Posted on 07/23/2013 8:53:14 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
What does “middle class” mean? President Obama is set to make a speech tomorrow where he’ll try to turn attention back to the economy and the middle class. But there’s a big problem… there’s no set definition of what the middle class is.
President Obama has given his definition of the middle class from time to time–a “basic bargain” that is eroding. “You could have some confidence that if you gave it your all, you’d take enough home to raise your family and send your kids to school and have your health care covered, put a little away for retirement,” he said in December 2011.
We’ve put together a list to help you figure out:
1. You make more than $32,900 a year.
2. You make less than $64,000 a year.
3. You’re likely to say you’re middle class, even if you make more (or less) money than that.
4. You probably think it’s hard to make ends meet.
5. Having a secure job is probably the more important to you than owning a home.
6. You may not always be in the middle class.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
60, mortgage, still working.....= middle class
People in that list clasification are poor!
Sybrina Fulton (the late Trayvon Martin’s birth mother) makes $69,000 a year as a bureaucrat, plus the money she has garnered since Traydmark died. Classify her.
Bingo! And so does Obama. His idea to help the middle class is to reduce them/us to poverty so they/we will become among the “noble” poor. And, this traces back to Rousseau’s “noble savage”. . . where he wants us all to be. The whole movement was a backlash against the rise of the tradesman as the aristocracy declined. Check out my latest blog entry explaining it: www.backyardfence.wordpress.com
That’s a rather narrow definition. Of course ABC would run with it.
Less than $64k? I guess anyone over is rich according to them.
I guess that would make Obama extremely wealthy and very angry at himself.../s
Hm...does that include benefits? If it does, than by that definition I make too much to be middle class.
Yet the middle class keeps voting for Marxism...
“as the aristocracy declined.”
Bring back the aristocracy! Stop hating the rich! Nobody complained in 1960 that JFK was one of the richest men in America; adjusted for inflation he and Mitt Romney would probably be about equally wealthy. Yet Romney was ridiculed...Screw those American Communists!
I don’t think Frankie D was a piker by any stretch of the imagination either .
In the old Class System with a Middle Class grafted in, there are many Middle Class folks who are wealthier than most or all of the Upper Class because class definition is not by wealth. In the USA we try to pull that class blanket inappropriately over ourselves but the edges are nonexistent and it doesn't really fit. It is based on relative wealth and almost everyone claims to be Middle Class.
That is a horrible list, # 6 is not a reason like the others.
This stupid list equates middle class with middle income. But income level isn’t the same as social class. Social class is a combination of interests, tastes, values, education level, experiences, goals, values, and beliefs. Those things survive fluctuations in income level.
In other words, the parents of the Duchess of Cambridge, the Middletons, are stubbornly middle-class even though they’re rich through their own hard work. The inner-city dweller who wins the lottery is still going to look like, speak like, act like, and share the values of the lower class, and money won’t change that. The aristocrat who lost everything, as so many did during the World Wars, is still going to dress, speak, present himself, and behave like an aristocrat; he will have the beliefs and attitudes of the aristocracy and anyone who meets him will see that.
Not just rich, EVIL rich. Having unfairly amassed that money on the backs of those who do make less than $64k.
It is here hardly a Class System. There is no stratification but only a gradient. There is no line above which is one class and below which is another. The only anomaly to that is the LBJ Welfare Class which is trapped by the lack of education available to it and by the welfare payments that are so zealously promoted by the Democrats and maintained by the Republicans.
Since they define “middle class” as having income between the 30th and 70th percentile, then they are making it impossible for more than 40% of the population to ever be middle class. I think they have taken the “middle” in “middle class” too literally. I think a better definition would involve having a good job, a good home, etc., regardless of how it compares to everyone else.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.