A term we are all familiar with- and most of us consider ourselves to be part of it- but what does it really mean? Who is middle class? How do you determine it? How much you make? How much stuff you have (our current standard of living would have been upper middle if not upper class 50 years ago based on stuff). There is an arbitrary number for "poor" but there is nothing to say where the middle is. Also costs of living vary considerably across the country- a lot of money in Alabama won't get you very far in San Francisco or New York.
Is the Middle Class worse off than it used to be? Life is a struggle these days. But we sometimes forget that it has always been a struggle. Our parents worked hard too and made sacrifices to get us the things most of us took for granted. Now it is our turn.
Or are our expectations higher so things only seem worse? Thoughts?
We are all someplace in the middle- there are always those richer and poorer than us.
http://money.usnews.com/money/person...le-class-today
There is no universally recognized definition of middle class. There are federal poverty level guidelines, so if you happen to wonder if you're poor, you can consult the Department of Health & Human Services (not that you likely need guidelines to tell you if you're poor). But after that, you're on your own to decide if you're lower middle class, middle class, upper middle class or in the fabulously wealthy territory. But to get us started thinking about financial status, a U.S. household with four people living off $23,850 or less is considered poor. (Hawaii and Alaska, with higher costs of living, have different guidelines.)
One helpful yardstick to judge whether you're middle class: Median household income was $51,017 in 2012, according to the most recent U.S. census data. Robert Reich, a professor of Public Policy at the University of California-Berkeley and former Secretary of Labor, has suggested the middle class be defined as households making 50 percent higher and lower than the median, which would mean the average middle class annual income is $25,500 to $76,500.
If you're in the middle of the middle, however – not lower or upper-middle class – that would be an income range between $39,764 and $64,582, says Aaron Pacitti, an assistant professor of economics at Siena College in Loudonville, N.Y.
Again, it isn't official. Nobody gets a membership card to the middle class.But there's really another reason even the rich enjoy identifying themselves as middle class, suggests Kate Ratcliff, a professor of American studies at Marlboro College in Marlboro, Vt. It's Hollywood's fault. "The reality created by the commercial mass media is one in which everyone is middle class. Advertising, television and movies all convey a world in which middle-class affluence is an American birthright," Ratcliff says.
Why the rich often see themselves as middle class. Another reason the wealthy sometimes think of themselves as middle class is that they can always point to someone better off than them, Love adds. "It could be that to the extent that there are people in America like Bill Gates, Ross Perot, Mitt Romney – I think many wealthy people use that as the standard: 'Well, I'm not in that group – and if I'm not in that group, I must be the middle class.’""It almost feels like we're seeing a lot of Willy Lomans, like there's maybe the death of an American dream," says Joe Buhrmann, referring to the famed play "Death of a Salesman." Buhrmann is the manager of financial security support at Country Financial, which sponsored the survey in which 59 percent of respondents said it isn't or may not be possible to live a middle-class existence and be considered financially secure. "In my mind, though, that flies smack in the face of a lot of good news that we're hearing about the economy, with continued improvements in the job market, housing and the stock market," he says.
But it may be that being middle class seems like more of a struggle than in previous generations, in part because how we define middle class is different. Perhaps our expectations are higher.
"I think we've somehow lost perspective in what we consider middle class," says Theodore Sarenski, CEO of Blue Ocean Strategic Capital LLC, an investment management and financial planning firm in Syracuse, N.Y., who also worked 20 years at a small accounting firm. So Sarenski has encountered many rich – and not-so rich – clientele. He didn't grow up wealthy – or at least by today's standards.
"I grew up in a family of four kids, and we lived in a small house and had one car, which Dad took to work every day," Sarenski says. "One car, one TV and one phone, and if you think of what people have in their homes today – a TV in every room, everyone has a cellphone – we've gotten to expect more and more, and we're struggling with that."
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