What is "wealthy"/privileged to you?

<p>But the suburbs can be cheap ($200,000 house in some places)... and the city is likely much more expensive.</p>

<p>Some of you folks live in a rather rarefied world. Yes, if you live in a rich city or rich neighborhood, rich people don't seem rich to you -- but they are!!!</p>

<p>Well, I'm not rich, but I just think that jobs like lawyer/doctor/scientist/professor aren't all that exclusive, and that $1,000,000 buys much less these days.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Some of you folks live in a rather rarefied world. Yes, if you live in a rich city or rich neighborhood, rich people don't seem rich to you -- but they are!!!

[/quote]
</p>

<p>isn't that what i just said?</p>

<p>Blairt - You might want to check median income figures for various jobs. Professors and scientists are in rather different brackets than lawyers and doctors. </p>

<p>And while, yes, a million dollars a year is not what it was years ago, it is still far, far above what the vast majority of people make in the wealthiest countries in the world. It is over 10 times more than the median income in the wealthiest state in the US.</p>

<p>diesel - I was indeed paraphrasing what you said, but in a way to try to point out that rich people are in fact rich, even if they are toward the average in their very rich neighborhoods.</p>

<p>id say im from a wealthy area- the median family income is 158k per yr....home to don imus, paul newman, simpson/ashford and michael bolton and formerly martha stewart among others</p>

<p>in silicon valley, it takes a net worth of about 5 million to be considered "wealthy" but even then, there are too many people with too much more that nobody with 5 million is special. the middle class live in houses that cost 800k - 1 mill and the lower class can't afford anything since ~600k is the lowest you can buy a live-able home for.</p>

<p>anyone wo earns over 200k $ a year is rich, even in new york city.</p>

<p>
[quote]
id say im from a wealthy area- the median family income is 158k per yr....home to don imus, paul newman, simpson/ashford and michael bolton and formerly martha stewart among others

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Westport?</p>

<p>I'd say I live in a wealthy area for sure. $116K median family income for the township. Higher in my town.</p>

<p>I'd say what I consider lower class/middle/upper-middle/upper class is pretty typical of most.</p>

<p>Ha!! My uncle lives in Westport. Keith Richards also lives there. Nice town.</p>

<p>The reason I posted this thread was because I'm just starting to realize that the places I lived in, and the things I thought were middle class, are not. Of the 2 towns I've lived in in California, 2 are on the "100 most expensive zip codes in America" and the other is in "the 50 most expensive counties in America." The two towns that I lived in in New Jersey were also in "the 50 most expensive counties in America." The one town that I lived in in Colorado was in the "100 most expensive counties," but this was actually when I started to see the differences (it was not nearly as wealthy as the other areas I lived in). SO, I'm only now beginning to realize the differences, but I have a hard tim doing so.. I do not think that I am affluent or wealthy. I'm not. But my perceptions of wealth are highly skewed. For instance, it's rare that a house below $500,000 sells in my area, and thus $150,000 is absolutely unheard of, but thats' the median price of a house in the US. I always thought that million-dollar homes were fairly commonplace (bcuz a million-dollar home here is a small 3 bed, 2 or 1 bath bungalow w/ 1/3 of an acre, which seems like a standard home), but and that finding rent below $2000 was very hard to do. But, only .6% of all home are worth more than $1,000,000. I'm just having a hard time digesting that... I wanted to know if kids on here felt the same.</p>

<p>^ Eh, it depends on where you live. I have a 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath, with a REALLY small yard and it's about 180,000. We rent though and our landlord is forgiving through hard times (that means we can't make the payments most of the times).</p>

<p>$500,000 in my area would buy you a 5 bedroom 3 bath w/ an acre blah blah blah.</p>

<p>Wealthy is probably making an average of 500,000 per year combined.</p>

<p>$500K here gets you ~5 bed, maybe 3 bath and 1/3 acre.</p>

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Class_USA.png%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Class_USA.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Well, the median income of our town is about $107,000 and the median house cost $530,000. But this data is from 2005, so it probably has increased.
Our house cost about $800,000. It's 5 bed, 3 bath, on about .5 acres.<br>
The town ranges from middle-class to upper-middle class to some random very wealthy people. My house is probably the smallest in our development, the houses around me cost upwards from 1 million. </p>

<p>Some wealthy people who own houses in this area include:
Mick Jagger
A former NJ Devils coach (he lived in the house across the street)
The former manager of the Backstreet Boys
Aldolf Zukor-founder of Paramount Pictures.<br>
Derek Jeter
The Kay family (owners of Kay Jewlers)
Hayden Panettiere
Rosie O'Donnell
Robert DeNiro
Russell Crowe
Frank Filipetti-Manager of Korn
Adam Rodriguez - Detective on CSI
Philip Rosenthal - Executive Producer of Everybody Loves Raymond</p>

<p>there are also a ton of random writers/directors of various movies.</p>

<p>Dennis Kozlowski, former CEO of Tyco International
Scott Sullivan, former CFO of WorldCom
Jeff Gordon, NASCAR driver
Nicko McBrain, Iron Maiden drummer
Daniel Keyes, American author
Chris Carrabba, lead singer and guitarist of Dashboard Confessional
Chris Evert, famous women's tennis player
Steffi Graf, former world number 1 women's tennis player
Andy Mill, skier
Morgan Pressel, golfer
Steve Pariso, noted technologist and investor
Andy Roddick, tennis player
Vince Spadea, tennis player
Carling Bassett-Seguso with husband Robert Seguso, both tennis players
S</p>

<p>to me, theres a difference between upper class and wealthy.</p>

<p>for example, take the hilton sisters. theyre super wealthy but i wouldnt call them "upper class"... i mean paris is not classy at all.</p>

<p>but anyways, i agree with the old-money new-money thing and that:
wealthy= 150 K +</p>

<p>yea in my area, a decent house would be over $1million... mclean, va = place of politicians</p>

<p>$500k in my area gets you like....a one bedroom condo in a ****ty complex.</p>