There’s no single definition of the middle class, but one of the most go-to benchmarks is Pew Research’s household income percentile ranges for economic classes, which go as follows:
Lower-middle class: 20th - 40th percentile
Middle class: 40th - 60th percentile
Upper-middle class: 60th - 80th percentile
Based on these percentile ranges, America’s “middle class” households fall into three main income tiers:
Given the purchasing power of $100k, I feel like those numbers are woefully out of date. Not saying you’re wrong, only that the numbers themselves need to be reevaluated in light of what has happened in the last 5 years (and started well before that).
Otherwise, “middle class” is meaningless because it doesn’t represent purchasing power, only an arbitrary number.
Yea, as someone whose household income falls into that listed upper middle, is fairly frugal, and lives in a relatively lower cost area… I still feel on the low end of middle class. Everything is so expensive, it’s hard to get ahead no matter what you do these days.
I know what you mean. I’m not hurting and I live a good life. But what I could have done with this kind of money just 5 or 10 years ago is far greater than now. Not just inflationary greater. It’s almost like the kinds of things that only went up only as much as inflation are luxuries. Everything in the bottom tier of Maslow’s Hierarchy except air and sleep seemed to get way more expensive than inflation can account for.
Or I’m just getting old and miss getting gas for $0.79
The middle class is the middle three household income quintiles.
From the study:
Given the purchasing power of $100k, I feel like those numbers are woefully out of date. Not saying you’re wrong, only that the numbers themselves need to be reevaluated in light of what has happened in the last 5 years (and started well before that).
Otherwise, “middle class” is meaningless because it doesn’t represent purchasing power, only an arbitrary number.
Yea, as someone whose household income falls into that listed upper middle, is fairly frugal, and lives in a relatively lower cost area… I still feel on the low end of middle class. Everything is so expensive, it’s hard to get ahead no matter what you do these days.
I know what you mean. I’m not hurting and I live a good life. But what I could have done with this kind of money just 5 or 10 years ago is far greater than now. Not just inflationary greater. It’s almost like the kinds of things that only went up only as much as inflation are luxuries. Everything in the bottom tier of Maslow’s Hierarchy except air and sleep seemed to get way more expensive than inflation can account for.
Or I’m just getting old and miss getting gas for $0.79
Just tells me I’ve been nothing but poor my entire life