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Comment by pc86 | Hacker News Reader

I think first and foremost "working class" and "developer" are mutually exclusive, maybe even diametrically opposed terms.

We are not working class, full stop. Nobody here is being crippled by arthritis at the tender age of 40, nobody risks physical injury at their job, nobody is risking a permanent end to their ability to earn a living by someone pressing a button on a machine at the wrong time. Even ignoring the lack of any real danger, don't try to tell me that sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day is even a tenth as physically demanding as welding, plumbing, carpentry, or general contracting is for 10-12.

To imply the people here getting paid $180k a year plus RSUs to type is an insult to real working class people who struggle to make rent every month.

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It's always worth remembering that the $180k a year developers are the exceptions, not the rule. I know of more than a few developers who make around $30-$50k a year (not in SV, and not attached to software dev houses), and many top end developers in Europe struggle to break $100k.

Physical injury is not a pre-requisite to doing "real work" that defines a "working class". Given how prevalent software development rolls are (it's eclipsing truck driving in many US states), a "developer" is certainly not mutually exclusive with "working class".

I live in a very low cost of living area (high 80's compared to a US average of 100) and entry level developer salaries are in the mid to high $40's. Architect-level roles are going to be $100-150 depending on employer and technical management in the $150 ballpark. Not SV numbers either but unless you're in rural Iowa or Nebraska I'm not sure anyone is making $30k a year. To that point I was paid $30k a year for my very first development job but adjusted for inflation that's nearly $40k and that company ended up outsourcing all its dev work because they couldn't get anyone at that rate after I left.

You missed the "not in a software house" part. There are many software developers working for retail stores, restaurants, trucking companies, small government agencies... you name it, they probably have at least one part time software dev. And that dev is making salaries comparable to their peers in that company, not SV.

Working class doesn’t inherently mean a shitty job. Some plumbers and carpenters and contractors are making tons of money, even more than developers sometimes.

What we all have in common is that we must continue to work to live.

It doesn't mean a shitty job but it does mean trading physical labor for an hourly wage.

> real working class people who struggle to make rent every month.

I agree with the overall feeling of your reply, but let's not fall in the opposite trap to paint a proletarian view of the working class either. The amount of iPhones out there in developed countries is a good indication that a good chunk of the working class has no problem shelling hundreds of dollars on expensive hardware on top of paying their rent.

Even the newest iphone cost is a drop in the bucket compared to rent, healthcare, schooling (all of which have vastly outpaced inflation).

You can spend $300 on a phone when the rest is wrapped into a 2 year contract and still struggle with (or at least worry about) your $1k/mo+ rent.

I agree, it's not just the cost of the phone, it's the monthly service fee as well. And the Starbucks. And the avocado on toast. Etc.

Wealth (at least relative wealth) can be obtained, by anyone. The secret formula has been public for decades: Save a good percentage, invest it carefully, don't spend beyond your means. It works for everyone at every pay scale.

In the US, the term working class is a pretty big misnomer, enough so to cause misunderstandings.

To my mind, someone in the working class should be someone who works for a living.

"Working class" means a very specific thing - "the social group consisting of people who are employed for wages, especially in manual or industrial work."

> When used non-academically in the United States, however, it often refers to a section of society dependent on physical labor, especially when compensated with an hourly wage.[0]

Your definition is much closer to the Marxist definition which is basically "anyone who trades time for money" which describes the vast majority of the world.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_class#Definitions

I feel that this contributes to a lot of problems in society.

Here in the UK people will cling to being part of their class as though their life depends on it.

Middle class people had rather die than be called 'working class'. The working class hates the middle class with an intense passion, thinking they all eat kale, basically live at Starbucks and try to turn England into a communist utopia.

Class divisions just play into the hands of the one and only class that's different from the people who work for money: Those who do not have to.

If society was nicely split into "those who work for money and those who do not", I believe it would very quickly become clear who is acting in whose interest.

But so long as the veil of "working vs. middle, vs. upper middle" shrouds our collective ability to see who is truly ruining it for everyone, nothing will change.

Do you think I don't know that as a well paid software developer, the interests of a bank CEO making $600 million a year plus many times that in stock is not necessarily aligned with my own? Of course I do.

But clarity is important. I have more in common with the business owner who could stop working but chooses not to than I do with the line cook making $10/hr, even if the financial interests of the business owner are diametrically opposed to my own (I'm not conceding that point, mind you).

I don't understand what is so problematic about understanding there are drastically different economic classes in society. Understanding where those boundaries lie and the differences between them leads to greater clarity in the issues facing all classes.

Everyone who has to work a day job to pay the bills (and get health insurance) is working class. We have far more in common, financially, with each other than we do with the financially independent.

> with each other than we do with the financially independent.

By that logic only the 0.001% is not working class. That's a little far-fetched.

You're off by at least 2 orders of magnitude. You don't need to measure your annual income in the dozens-of-millions to be "financially independent".

Exactly. 3 million and you’re set for life on interest alone.

At conservative withdrawal rates that $120,000 a year in interest income without ever touching the principle. The median US income is less than half that. Give half the people in the US $1.5 million and they can earn more off the interest than they do at their jobs right now. And that's not touching the principle, at conservative withdrawal rates.

I'd argue that unless you live in a high COL area by choice, 1-1.5 million is all you need to live without working.

4% is not conservative, it’s standard. 2% is conservative.

Will your 1 million outpace inflation? 1 million in 2050 ain’t shit.

You're right I do live in a high COL area, and you're right, half of that would work elsewhere. No need to be in the city if you have a guaranteed income.

Here's hoping remote work becomes the norm someday!

And even then, would it not help us finally achieve something than constantly bicker over where "working class" and "middle class" starts and ends?

Does it not make far more sense to finally realise that there are people who work for money, in exchange for freedom (directly that. time, freedom, agency. that is what you exchange for money) and then there are people who use the work of others to ensure they never lose their own freedom? With blatant disregard for the wellbeing of those workers?

If that is where the dividing line was, things might finally change.

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