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Comment by rootusrootus | Hacker News Reader

I think $1M would qualify much better than lower middle class retirement. I'd bet a good chunk of the middle class is going to end up retiring on social security.

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I wouldn't really call that middle class then, but maybe

Middle class is a very politically charged term, but the way I see it, "median" ought to describe middle class fairly well. I don't know what qualifies as official numbers, but what I've read recently is the median American hits retirement age with a net worth less than $200K. Probably mostly in their house. They probably spent their whole lives getting that thing paid off so they may plausibly survive on what social security pays them, if they're careful.

I suspect most of us on HN are a bit optimistic about the definition of middle class. Maybe we identify socially as middle class. But unless the numbers are lying, a huge chunk of America is in a much tighter financial situation.

Historically that's not what middle class meant (it usually referred to closer to the top 10% who had to work for a living but were well off) but I agree. To me living on $10-15k/year with enough money to sustainably supplement another $10k/year seems pretty poor, but maybe I'm just too privileged to understand. Close to half of all americans couldn't handle an unexpected $500 expense which seems pretty poor to me too

My understanding is that the common definition of middle class is in between working class and upper class, but that in America the people who most identify as middle class would be called working class anywhere else. Personally I tend to view it more as a mindset than an income range.

> Middle class is a very politically charged term, but the way I see it, "median" ought to describe middle class fairly well

In classical analysis of capitalist economies (starting with, but not limited to, the socialist critics that first identified “capitalism” as a thing) the “middle class” isn't middle in the sense of including the median person, but in being between the capitalist class (that derives support through applying rented labor to capital they control) and the working class (which derives support through labor rents from capitalists), and includes people whose support comes from a mixture of capital and labor, most typically the yeoman farmer or independent tradesman who primarily applies his own labor to his own capital.

Assuming social security still exists for millennials.

Social Security won't go away. That would be political suicide. If we are smart we will adjust the financial support for it so there aren't any big hiccups, but ideologically there is a big chunk of the political class hoping to convince all of us voters that SS is doomed no matter what. My guess is we'll just switch over to funding it with more debt, like everything else.

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