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The kitchen wench is off in the evening</p>
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<p>This split seems to fit the thoughts of a lot of posters on CC … and I get it. The issue I have with this approach is that is the Lake Wobegon definition of middle class … all of the “middle class” is in the upper half of the population … to me, that runs counter to the word “middle”; the lack of symmetry doesn’t really work for me.</p>
<p>Me. I am the dividing line. Middle class people think I am rich. Rich people think I am middle class. </p>
<h1>39 On the other hand there are many people in other countries who are poorer than the middle class of America but have a “richer” life-style - servants, more leisure time, etc.</h1>
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A lot has to do with the buying power of your money–which is why a person with a million bucks is a lot richer in my small home town than he is in Manhattan.</p>
<p>And much has to do with how much your money is taxed. You could be one of those hedge fund guys getting paid in a sneaky way, so you have a minimal tax rate, or you could be getting paid a good amount as an employee—and hoping to see half of it.</p>
<p>$180k and $250k and %350k is a middle class.<br>
Some might be even in red. Say if you paying about $50k tuition and living expenses are about $25K, so you are paying about $75k for your student and you have about $120k after taxes, then $45k is all you left. Frankly, many will have to withdraw since $45l might simply not be enough to cover other expenses. And what if you have another kid or couple or three? What if you support another college or Graduate school student? Then I believe that you are simply poorest of the poor because you do not have enough income to cover your expenses. It can go on and on.<br>
However, NOBODY in the USA is poor so to speak. The American “poor” own cars and live in their own houses. Ye, tell it to somebody else, they might think of it as a joke.<br>
so, iepends who is evaluating it.
However, I woudl probably look more at the asset picture, then an income, since if you cannot cover your expenses by income than you can draw from your assets. Then from this prospective, I would call people with about $10 mlns rich, below, probably middle class.</p>
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<p>Um, no. Gotta disagree with that. For example:</p>
<p>Almost 15% of Americans have “food insecurity” – that is, uncertainty as to where their next meal is coming from. See this site:</p>
<p><a href=“http://feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/hunger-facts/hunger-and-poverty-statistics.aspx”>http://feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/hunger-facts/hunger-and-poverty-statistics.aspx</a></p>
<p>The rich have the physical health (& mental) to do what they want and need to do.
The poor do not.
The middle class has more good days than bad days.</p>
<h1>44 Buying power and the presence of a true underclass that makes labor very cheap.</h1>
<p>Food insecurity is not hunger. Interestingly, the food insecure tend toward obesity. This is not the case in other countries which I think is Miami’s poverty point. This is a pretty nice place to be poor, relatively speaking.</p>
<p>"Almost 15% of Americans have “food insecurity” – yes, nice to know that my taxpayer money are spent on something else and NOT food. Thank you for reminding me about this fact! I am not talking about people who are making wrong choices. I am talking about people who truly do not have any means to sustain themselves. </p>
<p>I have ancestors who came in shortly after the Mayflower on my mother’s side and through Ellis Island on my Dad’s side - my grandfather, so I’ve always felt I had a foot in both worlds. My mother’s family seemed to be littered with prep school teachers whose summers off enabled them to have summer houses. But in true Yankee fashion those places were not very luxurious. We call the one at the Cape “The Shack” and the one in Vermont “The Camp”. Neither is winterized and a lot of people share them. The days of one per family are long gone. I’m pretty comfortable in both worlds, but nearly all my college friends came from modest backgrounds than mine. That was just who I ended up feeling most comfortable with. When I go to alumni events here in the NYC area (both for my high school and college) they are often held at the houses of the very rich and I realize how little interaction there is between the classes (in the British sense) if you don’t go out of your way to seek it out.</p>
<p>…just remember something very funny and sad. One senator (female) decided for experiment to live on amount of normal foddstamps. They were showing her on TV,…openning tuna can. We do not buy canned tuna, we consider it very expansive food item, becuase it is, unless you buy a huge can, but then the question is how you store it after openning. So, this person was trying to prove that it is not really possible to live on the foddstamps, while she has no idea about possible food items that might be considered. I wonder what she considers a normal breakfast - probably cereal, which is also very expensive and mostly junk food. </p>
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I experienced this growing up in the Foreign Service. At one of our posts we had 9 servants. When we lived in DC at best we had someone coming to the house once a week to clean.</p>
<p>Middle class people work for their money, rich people’s money works for them </p>
<p>^Once a week is still very good. I have cleanning lady once in 2 weeks. On the other hand, having servants around every day would be annoying to me. I do not like when people come to cut our grass while we are at home. We have asked them to do it when we are at work.</p>
<p>“From families of 8 figure networths.”</p>
<p>How do you define “family”? Immediate family? Extended? Presence of trusts or other vehicles designed to transfer wealth? </p>
<p>I will take any which form as defined by above, as long as it is 8 figure.</p>
<p>Oldfort! My long-lost sister :-)</p>