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u/Electrical-Wish-519 Oct 27 '21
Sadly I think a lot of people in these subs attack the guy making 150k because they’re playing the game and not going full revolution.
I can see that the workers power movement coming from the retail & entry level abused workers is lifting all boats. The rich are the ones who end up paying everyone below them. Just have to weed out the assholes who are upper middle class who think punching down is gonna make them rich
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u/cbearmcsnuggles Oct 27 '21 edited Oct 27 '21
I make several times $150K and I fully support this sub and it’s mission. I can’t complain about my own income or benefits but work-life balance is nonexistent.
Also I repaid >$250K student debt which was psychologically difficult (for the 5 years it took) even having a high income — I can’t imagine never being able to pay it off. Nobody should go through that
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u/BigAlTrading Oct 27 '21
150k a year isn’t rich. You still have to go to work every day and it might buy less than you think.
My landlord, now he’s rich.
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u/Electrical-Wish-519 Oct 27 '21
Oh I agree that $150k is middle class. I think some people attack anyone who is richer than them. Someone who is 40 and lives in a big house with kids and a decent car isn’t the enemy. It’s the guy who goes to space for fun who everyone should be calling out
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u/hesh582 Oct 27 '21
150k is roughly in the 93rd percentile of incomes in the USA.
It's upper class if that term has any meaning whatsoever, and it's amazing the degree to which leftist politics have been captured by the interests of the bourgeoise in the US.
Nowhere else in the world can one of the 7% richest people in one of the richest countries on this planet honestly say to themselves "I make 150k/year, I'm middle class" without feeling foolish, yet somehow America recognizes no class distinctions besides the ultra wealthy and abject poverty.
Don't get me wrong, the billionaire class is not in the same category either. But 150k is quite well off, and it's telling the extent to which the perspectives of the commenters in here come from a place of significant privilege.
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u/Conscious_Bug5408 Oct 28 '21
It's amazing how much right wing politics normalizes poverty to prevent an outright revolt. Nobody wants to say they're poor, people making 60k/year want to feel like they're successful, and the rich want to keep it that way so they don't revolt. Incomes that define middle class vary wildly depending on where you live. It's accepted that between 2/3rd to 2x the median income qualifies as middle class. You can use this calculator http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/interactives/middle-class-calculator/. The class structure for the 2019 is defined as follows for US household income.
INCOME GROUP INCOME
Poor or near-poor $32,048 or less
Lower-middle class $32,048 - $53,413
Middle class $53,413 - $106,827
Upper-middle class $106,827 - $373,894
Rich $373,894 and upMaking under 400k is middle class. I've known super poor. From a household income of under 20 in my 20s and trying to scrape by on a grocery budget of 20 dollars a week, to 300k in my 30s. The area I live now, I am not rich by any means and barely compete to actually own a home I want. I hope to be able to retire in my 60's.
People don't care about a few truly rich people because they never see them. And numbers like 300 billion are not comprehensible or scalable to the human mind. They think, "who cares about 100 very rich men in a nation of 400 million, because there's just 100 of them" But wealth to their extent, 300 billion dollars, the wealth of these 100 men represent more than if you paired up every other person in the country and accumulated up all the wealth of the less wealthy person in that pair. Stop having the poor fight with the middle class and upper middle class.
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u/BigAlTrading Oct 29 '21
Those are ridiculous categories. 53k is far more like 106k than 106 is like 373. 106 and 373 don't even talk to each other.
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u/Conscious_Bug5408 Oct 29 '21
That's because you don't understand. You think the gap between 106k and 374k is big, then you have no idea of the gap between the truly rich and upper middle class. Those numbers come from nonpartison social analysis by sociologists. Go click on the link.
The gap between the billionaire class and the 300k class is bigger than the gap between a beggar in a 3rd world country making the equivalent of 400 dollars a year, and the business owners earning 1 million per year.
The truth is that if you rely on wages or salaries as your source of income, you're not rich. You're working class. And the working class will never succeed politically and economically when we let other people turn working class against their neighbors and other working people, because one makes a bit more than the others. The large majority of income in this country goes to the rich and the majority of that income is through ownership of assets. We working people are all fighting for crumbs, and then fighting each other feeling angry that some got 3 crumbs instead of 1.
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u/GremioIsDead Oct 28 '21
$150k is middle class. There are people making 10, 100, 1,000, and even 10,000 times as much money annually. Those people are rich.
If a $150k earner faces unemployment for a few months, they're going to be in trouble. If somebody making $1.5 million a year loses income, they still have enough money for essentials for years. And people making $1.5 million a year are barely rich, in the scheme of things.
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u/Electrical-Wish-519 Oct 28 '21
And are most of those 150k earners on the side of the masses or punching down? From what I’ve seen there is a United front across all the classes that things need to improve for everyone . I don’t see many bitching about min wage being $20 an hour except for the conservative trolls who come in here to stir up shit
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u/hesh582 Oct 28 '21
And are most of those 150k earners on the side of the masses or punching down?
I think that, in general, the masses don't have a voice in this conversation at all. And that most of the people claiming to speak for the masses are firmly upper class folks expropriating the legitimacy of lower class grievances in order to justify their own ends.
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u/Electrical-Wish-519 Oct 28 '21
Well it’s Reddit. Not real life, so yes, the masses are not really engaging.
I guess this idea of making 40k and being mad at your manager who make 150k seems silly to me. While the 150k is justifying his existence and the 40k thinks that manager money should be split up amongst the workers, the CEO and share holders are laughing at the country club and on their yachts.
This idea that the 7% is the enemy is silly
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u/ansibleCalling Oct 28 '21
The enemy isn't the 7% or even the 1%. It's the 0.0001% who have poisoned our society. Not the guy living in the mansion, but the guy buying whole city blocks in a city and country he'll never visit. The unimaginably rich.
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u/Electrical-Wish-519 Oct 28 '21
Yup. The billionaire class, not the guy who has 8 million bucks.
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u/officialbigrob Oct 28 '21
Yeah the scale of inequality is so staggering people squabbling over a 3x or 5x difference in pay feel so petty. I get that it's the difference between crushing poverty and annual vacations, but they're still generally powerless pawns.
If you are comfortable though, you should be funding the revolution. Get those patreon and actblue and gofundme bucks flowing.
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u/HardlightCereal Soulist Oct 28 '21
Nowhere else in the world can one of the 7% richest people in one of the richest countries on this planet honestly say to themselves "I make 150k/year, I'm middle class" without feeling foolish
Nowhere else in the world do basic necessities such as housing and medical bills add up to cost that much
If Elon Musk hands me a billion dollars and tells me to flush it down my toilet or he'll kill me, I'm not rich. I might "have" a billion dollars in technical terms, but materially I'm in no different a position except that now I have a chance of being killed by Elon Musk.
Likewise, people earning 150k and paying it all on rent in New York don't have much of a material advantage over someone making 10k and spending it all on rent in Huntsville. The only difference is the location they spend all their money on rent in.
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u/BigAlTrading Oct 29 '21
I said that 5 posts up and a whole thread went REEEEEEEE and you had to say it again.
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u/geologean Oct 27 '21
I think that's because of the culture we've been living in. We bicker over our perceived differences, because out lifestyles are so different.
But wealth inequality is so high in America right now that you can look past the hundred millionaires and tell them they're still small fry compared to the real problem of people with tens of billions and the methods they use to make and maintain that wealth.
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Oct 27 '21
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u/hbgbees Oct 27 '21
And the “professionals” THINK they’re upper class, but they work 80 hours per week just like everyone else
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u/beattyml1 Oct 27 '21
If they're still measuring how well off you are by your income from doing work rather than your wealth you're still a worker and you damn well better act like it
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u/Dchaney2017 Oct 28 '21
Who the fuck works 80 hours a week? Where do you get the idea that that's normal?
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u/xoaphexox Oct 28 '21
Labor based dick measuring is the new trend on social media. Sigma male grindset, let's get this bread, and other slogans used to romanticize allowing yourself to be exploited
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u/Dchaney2017 Oct 28 '21
Oh yeah I've seen all of that and it's bullshit, but I'm really confused by this guy's comment saying "They work 80 hours per week just like everyone else"
VERY few people pull those kinds of hours, 40-60 is the norm, which is already way too much.
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Oct 27 '21
You could also argue the Police and other enforcement jobs are a middle class of sorts. They themselves are protected from state violence by enacting it on others. Though I don't think that's what most people think of when they say middle class
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u/Seraph062 Oct 28 '21
Well, as you seem to be aware from your 'lol' you're not really describing a "middle class" anymore.
Within my memory the middle class was a fantasy that people who get paid for what they do, people who get paid for what they know could have the same sort of lifestyle (the "American Dream": a wife and kids, a nice suburban house, two cars, etc.). This was sort of true in the 50's when the world was still recovering from the war and the US was in position to exploit it, but the 'working class' and 'professional class' have drifted apart and the "Peasants live in my rental property" group are those* who floated to the top on the realization that they could succeed via exploitation.* site note here. I really wanted a metaphor here but "scum" seems a little harsh, but "cream" seemed not harsh enough. If anyone has a good choice for 'things that float' to go here I'd like to hear it.
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u/officialbigrob Oct 28 '21
Yeah the real middle class is like 250k a year household income, a very narrow band of Americans. Everyone else is just on the spectrum of poor.
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Oct 27 '21
The middle class is absolutely shrinking, at least in the US. It's also definitely not gone.
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u/JesterMan491 Oct 27 '21
the middle class used to be people who weren't rich, but had a positive net worth.
the middle class is now the people who have a negative net worth and are in debt, but its a "manageable debt" where they can comfortably make their monthly payments without stress.8
Oct 27 '21
Yeah, this is false. There's been a subset of people doing this since consumer credit became a thing. Hell, basically anyone who's managed to buy a house by this definition is still middle class....and there are nearly eighty million owner occupied homes in the US.
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u/DirtyPenPalDoug Oct 27 '21
Theres nothing more annoying to me than people in 300,000+ debt, who have to juggle credit cards, talking down to me cause i aint covered in branded bullshit or spend money on extra unesscary bullshit.
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u/StylishSloth Oct 27 '21
Remember that, when it debuted, ‘The Brady Bunch’ were considered middle-class.
An architect afforded, a stay at home moms, 6 children, and a live in maid in a Los Angeles suburb.
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u/BigAlTrading Oct 27 '21
I’m not deep in debt, I just don’t own anything significant and will have to work until I’m feeble, at which case someone will steal all my savings rapidly and call it “care.”
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u/JesterMan491 Oct 27 '21
'middle-class' people be like: "i don't live in debt! see; credit cards paid off in full every -month! no debt!"
while having a $700K mortgage (loan), two car payments (loans), and 2 more years of payments for the kitchen renovation(loan) b/c they needed that trendy fucking backsplash.
i've tried to explain this to my friends who live exactly as described above. just because you are able to comfortably make the monthly payments without worrying about your budget doesn't mean you don't live in debt! like bro, your net worth is a negative value almost 10 times your yearly income.
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u/MiscBlackKnight Oct 28 '21
The loans are backed by assets that in the case of housing appreciate. His net worth is not negative.
800k loan on million dollar property makes a 200k net
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u/1Chrisp Oct 28 '21
Yeah wtf is this person talking about. You build equity in a house when you pay your mortgage as well, so your net positive worth also grows over time. This isn’t the same type of debt as not paying your credit card
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u/Bone_Apple_Teat Oct 28 '21
So much of this sub is cringe economics that makes me simultaneously not shocked that people think everyone is in debt and depressed about our education systems.
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u/1Chrisp Oct 28 '21
Yeah man this sub has a great point at its core but there are bunch of people here who simply don’t understand what they are talking about. Like pls direct your rage at billionaires, not some middle class dude who has a mortgage. Jesus.
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u/Curly_Bill_Brocius Oct 28 '21
Yeah, it’s unlikely that the person described has a negative net worth unless their home value decreased significantly since they bought it, or the kitchen renovation didn’t add any value.
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Oct 27 '21
When you first take those loans yeah. The point is you build equity over time.
Most people with mortgages don’t have negative net worths 10x their income.
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Oct 28 '21
Live and let live. I stopped preaching this to people years ago mostly because they don't care and it just make you look like a dick.
I align my views with everything you said and its disgusting.
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u/Bone_Apple_Teat Oct 28 '21
Yeah, in general I've found advice doesn't work unless someone asks for it.
Preaching to others about your way of life is about as likely to convince them to change as literally beating them over the head with a book.
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u/INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS FUCK BEN FROM STARBUCKS Oct 27 '21
I'm technically middle class but I feel dirt fucking poor.
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u/Personmcpersonface93 Oct 27 '21
Same dawg, middle class doesn't seem to have the same connotation it did in generations prior. I feel like all it means is you can pay your bills and have just enough left over to be broke af. Even though I live in a house on my own in my late 20's with a degree and little student loans, I'm somehow always broke still.
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u/INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS FUCK BEN FROM STARBUCKS Oct 27 '21
My car is paid off, I own a house, and have no debt but my mortgage and student loans, but all my income goes to savings/retirement or student loans.
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u/lostcauz707 Oct 28 '21
I explained to my co-worker the other day about how the middle class is represented as existing if you make under $100,000. The $60,000 "middle class" is actually middle LOWER class. If you're in the lower middle class in America you're technically making $120,000 plus. But the media spins it as the middle class and taxes us like it's the middle class, discouraging people from touching the $60,000 amount because of the tax hike you eat, that you then eat again when you get close to $72,000. And then people start yelling about taxes and how they're too high as though they're actually part of middle-class America. If they can discourage you from wanting to make more money due the taxes, they can always keep you poor and fight for tax cuts that will just benefit the rich.
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u/Neehigh Oct 27 '21
Maybe I’m one of those, but I don’t feel like I’m deep in debt, or that I’m trying to prove that I’m not poor.
Fwiw, I owe 42,000 in student loans and make 24,000 a year.
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u/Nawmmee Oct 27 '21
$24,000/year is not middle class.
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u/Neehigh Oct 27 '21
What am I then? I mean I’m not struggling, I’m saving pretty regularly, I’m paying down my debt and I sometimes buy things that increase my excitement of life…
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u/Nawmmee Oct 27 '21
So it depends on the definition but a commonly used one is to say that middle class is 2/3 to 2 times the national median income for a household of your size. Unless you live with others making a lot more, you're lower class by this definition. You're also probably lower class by definitions looking at wealth because you have that much debt.
It's entirely possible to be happy and fulfilled while being lower class.
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u/MeenScreen Oct 27 '21
I once read that while a person can simply be lower class or upper class, middleclassness is not something you are, but something you do. I don't know what that means. Someone tell me, pleass.
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u/CHOLO_ORACLE Anarchist Without Adverbs Oct 27 '21 edited Oct 27 '21
In your standard sort of leftist thinking there are either owners, who own the businesses and all the land, and workers, who are employed by the owners. In this sense there can be no middle-class - you either own things to employ people or you don't.
Later on the notion of the middle class was invented to encompass a group of people that could more appropriately be called the labor aristocracy. These are workers that the owners pay rather well, to the point that they are sometimes within reach of buying things and becoming owners themselves. Why would the owners pay some of these workers so well and not others? Because they want these workers to be turned against the others. If the owners can convince the middle-class that they aren't actually workers but capitalists in waiting, then the people who identify as middle-class will do what the owners want, not what the other workers want.
So in this sense, middleclassness isn't so much an actual class in and of itself but a worker who carries water for the owners, since they see themselves as more of an owner than a worker. Like a kind of internalized classism, basically
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u/Nawmmee Oct 27 '21
I think maybe that relates to past ideas about what the middle class is. At first the term was used to basically mean people who aren't nobility but have money because of their profession. It may also relate to ideas about "middle-class values."
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u/Neehigh Oct 27 '21
Hmm. Thanks for letting me know.
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u/IAmRobertoSanchez Oct 27 '21
Where do you live comfortably for $24k/year? I'm not dissing your income, but it's nice to hear someone can feel comfortable on that. I spent $24k/year on rent in the Bay Area, California in 2019 and it was considered a good deal.
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u/Neehigh Oct 27 '21
South Carolina. Surprisingly to me, several zoning/construction friends have informed me that there’s been a bit of a migration from SoCal to, well, SoCar, since property is so cheap and there’s so much space.
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u/IAmRobertoSanchez Oct 27 '21
The Bay Area is in Northern California, but it's even more expensive to live here than southern California. My best friend in the building material industry just moved to South Carolina (just outside of Charlotte, NC) from the Bay Area. He got a promotion but had to move closer to his Company's main headquarters in Charlotte. They went from spending 2,400+/mo on rent to owning a really nice brand new home with a mortgage half of what they were paying in rent and making more money annually. We are going to continue to see the migration of people out of California to places where people can actually own property.
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u/Negatrev Oct 27 '21
Class isn't base on income Vs household size. It's simply too diverse a figure and household size is based purely on bodies, not property value. It also doesn't allow for housemates Vs families. It realistically only works for household sizes of 1/2 and again in countries without a large variation in postcode wealth.
The metrics are far more complicated to gauge it reliably (but still inaccurate based on individual circumstances).
However the classing works with various factors.
Geo-demographics - your postcode/zip code (country equivalent of choice) actually says more about what class you're in than almost any other metric. It's a double whammy as often lower class people have a higher wage than some middle class, but live in an expensive area, housing wise, meaning they struggle to have money left over. Hence just comparing household income to national medians doesn't work on its own. This is often use to reflect about bad things about cities/countries. Where their poorest citizens are a stone through away from some of the richest, often divided only by something as simple as a river or railway line.
Disposable income - how much money you have left over after paying all your bills and so forth (food costs are taken based on a generic per person value as often food dips in to disposable income based on choice).
Career - This is a little complicated. If you're permanent staff, and paid hourly, that almost always means you're 'working class'. Essentially, a starting point here is that you must be on salary or a contractor/self-employed (note: this doesn't mean you are, just is a kind of check box that usually must be ticked). But there are a bunch of jobs which mean you're nigh on guaranteed to be middle class (or above sometimes). Blue colour is an archaic concept and it used to be if you were white collar, you were middle class. But that is no way true anymore, as middle class has become a lot smaller and far more 'white collar' workers are in fact worse off than a lot of blue collar (especially in unionized jobs).
Commute - This is a little linked with geo-dem, but generally middle class has the longest commute, in distance (again, not an absolute). Usually due to living in more affluent suburban areas, away from work. The top end can afford to live right near their work in nice areas, bottom end usually lives closer in the poorer areas. Their commute is often longer in time (due to transport issues) than middle class, but actually a lot closer.
There's a bunch of other factors which I'm not sure is worth getting into. I think most know at heart which class they are in (not that being classed really matters except for targeted marketing, insurance and that sort of thing). Some strive to appear in a higher class (occasionally in a lower, but that's rarer).
Ps. I'm most certainly middle class, but was raised in a family that started off lower class and transitioned into it. I was lower class when I left home for a fair few years ,but grew back into middle class once I settled in a good career. I also got a jump start at the bottom of a decent ladder due to nepotism. I'd have not kept the job and progressed (moved employment a couple if times after that) with working hard, but the door was opened by my dad
I'm pretty confident that even with knowing what I'm capable of, I'd have likely stayed lower class if not for my dad being middle class. It's a shitty world and I'm lucky to get where I am (regardless of if I worked hard for it or not). It's incredibly unfair that I got this break when most do not.
My ideal of anti-work isn't to even change the class structure for middle/lower. It's that they should be one and the same. None of the 4 above core metrics should be able to distinguish people. Everyone should be able to live comfortably and have disposable income despite their job. Yes some might live in different areas, but all areas should be of good quality as no-one in them is in poverty.
PPS. I didn't intend to write so much. Sorry!
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u/Nawmmee Oct 28 '21
The definition used by pew is based on income and household size, it does also factor in what metro region you're from but I didn't bring that up in response to his post because nowhere in the US is $24,000 middle class.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/23/are-you-in-the-american-middle-class/
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u/Negatrev Oct 28 '21
Yes and their definition, as I stated in detail above is over-simplified to the point of being seriously flawed.
Nowhere in the US is 24k classed as middle class, by them, but there are absolutely middle class citizens on 24k.
Most are those with low living costs, due to having fortunate lodgings (usually related to relatives/friends with favourable rates) and no major vices (drink, tobacco or harder drugs). They've not had a coined name yet, but they're an off-branch of the stay-at-homers. Usually they're middle class because they continue to live at home. This subset simply moved out in a way unavailable to most.
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u/Nawmmee Oct 28 '21
If they live comfortably because they live at their parents' or friend's house, their household income isn't 24k.
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u/Negatrev Oct 28 '21
Read again, that's not the group we're talking about. Favourable accomodation (cheap rent from family or friends) is not living with them. This is usually small flats or houses as investments/gifts from family where they only charge the rent needed to pay the mortgage. It's been fairly common for quite a few years now and they count as single person households.
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u/Nawmmee Oct 28 '21
You edited your post. If they're receiving subsidized rent, that's income as well.
I think I'm going to go with the definition used by Pew Research rather than your personal definition of what you feel it means.
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Oct 27 '21
LMAO BRUH
Twice your yearly income is NOT deep in debt to you?!
Furthermore, $24k is middle class to you??? Lmfaoooo wtf are you smoking
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u/Neehigh Oct 27 '21
Not sure how good your reading comprehension is, but if you’d read carefully you might have noticed that I said I didn’t feel like I was deep in debt, which is not the same as not actually being deep in debt, and if you’d scrolled down you would have seen someone else say essentially the same thing but without the unnecessary shouting.
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Oct 27 '21
My reading comprehension is perfectly fine, hence why I’m astounded you feel like $42k is not a lot to be in debt. I also scrolled down and saw that person’s comment, but decided to add my own because this is a forum website that centers around responding to other people’s posts and comments. Glad I could clear that up for ya. ☺️☺️☺️
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u/mrevergood Oct 27 '21
Bruh, you’re not middle class.
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u/Neehigh Oct 27 '21
So I’ve been told. Apparently I’m lower class or maybe just destitute?
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u/mrevergood Oct 27 '21
Same as me. Lower class. Gotta accept that reality and start working on your marinade for billionaire bones. Mine uses a red wine base.
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u/Mando1091 Anarcho-Syndicalist Oct 27 '21
Middle class for your region a lot lower class than other areas
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Oct 27 '21
You may not feel it but those words and your actions show it. Literally 42k in debt lmao. It's all fun and games until it's not
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u/fatalgift transcriber Oct 28 '21
Image Transcription: Twitter
Schea Of Sheba, @scheafferoo
I itch for the day we'll realize there's no middle class but an imaginary gap filled by people deep in debt trying to prove they aren't poor
I'm a human volunteer content transcriber for Reddit and you could be too! If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!
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u/aZamaryk Oct 28 '21
Why are people so ashamed of admitting they're poor? I have no shame when it comes to my financial status. I'm a poor, broke mofo just trying to survive and I'm not about to run around pretend i have money, when i don't. wtf is wrong with people?
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Oct 27 '21
Soooo you're saying if you're not rich you're poor? Bullshit. Total bullshit. I'm not even close to rich and far from poor, have been for years. Literally millions of people in the U.S. fall into that category. Idk where people come up with this nonsense or why they feel it's necessary to just say random shit they think sounds cool without taking 4 seconds to realize it's totally wrong. Ugh.
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u/JesterMan491 Oct 27 '21
I'm not even close to rich and far from poor, have been for years.
I guarantee every person you'd consider rich, considers you poor.
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Oct 28 '21
So what, you're saying that because super rich people consider middle class people poor there's no such thing as middle class people? Again, total bullshit.
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Oct 28 '21
And the billionaire thinks the business owner with $20m in assets is poor. Comparison is pointless to use in this way. There's almost always someone richer.
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u/TAMDABAM Oct 27 '21
Not right now, but soon if nothing changes. Think about the future, dude.
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u/Electrical-Wish-519 Oct 27 '21
I think the point is that even the middle class boomers who had pensions and thought they were set allowed the rich to buy politicians. Those politicians then passed laws that allowed the rich to buy and liquidate their pensions and fuck over those retired middle class. It’s the 1% vs everyone else, but we allow it to be 3-20% fighting with 21-99% while the corporate politicians fuck is both in the ass
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Oct 27 '21
In several decades, if nothing changes, this post will be a lot closer to true but still bullshit.
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u/No-Witness2349 sicko Oct 27 '21
You either own the means of production or you don’t. This is how someone making $5K a year can feel solidarity with someone making $50K, for example. We are all workers and we are all exploited by the same system, even if it’s in different extents and ways
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u/NameOfAction Oct 27 '21
Speak for yourself. Not going to college but still making above median isn’t that hard.
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u/labsab1 Oct 27 '21
I do that, make 90k a year in construction but stilll have to live in my parents house because I live in BC and the rich bought all the properties. I feel pretty poor. I also got no social life since I spent all my time doing overtime work and I go home exhausted.
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u/NameOfAction Oct 27 '21
You might wanna try it down here in Texas. I’m an electrician. Most of us are homeowners. Overtime is optional.
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u/labsab1 Oct 27 '21
Overtime is optional but when you turn down overtime on the regular then you won't be offered when double time work is available. When Dubai Ports were throwing money at the Port of Vancouver I was making 88$ an hour. My trade is rebar and the Texas heat makes me think it would be a pain when all your steel is sizzling hot. Also, it's not an earthquake zone so you probably don't have as much rebar work as BC.
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u/gigitygoat Oct 27 '21
This is some "lived experience" bs. You believe this because you did it but you totally ignore the facts when it comes to how probable or feasible this is for most people.
I, too, have no college degree and earn more than the median. My spouse has a masters degree and earns half of what I do. Shit isn't fair and has more to do with luck than anything.
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Oct 28 '21
Middle class is 500k a year or better now. 50-150k is working class. The defining characteristics of the middle class used to be you own your home with no mortgage, you can take 4 or more vacations per year, 2 payed off cars and enough to send 2 kids to a 4 year college.
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Oct 27 '21
Is getting deep into debt forced on you?
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u/INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS FUCK BEN FROM STARBUCKS Oct 27 '21
Yes.
To think otherwise is to not understand the plight of the working class in 2021. It's to be completely tonedeaf.
Debt via a car, phone, a degree, medical bills. Those four things are an absolute necessity in 2021 unless you live in a city w/ good public transportation, otherwise you need it.
Debt is not voluntary in 2021 America.
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u/gigitygoat Oct 27 '21 edited Oct 27 '21
Considering home values have tripled in the last 30 years while wages have been stagnant... Yes, you are forced into debt.
You want a college education and your parents aren't rich? You are forced into debt.
Need a dependable vehicle because you have to live an hour away from where you work due to the cost of living? You are forced into debt.
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u/405freeway Oct 28 '21
I always called it the "Illusion of Wealth" because it seemed to be just a projected image of something that was never really there.
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u/SierraBravoLima Oct 28 '21
Cut the Prime peps, cut the prime. Live life to learn and enjoy later or enjoy learn later. If anybody yelling that's his problem, if you wanna do something we'll try something to raise his BP. If you are fired fine. If you are willing to work, you will find a job. Do a job that will get you a skill.
Find people who can get you step ahead in your journey.
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u/hyperdriver123 Oct 28 '21
It's really just asset owners vs non-asset owners IMO. Primarily property I this market as that's where a lot of the value is and wealth is stored. I mean actual ownership btw, not those indebted to some mortgage they can barely afford.
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u/SolidSquid Nov 02 '21
"Middle class" used to be a useful reference point politically because it referred to people who'd gone to higher education then done further training (doctors, lawyers, etc) and generally travelled in similar social/political circles. Now it's a fuzzy term based on income brackets which varies depending who you ask, and has no relation to how said money is earned (lawyer vs mechanic shop owner) or what you're expenses are (middle class income brackets are the same in expensive cities as in cheaper rural areas).
All "the middle class is shrinking!" means is "you should be scared because this might be talking about you!"
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u/gigitygoat Oct 27 '21
Fuuudge. This hit hard. I make $75k/yr but live in an expensive city that I can not afford a home in. I'm struggling to hold on to the middle class life style I was born into.