He talks about people working in meat processing as being middle class if they get a good wage. WTF? In my mind middle class jobs are doctor, lawyer, professor, politician. Then the aristocracy are upper class. I guess you don't have an aristocracy in the US who I don't know what counts as upper class there.
Very few people consider themselves "upper class" or "rich" and not for altogether invalid reasons. First, people compare themselves to the people around them, not against the whole population. People who you might expect to self-identify as "rich" have tremendously less occurrence of single-parent households, which drags down the national median household income of $50k/year. The national median household incomd for a married couple with kids is much higher, at $80k. In a major metro area, say DuPage County in the Chicago suburbs, the median household income for a married couple is over $100k/year. Second, it's difficult for people to consider themselves rich when even with a $200k/year income, their kids might have to take out student loans (top-notch American schools can cost over $50k/year). At the extremes, this phenomenon leads to some people working on Wall Street in New York self-identifying as upper middle class. The median price for a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan is $1.35 million. It's hard to call yourself "rich" even making $250k/year HHI when you can't even afford a modest home near your work!
If someone is trying to pull statistics, "middle class" is defined by income to usually be either the middle 3 quintiles (60%) of the population, or an income between $25k-ish and $200k-ish. Doctors, Lawyers, etc. are usually on the top end of that range, and called upper-middle class.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_...)
$200,000 is in the top 5%.
For individuals, $100,000 is in the top 10%.
I've been living in NYC where the neighborhood you live in and the industry you work in can make you lose sight of how others live.
Thanks for the response.
Rent/mortgage is notably absent from that list, so presumably they do not expect a minimum wage earner to be living on their own. With that assumption, it is reasonable that a minimum wage earner is making enough to keep themselves entertained when not working (though ideally they should of course be saving).
Minimum wage really is not built as an independent living wage (let alone a living wage for people that have children, despite what some people think). Some other form of support is assumed.
This is exactly what I have always thought which is why I am always surprised to hear outrage about minimum wage jobs that do not provide a living wage yet they seem to think they should...or at least that is what I assume when they propose unions as a "solution".
It isn't just memories of the 60s though, there is some strong "the grass was greener on on the other side" biasing going on. The minimum wage in 1968, in today's money, was $10.56. Hardly the "buy the house in the suburbs, two cars, and raise a family of five" type of salary that many people mistakenly remember it as: http://economy.money.cnn.com/2013/02/14/minimum-wage-history...
Often people outraged about the minimum wage will talk about a "living wage". Living wage, as it is talked about today in "minimum wage outrage discussions" is a horrifically poorly defined concept. Nobody ever mentions just what neighborhood a minimum wage should enable you to live in (Malibu? I'd love to get a minimum wage job and afford a home in Malibu...) or just how large of a family this concept of a "livable wage" should support. Is a "living wage" what it takes to afford rent, with a roommate? Is it what it takes to afford rent with a stay-at-home SO? Afford rent with a small child? Afford rent with three small children?
Even if we bought into the idea of "minimum wage should be a livable wage", we'd have to specify a cutoff for our "livable wage" definition. Right now that cutoff is "is a dependent, has no dependents of their own", but people often act offended at that concept.
I seem to recall reading an article several years ago about how video games are becoming the entertainment of choice for poor people, because it is becoming the cheapest option available (again, especially per hour). And good stuff has gotten cheaper since I read that.
If you're making $100,000/year, you're very likely upper class in the U.S. Of course, this doesn't work well in big cities (where the cost of living raises the bar to upper class a bit,) but it's remarkably accurate for most places in the country.
100-200k for households puts you in the top 10%. Individuals, maybe top 5%. How is that not upper class!?
I wish I was even low middle according to your scale...
For reference:
Income in 1999
Households..................................105,539,122 100.0
Less than $10,000............................10,067,027 9.5
$10,000 to $14,999............................6,657,228 6.3
$15,000 to $24,999...........................13,536,965 12.8
$25,000 to $34,999...........................13,519,242 12.8
$35,000 to $49,999...........................17,446,272 16.5
$50,000 to $74,999...........................20,540,604 19.5
$75,000 to $99,999...........................10,799,245 10.2
$100,000 to $149,999..........................8,147,826 7.7
$150,000 to $199,999..........................2,322,038 2.2
$200,000 or more............................. 2,502,675 2.4
Median family income (dollars)..................50,046
Per capita income (dollars).....................21,587
Median earnings (dollars):
Male full-time, year-round workers..............37,057
Female full-time, year-round workers............27,194
Middle-middle probably kicks in when buying a nice new car every few years isn't a big deal, and your kids all have college funds started.
Upper-middle kicks in when buying a nice german car every few years is assumed, and you plan on paying your kids college tuition without much thought.
Average Salary:
San Francisco, CA: $79,000
Austin, TX: $55,000
Iowa City, IA: $54,000
Average House Price:
San Francisco, CA: $637,100
Austin, TX: $200,500
Iowa City, IA: $169,700
Also, I don't know if there is a better calculator out there now but I recall this one[1] being passed around back when it was a fairly new trend to hate on the 1%. Currently, $100K puts in at 81% on its scale... or "the top 19%" to use your scale. You would need to make $220K to be in the top 5%.
[1] http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/10/19/what-percent-are-y...
It's frustrating that the people making these calculators don't state how many working individuals makes up one household. One of the problems I'm seeing in these comments is that some of us are talking about individual income, and some household/family income.
Pointing people who buy into this idea to >100k workers will get you excuses about college debt, sky-high rent in select US cities, or flat out denial (I cannot count the number of times that Reddit has told me that I do not exist... I should stop going there but reading what some people actually believe can be illuminating.) When they claim that 100k is actually not middle-class but instead the new lower class, then pointing out that it is more than twice the median income in the US will get you objections along the line of "middle class doesn't mean 'less poor than dirt poor'". When asked about people who make two or three times more than 100k, you'll typically get a response along the lines of "people who are self-employed cannot be middle-class, because middle-class is suppose to be something that regular factory workers can obtain."
The "middle class does not exist" idea is not well thought out, and is frequently self-contradictory, but I think there are a few things perpetuating the idea. One aspect is that many people do not want to admit that they are middle class because realizing that they have it pretty good would throw a wrench into their whole "class warfare" thing, which they want to hang onto for fashion reasons. Similarly, it is essential to them that other people are not middle class, and if they self-identify as such then they are necessarily deluding themselves.
I wonder if people are actually answering a different question: whether they personally feel middle class. Where you live will greatly affect this; there's a HUGE difference between $100K in SF vs Pittsburgh.
Assuming that that number is accurate, I do not at all feel guilty about calling my tech salary "middle class" when adjusted for cost of living.
In fact, a lot of people (at least in my family) consider 'middle class' to mean 'can afford a house'. By that measure, I'm lower class. I can barely afford rent aroun dhere.
It's not a precise answer; but as a functional definition it works.
Everything else is middle-class.
There are 317 million Americans, for example, and the average income is around $50,000. I think these jobs are a small percentage and pay well above average.
Donald Trump and Paris Hilton.
Highly relative. By default these are considered upper middle class, although in certain cases they can be either middle class or upper class.
Remember, middle class isn't a solidly defined term. It has nuances and ranges.
Anyway, concerning the article: tl;dr Wages are low because labor unions aren't influential enough.