<p>The thing to remember is that “medians” include a lot of people - including young ones who are just starting out, etc. The median income for a dual income, full time employment household based on the statistics you posted, would be $72,000. If you adjust the medians to deal only with people in a position to have developed some seniority you can see my point about a $100,000 income for a dual income family not being unusual, and therefore “middle class”. And I am certainly sensitive to what you say about using the term “professional”. At this point I’m at a loss for a term that could be used to describe a lifetime career-type job without offending somebody.</p>
<p>The median family of four income is precisely that - not young ones just starting out, but folks with families. It could be two wage earners with two kids, or 1 wage earner with 3 kids; or 3 wage earners with 1 retired grandma. </p>
<p>Last time I looked, the average American stayed in a permanent job 2.8 years. This includes schoolteachers, and policemen, and firemen, and lawyers, etc. Some move up. Some get laid off. Some get sick. Some die. Some stay home with the kids. Some get “outsourced”. “Developing seniority” ain’t what it used to be.</p>
<p>kluge, the thing to remember is that this is not our parent’s world. Very few very lucky people build lifetime careers with the same company for twenty years anymore. Layoffs, cutbacks, downsize. Maximize shareholder profit. People are starting anew every day after getting thrown out on their ear . Forty and fifty. Plenty of my daughter’s classmates’ parents. Plenty of my friends. Where you “don’t get it” is in thinking that age and income automatically track upward together. For our folks ,yes. Today? Probably not. Mostly just for the lucky. “Entry” jobs are not just for youngsters anymore. </p>
<p>Examples. Two stable career type jobs in the sixties. The phone company. The gas company. Within the past ten years both large local employers laid off almost every non executive manager. Everyone either took a drastic pay cut, early retirement, or gambled and lost their job completely. $45 to 65k jobs. They simply don’t exist anymore. These friends are waiting tables, working at stores, and driving trucks and wondering how their kids can go to college someplace other than the community jc. Answer? They probably can’t (but I’m helping them search.). But they are serious and real and deserving of our respect.</p>
<p>P.S. Did you hear about the recent refusal to renogotiate their labor agreement by one of the major airlines mechanic’s unions (can’t remember which one. Senior moment. Please forgive.)? Management wanted a 50% cut in wages. 50%. And refusing to sign the new deal ? It will probably end up being “real bad timing” on their part.</p>
<p>Please excuse the typos. One of my daughter’s cats was trying to killl one of my wife’s cats and the %$#$ thing timed me out. Just a couple to point out. Forty to fifty “year olds”. “Reno-gotiate” may at first look wrong but is in fact correct . It is a form of negotiation roughly akin to a Nevada casino boss taking you for a ride in the desert to negotiate your debt.;)</p>
<p>Curmudgeon, nothing I’ve said contradicts that. (Go back and look.) I agree with you 100%, and have frequently posted on that topic. Which is why I used the (unwittingly controversial) qualifier of “respectable”. Not everyone has lost their ~$50,000 “non-professional” job. A lot have, but there’s a lot who haven’t. (Note my examples: teacher, policeman, etc.) I didn’t mean to express disrespect toward those who are scrambling in this tough economic world, I was just commenting on those who haven’t been thrown off the lifeboat.</p>
<p>Mini: Look at the numbers cited (not mine; I’m assuming they’re correct)
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<p>That’s not “the median family of four” - that’s median full time male workers, median full time female workers. You’re absolutely right about the median family, because the “median family of four” includes fewer than 2 full time paychecks. But if you have a family with a “median” male worker and a “median” female worker, you’ve got a $72,000 family income. And most middle aged full time workers do make more money than most young full time workers - not always, but generally.</p>
<p>Which, painfully pulling back to the Original Topic, means that it’s not unlikely that a “middle class” family, where both parents work, and have managed to maintain (long-term? Resp****ble? “Solid”? “Old-fashioned?” I’m looking for a term that won’t pi$$ anyone off here) jobs, will have a family income of $100,000 or better,</p>
<p>kluge, it seems it was always just your word choice. Your last post clears that up just fine. Olive branch? 
Lord knows I have “unwittingly” done worse. (That’s why I tried to throw you a line at the start.) </p>
<p>I think it was my very good cyberfriend alumother that crawled me one day when I took a wide swipe at overconsumption and the flaunting of wealth by students and it came off to her as rich bashing. This , I’m sure now, was much the same.</p>
<p>Hey, I bash the rich all the time! :)</p>
<p>Kluge bashes me constantly. The proletariat can trust her. :)</p>
<p>"
That’s not “the median family of four” - that’s median full time male workers, median full time female workers. You’re absolutely right about the median family, because the “median family of four” includes fewer than 2 full time paychecks. But if you have a family with a “median” male worker and a “median” female worker, you’ve got a $72,000 family income. And most middle aged full time workers do make more money than most young full time workers - not always, but generally."</p>
<p>The odds of that happening, with the average worker at a single job 2.8 years in an economy of contract workers, service workers, part-time workers, disabled workers, sick workers, and workers with sick children or the elderly to take care of are, relatively, rarer than they used to be.</p>
<p>I know a number of recent college graduates that make more than their parents. There was a time when being a teacher made your family middle class, now you need a spouse teaching or the equivalent…what is next, two teachers and one child working before they can afford their first house?</p>
<p>The middle class seems to be getting redefined as it is squeezed so people might not notice how the gap between wealth and poverty jumps. Did anyone catch the ratio of CEO salaries to wages? The range is something like 400 to 1. I think it used to be closer to 40 to 1.</p>
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<p>…and here I thought that “Kluge” was the consummate macho name. My testosterone is deeply, deeply wounded. ;)</p>