Two class system. How Soviet of them.
WSJ. Fake news for the elite.
“But where did that 7% (6.8 percentage points to be exact) go? Well, of the five income groups (poor, lower middle class, middle class, upper middle class, and rich) displayed, the bottom three got smaller, the top two bigger.
The poor shrank by 4.5 percentage points, the lower middle class by 6.8, the middle class also by 6.8% But the upper middle class got a lot bigger, expanding by 16.4 points, and the rich by 1.8 points. Oh, and here is how upper middle class is defined, using research from economist Stephen Rose of the Urban Institute:”
Been watching this for some time, it’s very good news. I keep seeing all the opportunities that abound despite all our “problems” and I’m glad to see people are taking advantage of them. I hope more people get the moxie to do the same. Money is “laying on the ground” all over the place, go pick it up!
“...defines the upper middle class as any household earning $100,000 to $350,000 for a family of three...”
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They say that they adjust this for inflation, but I don’t think they are comparing actual costs versus standard of living. There is no way a family of three is going to have an upper-middle class house and lifestyle without going deeply into debt for 100k/year
ping
This is a 2016 article.
This is simply creative...It’s about what your money will buy...not how much you make.
So it seems this is using national averages. And its taking the poverty level as one cutoff. The medium national income as another cutoff between the lower middle class and the middle class. And they are saying the upper middle class is five times the poverty level. Not sure how they calculate rich. But as many pointed out, where you live would have a large impact on the actual dollars.
But the numbers do seem to prove Thatchers theory that a good economy lifts all boats.
The people at the bottom are generally there because of mental illness. Whether its super low IQ or addiction or depression or other mental illness, these are people that don’t or can’t hold jobs. And they are people that commit the lions share of all violent crimes. Solving their problems is not an economic solution. Its a social and health issue. More jobs won’t help these people. And if you just hand them cash they won’t have it a few hours or days later.
One of the benefits of looting and shoplifting.
Just eyeballing it, I think it is the lower-middle and lower classes that appear to have lost the most share to the upper middle. Is that a bad thing? It almost looks like we’ve got a trend toward Lake Wobegone—except we know better than that.