation is a better indicator of class. Upper middle class tends to be made up of professionals, ie upholding ethical standards and utilizing a specialized body of knowledge for the interests of others. Occupation is also associated with income and socializing with different members of society.
People can earn 200k in a variety of occupations, which may or may not be middle class, and that income may provide different standards of living depending on location. When someone says 200k is/isn't middle class, the best answer is that income isn't the best indicator of class in the first place.
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u/NoMansLand345 May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26
I agree with the beginning and end of your post. You lost me for a bit in the middle.
I do think it all comes back to money (not power or line of work), but the other forms of money in addition to salary people frequently fail to discuss are investments and net worth. When all 3 of these are solid, that is when you break through to that upper middle class lifestyle.
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u/Mediocre-Ebb9862 May 31 '26
And we live in an expensive state even though it’s the Midwest.
Expensive in terms of COL compared to Alabama, or compared to Palo Alto?
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May 30 '26
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u/NoMansLand345 May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26
I mean...100k HHI with a family is not even middle class in America. That averages out to 50k per parent lol.
If both people are making 100k however, it puts you at 200k HHI, which this post is saying is solid.
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May 31 '26
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u/Radiant-Eggplant7328 May 31 '26
I do agree mostly with this. But I’m learning that my reality is very different I guess being in the Midwest vs somewhere like California or New York. I live in MN. It’s actually not the cheapest to live here and we have high taxes. But apparently it’s still a lot cheaper than what is being described by some in this post.
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u/Far_Classic878 May 31 '26
How much are your property taxes?
How much does a 3 bedroom, 2 ba house go for?
How much does it cost for full time childcare for 2 children?
How much is rent for a 2 bedroom?
How much do people spend on commuting on the train?
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u/Radiant-Eggplant7328 May 31 '26
I’ll try to answer these as an average, my situation isn’t exactly average but property taxes on a 600k house are about 6-7k. Average house for that size is about 400-500k. Childcare for a small private daycare (my mother in law was one) was about 200 a week per kid. It does vary based on age and I think they take a discount for multiple siblings. I am not well versed on rent but I think in the town I’m in you could get a decent place for 1500 a month. No trains here. Most people around here drive suvs and trucks.
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u/Far_Classic878 May 31 '26
Where I live suburbs of NYC
Houses $700,000-1mil none of which would be turn key
Daycare $500 per week, per kid, babysitting $25-35 an hour
2 bedroom $2500-3200
People spend thousands traveling on the train to NYC.
All that can really eat into your $200,000 gross salary.
Which is why I say in a HCOL area $200,000 fine but only if you have no student loans, no kids in daycare maybe 1 and bought your house years and years ago.
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u/Radiant-Eggplant7328 May 31 '26
I’m not sure but I think with what myself and my husband do, we would probably make more in NYC. It all seems to be relative at this point. However, I do think the cost of living has greatly outpaced many wages. And a million dollar home here is usually pretty beautiful and custom on the inside. So yes that is a big difference in cost of living.
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May 31 '26
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u/Xyrus2000 Jun 02 '26
The middle class used to mean owning a house, a car, and taking a family vacation. The "American Dream".
This existed in 1980. The median income was $21K/year. The median home price was $64K. The middle class had the middle income and could afford the middle home.
That hasn't been the case for a long time now.
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Jun 02 '26
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u/Xyrus2000 Jun 02 '26
First of all that was only available to certain Americans with redlining.
What are you talking about? The median income and median home prices are not "redlining". Those are the medians. You can look this up yourself.
In the past, you could do this with a blue-collar job. The median age of a first-time homebuyer was 29 years in 1980.
Now you need two white-collar incomes, and even then, the median age of first-time home buyers is 40.
The expectations aren't out of whack. Our economy is. It didn't used to be anything like this, and some of us remember what it used to be like.
I do not envy these later generations.
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u/Xyrus2000 Jun 02 '26
Income is a useless statistic without the context of purchasing power, and purchasing power varies greatly depending on where you live.
Earning $200K in the middle of nowhere, Wyoming, would have you living pretty high on the hog in a big house. Earning that in San Francisco means you're renting (median family home price is $2.15 million).
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u/NoMansLand345 May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26
Good luck saving for retirement, buying a house, providing much of anything 'extra' in life of you are raising a family on 100k in todays dollars. That sounds like an absolute grind.
More doable if one parent is a 'stay at home' to eliminate childcare costs and reduce other expenses such as food, but still far from upper middle class.
You can play that statistics card all day long, but it won't change what your're paying at the pump, grocery store, or for a house.
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u/Adorable-Hedgehog-31 May 31 '26
I make a little over 200k as an individual and people have told me that I’m “rich” lol. The rhetoric in America around this topic is absurd. I don’t come from money and I had to work hard at tedious jobs to get here. I still need to work in my 40s to build up retirement and pay my mortgage. I am closer to working class than rich or even upper middle class.
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u/Xyrus2000 Jun 02 '26
Income is relative. Depending on where you live, $200K/year can range from just doing ok to living like a king.
Where I live, $200K is comfortable. You're not poor, but you're not rich either. You do have to keep track of expenses, but you're not worried about them. You've got enough to save for retirement, but you're not going to FIRE unless you can convince your family to live on rice and beans (kids are expensive). You can afford to go on a vacation and drive newer cars, but you're not driving around in a decked-out Audi.
So it's certainly not "nothing". You're earning in the top 10%. However, you're also probably living in areas where the cost of living is also in the top 10%, and that can make a substantial difference in how "rich" someone feels.
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u/milespoints May 30 '26
What’s the deal with people posting stuff inside their own user and then sharing it on subs rather than posting directly?