Discussion for article #228834
Pffffffftttttttttttt…
Sure wish I was “middle class.”
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Seriously, if Pryor truly believes this he’s a fucking clueless idiot.
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Nothing wrong with what Pryor said. The magic number for tax increases was $250,000 (or something like that) several years ago because anyone earning below that number wasn’t considered wealthy.
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I’m not talking wealthy, just surviving. Are you paying attention?
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When CEO pay has risen to its current stratospheric levels, any useful definition of “middle class” must stretch to fill a larger gap. A $200,000/yr household has much more in common with a $50,000/yr household than with a $2M/yr one.
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Actually, a 200,000 dollar household has squat to do with a 50,000 dollar household.
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Ok, then “just surviving” is the lower end of the “middle class” and “$250,000” is the upper end.
It’s a big range, but someone earning $250,000 isn’t necessarily wealthy.
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In a one-earner household with 2.3 children that’s not an inaccurate statement. In the 70’s and 80’s,$40-50K/year was middle class but not anymore.
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Depends on where you live I guess. Most people I know who are “middle class” make much, much less than 200,000 a year. As I said, Pryor is a clueless idiot.
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Sometimes there are candidates who deserve to lose.
All I’m saying is that, if some combination of AK/KS/SD/CO/GA pan out and we can keep the Senate without Pryor keeping his seat, I really won’t miss him.
My household income of 2 makes slightly over $300G. We are certainly not poor. But, likewise, we are certainly not rich. We still have to maintain a budget and watch what we spend. Therefore, I would say that that is middle class.
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I’m 55 and I make $200-225K/year but I have no deductions. My 44 year old gf just went back to work making minimum wage. My kids are grown with kids of their own and I have a mother and mother-in-law on fixed incomes that I help. I am middle class.
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Not by most definitions of what “middle class” is. You would be in the top 5%, not in the " middle" of anything.
There is no single, universal definition so we turned to economic analyst Robert Reich – who spoke to us this week – for some direction. Reich suggested defining middle class as those with income levels 50 percent above and below the median income. Median is a term that means the “middle of the middle.” Median earnings are a key indicator of how the middle class is doing.
The income range to be considered middle class:$25,500 – $76,500
http://cdn.billmoyers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Motherjones2.png
Class is not a good word to use when describing income. No one wants to admit to being “lower class,” but if we were honest with ourselves, and those of us making less than a certain amount (say $40K) simply refer to our income status as “lower income,” we might be able to get some traction on economic issues. It does no good for politicians to pander to the “middle class” when everyone making $20K - $500,000K self identifies as such. We all think the “lower class” are suckers. We just don’t realize that many of us are them.
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$25.5K/year household income is middle class? That’s horseshiite.
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Married, 6 kids, huge mortgage $200K = Upper middle class
Single, no dependents or debt, $200K = Lower upper class?
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I’m sorry, Teen, I understand what you’re saying but you’re wrong. Everybody who’s not in the top 1% incomewise share something very important in common: all of them are getting fucked by the 0.1%. Developing that awareness, that understanding that the people who make 50K and 200K alike are being set against each other for crumbs from the shrinking sliver of pie the .1% are allowing them, is critical.
I don’t expect you to feel sympathy for families making 200K, but most often that’s going to be two married professionals trying to balance out a mortgage for a house that’s probably a little too expensive that they can’t get out of without taking a loss, kids and gigantic medical/law/dental/whatever school loans to pay off the gigantic tuitions professional schools pay charge days.
Yeah, their lives are easier than yours in ways they don’t even begin to understand. Their counters are granite and their cars aren’t constantly in need of repair and they never run out of grocery money at the end of the month–or, if they do, they can put it on a credit card without losing sleep over it. But they share this with the rest of us: they’re working harder for less money after the bills are paid than similarly situated people in their parents’ generation, they’re waking up in the middle of the night worrying about being outsourced and, if they’re in their fifties, there’s a really good chance their bosses are thinking about laying them off and replacing them with a very young no-benefit contract employee, at which point they–like many they know–will be well and truly fucked because they’ve got nothing saved and, if they get another job, it will be for working for less with a debt load that got bigger when their income was reduced. They have it better, but they’re still being victmized by an economic system that’s been rigged against them.
The .1% spend an enormous amount of money and effort trying to make people in your shoes and people in their shoes alike think the interests of a family making 200K are aligned with the uber-rich against the interests of people making 50K precisely because the opposite is the case. The working class fears, and has always feared, and will always fear, an alignment of the working class with the bourgeoisie and with good reason. Our ruling class, however, has been unusually successful in playing the old game of setting the bourgeoisie the working class, the working poor and the utterly destituted at each other’s throats.
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But he’s saying “up to” as in a ceiling, not a floor.
I’m ok with it.
Seriously, if a working couple in a big city or a capital city are making $200 - $250 and have a $200K mortgage, student loans, daycare or a couple kids in private school, they’re not lounging on a yacht. It’s what used to be called “solidly middle class.”
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What is it with TPM readers and Democratic candidates for Senate in Arkansas? Four years ago they were swarming around Blanche Lincoln. You happy with you got instead? For Christ’s sake, give these guys a break. Think of some of the nonsense Democrats running in Lower Manhattan or Beverly Hills have to say to get elected. The important thing is who is going to vote for Harry Reid and who is going to vote for Mitch McConnell. It is sad it has come to that but that is the best you can do in Arkansas in 2014.
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