s/o Income

**O-Face** · September 2011

Do you consider you and your H "middle class"?

PMeg819 · September 2011

I can't answer this in anyway that doesn't make me sound elitist or snobby.

**O-Face** · September 2011

I was just wondering because it is funny that in some places people who make $250K+ still consider themselves "middle class".

Meh.

PMeg819 · September 2011

In our area, I'd say we weren't middle class. But AZ has been hard hit by layoffs and the decline in the housing industry. The last 5 years have really redefined what middle class in AZ is. With out income, in this area, I wouldn't call us middle class. If we lived some where else, I'd say we were middle class.

DG1 · September 2011

We know from the statistics that we aren't. But it sure feels like it, and I know the vast majority of the rest of america feels that way. And yes, COL is a huge factor in that.

loveshine1 · September 2011

Probably, in our area.

In another area, no.

TheDuckis · September 2011

I'll be honest. If we moved to even an average COL area I'd consider us well upper class. But here we're probably smack dab in the middle. I know people who make more who live paycheck to paycheck because of the lifestyle out here. We drive beater cars and our rent is insanely cheap. We are stressed about having a kid and buying a house, though, because gone will be the days of buying whatever we want whenever we want it.

DG1 · September 2011

Here's a fun distribution graph.

http://visualizingeconomics.com/2006/11/05/2005-us-income-distribution/

So if you make more than $166k/yr (household), you're actually in the top 5% of incomes in the country.

More than $91,705, and you're in the top 20% - by definition above middle class.

And yes, the graph doesn't take COL into account, and it's "households," so dual-income vs. single-income isn't split out. But it's still an interesting way to really see how uneven the income distribution is, and where you actually fall on it, despite your perceptions of the things going on in your sphere. (See? I know these things in my head.)

It seems to work that way when assessing intelligence, too. Among my peers in college, I was average. Compared to the general population? Notsomuch.

jojobrn · September 2011

We are upper middle class for sure, even for our area. We have newer cars, a mortgage and we travel. So certainly not truly middle class.

*Barbie* · September 2011

perception is skewed i guess - i'd consider us upper middle class, but based on national average and a mid-range COL for Houston, we're higher than that.

we are lucky to be pretty comfortable - although we're very consicous of spending/saving/investing.

6fsn · September 2011

I was thinking about this the other day. When I was working I would have put us in the upper middle class/upper class range. Even though our money puts us pretty dead on middle class now, I still think we are in a better situation than most middle class households. We pay our bills. Save for retirement. Save for college. Travel. Have relatively little debt (mortgage). The cars are paid off. We just live pretty simply on the day to day.

mattycam · September 2011

I think we fall into the lower middle class range even though we pay our bills, are able to save and go out from time to time.

mrsconn23 · September 2011

We're firmly middle class.

My area has the best income to housing price ratio in the country (average income is ~$45-50k and the average price of a house is ~$115-120k).

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