Typical "Middle Class" Home
If you make $100k in the DC Area that’s only about $70k nationwide - excluding San Fran, Hawaii, and Boston, and NYc.
I know couples living in the San Francisco bay area who clear $175,000 combined income between the 2 of them, and I can tell you they are NOT upper class. The cost of living is so high and taxes are so high, they are comfortable but they are definitely not upper class. No fancy cars. No fancy vacations. They are not living large on $175,000 in the San Francisco bay area. Not even close.
For example, both of them are self employed, so they both pay the full Social Security amount for themselves rather than having an employer to pay half of it for each of them. Just one example. But mostly it is just such high home costs, transportation costs, food costs, parking, fees, local taxes, etc.
That is why politicians love to use the term “middle-class” and never define it. Just about everyone who has a job thinks they are talking to them. Everyone from the carper cleaner to the doctor will say they are middle-class.
It also depends on where you live.A hundred thousand goes a lot further in Des Moines than in NYC.
A household earning $100-$150k per year is NOT “upper-class”.
If you have kids, a home that’s bigger than a shoebox, pay taxes, buy groceries, and have a couple of vehicles; that income will keep you comfortable. At the end of the day, you won’t be saving much either.
You also have the pleasure of watching 70% of the other people around you getting their groceries for ‘free’ at the store, while you’re PAYING for yours. (you’re actually paying for their’s too) Your kids see the same thing at school too. Most kids get ‘free’ lunches, while you have to send your kids to school with a check to pay for their lunches.(that aren’t fit for a stray dog to eat)
I made well over $100k when I lived in the seattle area. I could not have made the monthly payments on the home I rented if I were to have bought it. It was in a solidly middle class neighborhood.
I make over that magic number, but as a single parent with two college age kids, I am so far from rich. I couldn’t afford a house around where I live. A coop with >$1400 maintenance (and no ammenities) is the best I could do. I’m not struggling, but no big vacations and no big savings.
If you live in California, NYC, D.C....a hundred thou affords you a moderately comfortable lifestyle. Nothing more.
Depends on the area. Most people making the higher salaries live in expensive areas and hardly feel rich.
$100k combined is the bare minimum to have a tiny yard and 2 kids within 1 hr of NYC. No eating out, no big trips, no private school, no new cars, no private yard. I’d consider $100k lower-middle class around here.
If you make the same $100k just 3 hours away from NYC, you’d feel almost rich. In northeast PA I can own a home 4X the size for half the price of mine and all my other expenses would be half.
They may not think they are “upper class” but believe me, the liberal tax and spend types think they are. And that they aren’t paying their “fair share” either.
The first thing to remember about making $100K is that governments, at all levels, take half of it.
That leaves a grand total of about $4100/month for the so-called “posh” lifestyle of the “upper class”
Subtract from that a monthly mortgage and car loan payment, school and gear for the kids, and very little remains.
Isn't the "upper income" bracket a definitional category? That is, it would be x standard deviations above the average? So that 20% of Americans are always in that category, if it is defined as the upper 20%?
I consider it "upper middle class", not "upper income bracket."
Everybody I know thinks they are ‘poor’. I have 2 sisters, each with hubbys that make between 60k-70k; they’re both ‘poor’.
I occaisionally work for a guy who complains that he has 5 mortgages to pay each month (rental properties) - and he’s ‘poor’...
I earned a wholloping $22k last year; still have my house, a wife, new baby... we have EVERYTHING we NEED. God blesses us daily. I am rich as far as I’m concerned.
Being the poor upper-class (here in SanJo) keep me very very humble and appreciative of what we have and earned. . .
It depends on the part of America and even in Californicator Land, the part of California you live in re the costs of living there. In Californicator land, two couples can live in the same city and live a mile or so apart and have incredible differences in the cost of home ownership or rental.
Also, does the couple have kids in private schools and college. We have younger relatives in California, who have one child in a great private high school at a cost of $20K minimum per year. They have another child trying to get into a similar school with the same yearly costs.
This couple has no new vehicles and takes minimal and low cost vacations. Most vacations are rentals for a few days or a max of a week. They do max his 401K donations and sometimes make small deposits into her IRA.
On paper and in the evil minds of liberals, they are very rich. They aren’t and watch their outgo very closely.