FYI, funny article
http://www.forbes.com/sites/phildemuth/2013/11/25/are-you-rich-enough-the-terrible-tragedy-of-income-inequality-among-the-1/
The income inequality and lifestyle disparity within the top 1% is enormously wider than the income inequality and lifestyle disparity within the bottom 99%. The botton of the 1% are galley slaves.
Or where the W earns $250K, and the SAHD takes care of the kids and all the housekeeping chores.
Re article in post #380: “frequent-flier mile hoarding executives rising up the corporate letterhead”
Chortle…executives who habitually fly first class on the employer’s dime find that very hard to give up. The indignity of having to join the “millionaires next door” in steerage. 
@emeraldkity4 because the $250 k earner is doing the same thing: not going on vacation, not fixing the car. That is the point. And it is not easier for high earners to relocate; there are fewer jobs for them.
And the $250 k earner pays a higher tax rate and gets no financial aid. With 2 children in college they can be left with less income to live on than a $60k earner who gets college for free. That for sure means no vacations…
Well then that is an easy fix.
Drop their income down to $60K and their kids can go to college free too!
It really boggles my mind that families who make a quarter of a million dollars a year put themselves in the same category as those making $50k/year. You are not the same. Most people I know who make $50k aren’t “flying commercial too,” they can’t afford to fly at all. The majority of them don’t have the high stat kids who go to college for free. Their kids commute to local community colleges then borrow to finish at the nearest SUNY. They can’t just relocate because the locals who do make $100k+ want to tax them out of the area. Relocating takes money which they don’t have.
Your choices are different. I understand that you’re not fixing your car or taking a vacation because you’re full pay for college. Maybe you had to cut down on contributions to your retirement fund and spend down some of your savings too. But those situations are temporary, aren’t they? When you’re done paying for college you can go back to doing all those things. People who make $50k aren’t fixing their cars or taking a vacation because they can’t afford it. They don’t have savings to spend down or large retirement accounts. And when their kids finish their schooling at the local cc, they aren’t going to have a huge jump in discretionary income. You think you’re middle income because you can’t be full pay at a $30-60k/year school without it hurting? Most people can’t afford to consider schools in that price range at all. Temorarily having a few similar traits doesn’t make you one of them.
FWIW, I consider our family high income even though my husband makes ~$60k. When I’m working full-time, we earn well above the median income. I’ve been poor, and we are not that. But we’re not like 2-income families making $50k either. I was able to choose to quit working to home school our children. That’s a choice many don’t have. I have inlaws who make in the neighborhood of $250k. Yes, their cars need work and they’ve had to limit their vacations while their kids are full pay at their ~$45k/year schools. But when the children are done with school they’re taking a trip to Europe and doing a major home remodel. That lifestyle isn’t remotely similar to families whose incomes hover around the median.
I live in a very upper middle class area and almost every SAHM I know has a cleaning lady. Part time nannies and all day preschool are also very common among SAHM’s in this income level.
Yes, that’s why there needs to be a catchy, separate class name for this in-between-class (post #370)
I’ve always had a problem with the use of the term “class” rather than income. We come from the uniformed services class in NYC, which has a residency requirement (so no “move somewhere else”), and at the time of my husband and his generation’s hire, no college was needed. These guys work a lot of overtime, and there is a huge benefit to seniority, so they can and do make quite a bit over $100,000 per year, particularly at the supervisor level, which isn’t management in the same way as in the private sector. But in making that money, they can be working insane hours, often overnight, and doing dangerous and physically demanding jobs that cause physical problems very early. When a uniformed employee is married to another uniformed employee or a teacher or a nurse or a pink collar worker, they can and do get over $200,000 per year and into the $250,000 range. But it’s still not middle “class” in the same way as college-educated professionals. it’s a totally different way of thinking and of living. I’ve noticed something with our peers’ kids that I’ve found sad and somewhat surprising. Despite the income and work ethic, the vast majority of the kids don’t got to four-year colleges and graduate. If they go to college at all, it’s often a CC or a CUNY for an associates degree. This is problematic in that even the uniformed positions require at least some college and often a degree, and the economy hasn’t turned around for the middle class here, so there can be tens of thousands of people applying to take the civil service exams with no expectation of ever getting hired. Those young people are stepping significantly back from the lifestyles of their parents and it’s not necessary. It comes from the lack of a tradition of higher education and understanding of and support for how to become a success in college. I fully support services and assistance to young people of limited means, but young people of greater means who are first generation often fail because they don’t know how to succeed in the day-to-day business of college or because their parents don’t unerstand how times have changed. Class is a lot more than income, a lot more.
The conflation of income and class can confuse things. DH works in the building industry where it’s not uncommon to find highly successful business owners earning a half million dollars a year but who never went to college. On the flip side in our area you’ll find private school teachers with master’s degrees or PhDs earning far less than the median for the area. Often these teachers attended expensive private schools themselves. The children of the latter are much more likely than the former to attend college, in particular elite colleges.
Sue, that’s exactly it. When there’s an expectation of college from childhood and an understanding of how to get there, it makes veering off the path much less likely. In the same vein as your area, I have no college education and my former boss’s wife has a PhD from a top school and is a published expert in her obscure field. For many years (until they divorced) I made twice what she did. To say that it drove her crazy is putting it mildly. And I understand! I was lucky in that I worked in a supportive environment where everyone (except me) had a degree, so I was able to take in a lot of information, and the aforementioned boss was amazing at helping me make good choices for my kids’ education over the years. But there were still challenges and I still believe that every first-generation kid could use a mentor or a helping hand when getting to college (not necessarily financial if there isn’t need, but someone to ask questions of and someone to notice if things get off track). we were flummoxed initially by registration and pre-requisites and permission and placement, and if I didn’t have someone in the background to ask, we might have given up. I understand why a lot of people in our peer group feel that college isn’t for people like us.
@zoosermom-I get it. The contrast is even more dramatic when looking at private schools, probably in part because there’s just less information out there about them and less help in the form of guidance counselors and public events.
I’ve found the process of helping my kids apply to private schools relatively easy, because as someone who attended one I know how they function and what admissions offices look for. Friends for whom the world of private secondary schools is a mystery have had a much harder time and have had to do a lot of research. Many more would never consider a private school for their child despite dissatisfaction with a current school and even though they could afford it, or consider it too late for it to be a reality. I started the process with a list of schools already in my head the way a family experienced in the college process might say “Our child wants to look at Brown, but we should also visit Wesleyan, Vassar and Sara Lawrence.”
Back to the topic of college, I think this is why first generation students get a mild bump with admissions-the recognition that in the college application process first gen. kids are at a disadvantage in relation to their peers with experienced mentor parents backing them up. Heck my H and I both attended college the college at which our first matriculated and even we found the registration/pre-requisite, etc. process confusing!!
One of my kids went to a parochial high school. Good at getting their kids into small, primarily religious colleges, Which is just fine. The second went to a NYC public magnet program in a very tough neighborhood. There was zero guidance in the high school as a whole, but some serious help within the program, which was kept completely separate. My youngest, through proficiency in an EC is at a snooty prep school and it’s absolutely staggering to me the level of support that is given, available and expected. I mean it’s practically like having a college concierge. I just can not get over it. The college office is very powerful and they have mandatory meetings with parents, mandatory tasks, and heaven help you if you don’t comply because this is their whole task.
As a slight detour, my son was invited to participate in a special outside program for his EC. Not to be braggy, but he is probably one of the best if not the best in the community, but the people who participate are well off, educated, polished people. My husband went to a meeting last week and, despite knowing that his kid was very much wanted there because of his skill, he hid in the back and snuck out very early because it was so intimidating for him. It’s not always easy to move up the ladder.
I don’t think most are arguing that those with lower incomes do not face more challenges and fewer choices. The point some are trying to make is that there is a difference between 2 wage earners that just hit $200K or a bit over with what would be considered two middle class salaries late in their careers due to overtime, annual raises and COLAs and a young family with a single wage earner making that much by age 27. The former are much more likely to consider themselves middle class, even with wages that put them above that level. The former are also much more likely to face challenges in paying $250K over four years for each kid to go to college. Plus, using a median income as middle class is inaccurate, unless that median is for a family in the peak earning years.
Of course achieving that income level means those families have more choices. Of course it means they can live in a place where their kids can go to safe schools that provide a good education. Of course it means that they don’t face a crisis if a pipe busts or a car breaks down, the way someone with a much lower salary would. They can also save for retirement more easily.
But it also doesn’t mean, at least in this area, that a family of two teachers making just over $200K combined can fly off on vacation every year, buy fancy cars, or afford to be full pay at private college.
My HS guidance counselor was great at pointing me toward a private college that gave good financial aid. I was able to attend that school with the net for my parents similar to state school. There is no way I would have known that without her assistance. Not sure I was as aware of that or as thankful as I should have been back then.
I agree with Sue22 that there is a difference between economic class discriptors and sociocultural uses of the term.
Upper income is upper income. You still have that money to spend. You might not understand all the opportunities it can buy you, but that doesn’t make you the same as middle income families. Everybody needs help with things they haven’t done before – buying a car, renting an apartment, buying a house, and applying for college – among other things. With that income, once those families realize civil service jobs aren’t forthcoming they can send their children to the local 4-year CUNY or SUNY. Commuting to the local SUNY costs ~$8k/year and the CUNYs are reasonably priced too. If City families don’t realize that’s an option, our state needs better outreach programs.
I saw this with one of my daughter’s teammates on a club sports team. She was by far the most talented on the team and had excellent academic credentials but was looking at schools one level up from directionals while many of her more college savvy but less exceptional teammates were aspiring to Ivy League and NESCAC schools. Eventually her family was convinced to look at more highly selective schools and IIRC she received multiple likely letters from Ivy and Ivy-calibre schools with enough FA qualification to make them affordable.
That’s my point. Income and class are not necessarily the same thing.
SUNYs aren’t really commutable in NYC, but that’s not the point. At this income level, the kids shoud be confidering more options than CUNYs or SUNYs, but in the group at my husband’s age, most kids don’t go to college at all, and CUNYs are the top-of-the-line exception. The difference between income and class.