@ucbalumnus $69, 235 for a family of four would be barely above the poverty line in the DC metro area. Rents along for a 2 br apartment would be about $1200 a month.
@NUwildcat92 Yes, that link shifts quite a bit according to family size.
@Novadad99 so you’re saying that more than half of all people in DC are living below or “barely above” poverty?
You’d be surprised. Most of NE and SE and many parts of PG county and some of Montgomery County in MD would fit that description. Pockets of Fairfax and Arlington counties in VA are like that.
And yet thousands of government employees at GS 10 or below and live on much less than $150k per year in the DC area.
Yes, they do @romanigypsyeyes . I thought that DCs extreme poverty problem was a well-known fact…And many have NO income, which skews the mean. In NY, this is part of the issue. If you make 0, your neighbors make 0, you get free housing, food etc, it is life, but not a living. It puts you well below the poverty line.
If you don’t live in these places, you just don’t know. It is tiresome to argue with folks who think things like “if you drive 20 or 30 minutes from NYC you can get a much more affordable home…”. Truth: You can go an hour outside the city and it is still unaffordable. To get to an affordable home, you need to be in a “tough commute” area (3 hours a day) which is kind of not the point, is it?
Another fallacy: " if the median income is 60k, how do all those people live on that or less in NYC then?". Two issues, again, a huge part of the population has lttle or no income, and receive free or severely reduced housing (in places where most ppl would never live). Let’s take a real example in my town, S2 has a classmate, we try to help them out bc she moved here for the special ed services. She gets a voucher from the county for $1800 a month for a 2 br apartment, But she is unable to find one that cheap. They live in an apt in an old house with sporadic heat…the county is trying to buld more afforable housing, affordable being 1800 a month for a 2 br, over $20k a year for housing alone, And this is a no income family.
In NYC, if you make below certain low income guidelines, they are many affordable units to buy or rent. (I don’t say “enough” units though). A 2 br may only cost 30% of your income. If you make more, you pay market price. If folks can’t find affordable, they double and triple up in an apartment ( families, not people). So these are they ways people “live” on the median income here…with help. (You could also inherit your home, of have bought it cheap 30 years ago).
By class standards, we are upper, so I won’t try to convince you otherwise, but to say someone making $150k a year here is upper is to be relying on statistics that don’t show you the real picture. My neighbors are a cop and a special ed teacher, Their home is small. They have 2 ok cars, 2 kids. No one can convince me they are upper, even if the bring in $200 a year. In fact, they are moving south so that their money can buy them a better life.
I don’t try to convice someone upstate that $X is middle class in their town. So why do they think they would know what it is like downstate? And to sit in Iowa to tell someone what the true economics of Chicago are? (I am not referring to any particular posters here, so please don’t take it personally).
I’m done arguing it. Period. But some people really need some experience in other places and not just their reliance on worthless statistics and your own experiences where you live…
Yes, I’m aware of DC’s poverty problem. I just have a really hard time considering 70k as barely above poverty, no matter where one lives.
But then again, as someone who did grow up in poverty (in many different areas of the country depending on which relative I happened to be living with), I think I have a different definition of “poverty” than many people on here.
It just depends on where…poverty can be fluid depending on the cost of housing. If you are housing insecure…I call that poverty. In this county, you can get reduced rents or buy affordable starting at around $84 I think. Where I grew up in Ohio, that will allow you a nice life.
I grew up poor, but living here has really opened my eyes to poverty! It is a shame, and we can do better.
For some people, middle class is a state of mind.
The amount of income isn’t the issue as they feel they are struggling at their current income level as I am sure you have seen in numerous threads on CC.
@twoinanddone Do you know any of those GS-10s? Most of them are married to someone else who also works and their combined income is probably closer to $150-$200k a year, which gives them a middle class lifestyle. If single, many lower GS grades have to weigh whether to get a roommate to split living expenses, or to live further out (1-2 hour commute each way) or live in a more dicey neighborhood where the rents are cheaper. If they’re lucky enough not to have to commute into DC jobs, they might have better luck living a better lifestyle in a lower cost suburb closer to their job.
I’m with thumper. Class and income are very different things and don’t always go together. We are part of the group of NYC uniformed workers, whose family incomes can be in the range of 250-300k, but in my husband’s generation, the parents have no college education and are completely removed from that culture. I would say that if you have to work large amounts of overtime or multiple jobs in order to have a nice house and comfortably educate your kids, then it’s not a fully middle class life.
@NoVADad99 And yet so many do it on less. And nothing wrong with Walmart shopping or driving older cars. Has nothing to do with whether upper middle class or not.
Perhaps the definition of “middle class” depends on the speaker or writer.
His/her own income is “middle class”. Anything significantly lower is “poor”. Anything significantly higher is “rich”.
"my family has a household income of more than $200,000 and I consider that middle class. It’s not that I’m out of touch. I’m well aware that my household income is roughly in the top 5% of wage earners in the U.S. However, when you make more, your standard and cost of living usually increases. "
The argument that you are still middle class because your standard of living has increased doesn’t make sense. A certain income is a (upper, middle, lower) class income, regardless of whether the person chooses to live frugally or lavishly on it.
I think the original question, what is considered middle class “on CC” has a simple answer: Way above any government or other generally accepted definition. It includes incomes well into the upper quartile. Think about it. Someone earlier said that a certain income meant shopping at Walmart. I shop there all the time. I also shop rummage sales. And the dollar store. We argue about what kind of car we buy (haven’t had a new car in x years–well your new car may have cost way more than my brand new scion, with a sticker price in the teens), but the assumption is that we can afford cars, and have the choice to buy new or not. Middle class on cc is pretty wealthy.
And the kicker…wealthy people get offended and argue they,re not wealthy. You’ve worked hard or been lucky. Why is being called wealthy or upper middle class something that gets your hackles up? Or argue that the high cost of living makes you not wealthy. I guarantee, in a low COL area, you’re taking a salary cut…probably a big one.
Oh, there are clearly those on CC who would consider living where the TRUE middle class lives (and how they live) as simply unacceptable. True middle class and working class are invisible to them. So they rationalize their own upper middle (if not upper) status by - well, I only have a 2 car garage and my neighbors have 3 car garages! Or - but I fly economy and have never flown first class! Or I buy my underwear at Target and not Neiman-Marcus!
Why no love for Target and Walmart? LOL! All classes shop there. (Well, maybe the super wealthy have their household staff shop there for them!).
@ordinarylives yes, if I transferred within my company to, say, Buffalo, I’d have to take a huge COL cut! But that adjustment is also an increase to compensate folks in Buffalo when they have to move to NY, otherwise they could not live on their Buffalo salary.
People who make more, pay more income and property taxes too. If paying for your tuition is going to effect your parent’s mortgage pay off or retirement or other sibling’s education then you are middle class. It doesn’t matter if it’s $20k tuition for state school for a $120k family income or $60k for a top private school for a $250k family. You are disadvantaged if you can’t afford or have to make serious sacrifices to send your kids to best school they can get into.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s $20k tuition for state school for a $120k family income or $60k for a top private school for a $250k family. You are disadvantaged if you can’t afford or have to make serious sacrifices to send your kids to best school they can get into.”
You are DISADVANTAGED if you have to make sacrifices to afford a $60k school? The only people who are advantaged are those people for whom $60k for a school is like me spending $4 for a latte?
"People who make more, pay more income and property taxes too. "
Yes, they pay more income tax. They only pay more property tax if they CHOOSE (keyword choose) to live in a “better” house. No one forces them. We live in the same house we lived in when I was pregnant with my twins, 23 years ago, even though we probably make 10x now what we did then. No one forced us to upgrade our house as we did better financially.