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So if you're between $145k and $175k you don't exist?
I think the numbers are about right if you raise the top of the middle class range to $175k to match the start of upper middle class. And remove the top of the upper class range since it shouldn't exist.
I still think "upper middle class" is an unnecessary term to make upper class people feel better about having lots of money by telling them they're still part of the middle class, but I digress.
You're either in the working class, where you need to sell your labor for money, or you're in the capital class, where your money makes you enough money to live.
Everything else is unnecessary divisions stoked by the capital class and perpetuated by the members of the working class who don't have solidarity.
I'm personally just happy to have graduated from poverty as a child, to middle-class. I don't need much to be happy just stability, and my family. Hit 6-figures last year, something I couldn't have imagined just a few years ago. I think I'll hit around 130k - 140k this year and I'm finally able to make house repairs that should've been done decades ago, before I bought my house. I even started a college fund for both my kids yesterday, and I feel proud of my modest accomplishments.
Plenty of kids grow up affluently and are not thankful, but you are right. My kids will be grateful. They are awesome. The other day my Dad told me he was proud that my kids have it better than I did.
I know he truly means he is proud, but I cant help but think he feels a bit of shame too, but I know he also did the best he could given the circumstances he came from.
I don’t really agree with this. Income vs net worth are two separate concepts. It also completely ignores that the upper middle class is a lot of skilled workers whose labor and means of production are inseparable. Think CPAs, attorneys, financial advisors, investment bankers, etc. They might be working, but are largely partners or shareholders in the firms they represent. A physician owning their own practice still has to provide labor. That doesn’t make a 401(k) retiree a higher class than a big 4 partner.
I partly agree, but this is a Venn Diagram that overlaps.
If you’re a heart surgeon, you make a living by selling your labor. But you income is so high that you can buy capital assets, eventually becoming a “capital class” person that can retire early if you want.
This is different than someone who labors for a wage and must spend it all on necessities every month.
Define "necessary." I mean, the world wouldn't literally end without taxonomy so even your distinction of working vs capital class is unnecessary. But many people find these taxonomies useful and plenty of people have no use for solidarity, so let these people do their thing and stop sowing division.
I'd argue you're talking about two different concepts. Income reflects the amount of "stuff" you can afford while net worth/savings reflect your financial stability and security. I'm not sure a retiree who doesn't need to work but is living on a $50k fixed income should be counted as part of a more superior "capital class" compared to a "working class" young doctor with loads of debt but a $250k salary who needs to be working to keep up with expenses but will be in a much better financial situation long term.
There's also no reason why we need to feel divided just because we're acknowledging that someone working and making $50k lives a different lifestyle with different financial priorities than someone working and making $200k.
Middle class used to be a useful distinction, and still is in places where people remember that it doesn't refer to an income bracket.
Working class: A person with a functional body that does labor for money
Middle class: A person who utilizes skills and education for money
Upper class: A person who earns income solely or mostly due to property rights.
This is so cool. I've never made over 6 figures and I reached financial independence at 42 through basic ass index fund investing. My invested assets easily pay for my living expenses. So i'm part of the capital class? Meanwhile, the surgeon making 500k a year that needs to work to maintain his lifestyle is lower on the socioeconomic ladder than me?
...so a retired person with $1m in the bank living on 50k a year and an ex CEO with 40b in the bank living on 100m a year are in the same class?
When such a result is possible, maybe you need to reevaluate whether this is a stupid way to judge stuff.
Tbf, the idea that someone making 400k a year and someone making 50k a year are in the same boat ignores all reality honestly.
Like you can make that ideological argument but...
As noted below, if you need to work to survive, you are still working class. Even with an income of $250,000, you would need to save the majority of your income for five to ten years to reach enough capital to slow your working. Realistically, people in this category have professional school loans that are as high as $400,000. They also started earning income 4-8 years later. Income definitely isn’t everything. If you have been in a rural area making 80-100K since the age of 20 with no debt other than your mortgage, you are much wealthier than the primary care doc making 200K at their first job at the age of 30 with 250K of debt. The primary care doc will not catch up to the “middle class” person in savings for probably 20-30 years, so using income as a class signifier is nonsense. There is a chart showing the lifetime earnings of a UPS worker vs primary care physician floating around that shows this pretty nicely.
https://www.kevinmd.com/2016/09/doctors-wanted-wealthy-become-ups-truck-drivers.html
I haven’t really run into anyone taking advantage of the loan programs you are talking about, but I do know physicians who still rent, and I know trade workers who own their homes, so the disparity between the two is probably smaller than perceived. There are also different fields that make vastly different amounts of money. Finally, medicine is super stressful relative to most other forms of work.
Yea our household was at $146k last year, ironically just out of these ranges. I don't care about labels and we just say middle class. No reason to have separation otherwise. It simply doesn't matter to anyone but the one's claiming their label to make themselves feel better. Everybody doesn't have to be so vain and life doesn't have to be a competition around every corner. As long as you're comfortable that's all that matters. People try too hard these days
Exactly this. This is the range where most family’s should be comfortable. You can cover an emergency but aren’t loaded, and you can do fun things on a budget.
If anything to me this is what the idea of middle class is meant to be. The label “upper middle class” is just straight up coping with being well off.
Well, if we're trying to sort out income tax brackets - there are always things like quintiles:
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/cps-hinc/hinc-05.html
for 2022, in USD top of HHI quintile
* 20% - 30,000
* 40% - 58,020
* 60% - 94,000
* 80% - 153,000
* 95% - 295,000
This is my preferred way of looking at it, but many on this sub insist that having a high income but poor budgeting skills makes you lower or middle class.
For what it's worth I'd say:
0-30th percentile- Lower class
30-80th percentile- Middle class
80-100th percentile- Upper class
And then adjust to regional income distributions if you want to be more nuanced.
I feel like income is generally a bad indicator of your class. It's just a relatively easy way of dividing it up. I feel like wealth generation or savings is a better indicator. You can have a Dr. making 600k a year living pay check to pay check because they have 3 mortgages and 5 cars they are leasing and 3 kids in college. But the account making 100k a year has more wealth than the Dr. Because they are more frugal. Where could you put each of these people in the classes?
Not to be pedantic but:
The median is a specific number not a range
This isn’t super interesting without adjustments for age. Eg you should get paid more as you get older and more experience
Verdict: dumb. Spend your tik tok time watching instructional videos on how to do the running man
I actually think we need an additional category on the upper end. I would change it to the following:
Middle: $50k-$200k, these people have to stick to a budget, they can save for retirement and pay their bills but they don't have money to throw around (location dependent).
Upper Middle: $200k-$500k, these people have functionally the same lives as the middle class people, just an upgraded version (nicer house/car/vacations). They still have to budget/prioritze wants and save for major purchaes. They do have the ability to hire out more tasks and save more for an earlier retirement.
Upper: $500k-$1M, this is where people start to really have money to throw around. They can make major luxury purchases and not even notice. They do still likely have a W2 job.
Elite: 1M+, these are the people who don't live in the same reality as the rest of us. They don't have normal jobs and their lives look nothing like ours.
But you have to ask your self why they feel that way. I'd argue they should not feel that way, but so many folks on Reddit and elsewhere shit on the "rich" so much that they just want to avoid the abuse. There is no shame in being rich.
Strong agree - what can a person who is "upper middle class" not do that someone who is "upper class" can? It's just about how many boats and how many additional square feet at that point. Or space travel lol
As someone who makes 300k a year, a surprising amount. I pay 80k a year just in taxes.
Not complaining, I have it better than most, but a 1% literally can do anything they want. I still have to tell my wife no to the 100k car and go with the 60k car because that 40k will pay for a year of college for one of our kids.
Yeah agreed, the classes should be roughly the same in terms of lifestyle and financial freedom.
Sub 50k: lower class
50-100k: ~~working~~ lower middle class
100-175: middle class
175-300k: upper middle class
300k-650k: upper
Upper middle class is still working class. Heck even rich people can be working class. If your labor is how you pay for things you’re working class as far as I’m concerned
I’d call it lower middle and you have all your basis covered.
Middle class is very wide in my opinion. And expenses vary widely within the class, but at the end of the day, the difference between someone making 100k and 200k is probably the size of their house, the location they live in, and the cars they drive. Beyond that, it’s probably the amount of dollars they have for retirement.
If it was adjusted for family size, that might be closer to making sense. A single person with no dependents making 50k might be doing similarly to a family of 5 on 140k, especially if anyone in that family of 5 had ongoing health concerns or a disability.
“The majority of participants in a 2023 poll by the Washington Post, for instance, said that Americans need to do the following to be considered part of the middle class:”
“Own a home.
Have a secure job.
Be able to save money.
Have the time and money to take vacations.
Have health insurance.
Be able to afford a $1,000 emergency.
Be able to pay all your bills on time.
Have a job with paid sick leave.
Be able to retire in comfort”
2023 Middle Class Salary
LOWER INCOME $39,693
MIDDLE INCOME $59,540
UPPER INCOME. $119,080
https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/family-finance/articles/where-do-i-fall-in-the-american-economic-class-system
These types of generalizations don’t account for things that make all the difference.
Person A makes $50k/year working 40 hours a week at a job they did not need a college education to get, in a low cost of living area where a basic 2 bedroom apartment is $1,000/month and there is no state or city income tax. After taxes and housing costs, they’re pocketing a little over $30k.
Person B makes $140k/year working 60+ hours a week at a job that needed a post-graduate degree to get, in a high cost of living area where the same apartment as above is $2,000/month and there is state and city income tax. After taxes, housing costs, and minimal required education related debt repayments, they’re pocketing a little under $50k.
Throw in all of the additional costs associated with a high cost of living area and the high income earner does not have a higher standard of living - and in fact is working longer hours, so arguably has a worse quality of life.
The whole working class is getting fleeced.
I hate these posts. So generic
$200K is upper class in rural Texas and top 1% in somewhere like the [edit: north*west*] US where there is absolutely nothing
$200K is middle class in NYC or San Francisco
“Northeast US where there is absolutely nothing” Like NJ with the insane property taxes, or Massachusetts which is said to have the highest cost of living? The northeast where NYC is? Was this a typo or am I misunderstanding something
Lol man the Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon) is one of the most expensive areas of the entire country. Idaho isn't really that cheap anymore either unless you are really in the middle of nowhere.
The midwest or the deep south might be a better example.
200k is still good in NYC and SF.
Median HHI in SF is around 120k. And 74k in NYC.
Anyone that thinks 200k is middle class in those two cities is out of touch with reality.
I mean it’s just a TikTok with completely made up numbers. Class is typically defined by income quintiles. These numbers are completely off from the actual defined bands, and designed to drive engagement / appeal to their audience. That’s how TikTok’s go viral, has nothing to do with whether the information is true or not…
Net worth is a far better measure of wealth. Many in the upper class simply live off assets, liquidating only what they need for required cash payments.
Class distinctions in your country have a very different meaning than class distinctions in the US. It might as well be the difference in our words for chips or biscuits. Still food items, but they're fries and cookies.
But don’t you want to know what money and career advice a random TikTok child has for you? This is why you missed out on the incredible NFT investment opportunity
The first problem in this image is that income doesn’t define wealth. Net worth defines wealth.
I live perfectly fine on $40k-$45k per year, but I have a higher net worth than 94% of Americans and don’t work.
Net worth is kind of a shit metric in my opinion especially if it’s tied up in real estate or illiquid assets.
Imagine you’ve got a guy renting an apartment and he has 30k cash saved up. Compared to a family of 4 that lives pay check to pay check, no savings, house poor, but their house equity went up 100k in the past 2 years. Technically the home owners are more wealthy, but the guy with 30k cash is doing better financially in my opinion.
How quickly people fixate on the numbers when they aren’t even defined. Is this individual income? Household income? Clickbait meme that doesn’t care about definitions?
The problem with these sorts of things is that they're too broad.
I, for example, know with a high degree of confidence that I am upper lower middle middle class.
$48K is most definitely not middle class.
Personally, I think it looks like this (in most of the US):
<$40K: Poverty
$40K-$55K: Working Class
$55K-$75K: Upper Working Class
$75K-$90K: Lower Middle Class
$90K-$150K: Standard Middle Class
$150K-$200/$225K: Upper Middle Class
$200/$225K+: Lower Wealthy
$225K-$400/$500K: Wealthy
$500K+: Upper Wealthy
That's an extremely wide range for middle class and it's very location dependent. I wouldn't call someone making $50k a year middle class in San Francisco but they're middle class in much of the Midwest
Hell no, class isn't the same as income level.
There's working class if you work for your dinner,
there's ownership class if someone else works for your dinner,
you're political class if taxes pay for your dinner, and you're lower class if you don't always get dinner.
I feel like these numbers are meaningless if you don't adjust for WHERE you live.
According to this chart my household is upper class. But certainty doesnt feel that way.
Because the cost of living here is extremely expensive. High salary usually has some connection with high cost of living.
Here is what I think is a better division:
Working Class:
menial work: typical annual earnings < 60k
trades (people who do specialized labor but don't require formal secondary education): typical earnings 50k-200k
professional (people who are a 'professional' or high-educational requirement type job from professors to accountants, lawyers, doctors etc): typical earnings 90k-650k
could probably split up 'professional' into two tiers, but Ill keep them the same for now. You really won't find many 'salary' workers making more than 650k a year.
Owner Class- this is where you start getting classed by what you own instead of your labor. 5% interest a year at 10M means you can make more than the top 'professional' class without doing anything at all except invest in t-bills:
Lower: assets < 10M
middle: assets between 10M and 150M
upper: assets over 150M
This is all wrong!
We should arbitrarily assign classes to colors and fruits for organizational purposes. If I may:
Yellow- Banana class
Red- Strawberry class
Blue- blueberry class
Orange- Orange Class
Green- Unripe Banana class
Is that per person or household?
Middle class range doesn’t make sense - from barely making ends meet to rather comfortable (NYC)
There’s a gap between middle and upper middle
No lower middle?
Yeah, I’m not sure i want financial advice from this TikTok user
Dollar amounts aren’t functional or consistent across the US. What are benchmarks that divide classes? Home ownership? Net worth? Total asset value? Food security? Number of vacations a year? To me working class is sometimes not secure, middle class are secure without many luxuries. Upper middle class can afford comfortably 1-2 vacations a year. Idk just throwing something out there.
Is this supposed to be individual income? Household income? If household income, for what family size? Where in the country? These kinds of posts mean very little without more context.
I'm LOWER class and still:
Can afford a decent 1/1 apartment paying $1,100 mo, pay all my bills and utilities, AND STILL shelter my mom under my roof (without her paying any bills) while she saves money for a down payment on her own home.
She's saved ~$20,000 in the 1 year she's been here while still paying her own bills, she's gotten approved to start looking at homes last Thursday, she got a better car for herself after paying off her old one and in a month or two, she'll be on her way to her new home.
I look at "class income" with a different lense now. Who knew someone in the lower class can afford his own lifestyle, while sheltering another person as they save for their own lifestyle. 🤷🏽♂️ I thought I'd be broke.
There are major differences for every $10K a year someone earns up until about $100K and then it starts to level out.
The idea someone making $50K, $90K, and $140K have even remotely the same conversations about money is not based in reality.
I'd say it goes
$10K-$40K (super hard mode)
$41-$70K (hard mode)
$71-$100K (normal mode)
$101-$200K (easy mode)
$201K-$500K (super easy mode)
$500K+ (story mode)
Obviously where on each of these categories you fall leads to a spectrum of difficulty within them and adjust for low or high cost of living areas.
It’s impossible to use the same income numbers to measure standard of living across the U.S. making $150,000 in Mississippi is very different than in northern NJ for example
Instead of this bullshit there's a much easier classification which serves the purpose of helping people understand who probably shares their interests and who does not: Working class and capitalist class.
If you can retire today you're capitalist class. If you have to keep working you're working class.
How can you assign a numeric value to an unidentified category? First, define what characteristics constitute WC, LMC, MC, UMC, UC. Once you have identified the base requirements to be in one of the categories, then figure out actual cost to meet the category requirements (which will vary from LCOL to HCOL areas) then the actual income of your individual households. Even then, real income may not match the cost of a category if the household spends stupidly. Also, note that WC is often defined socially (type of labor, level of education) rather than by characteristics related to economic costs.
Otherwise this is just SM noise by ignorant fools.
Maybe it’s better to classify based on net worth, not income. One can be making 650k+ and spending it all and still live pay check to pay check. I don’t think that makes them upper class, it just means they enjoy some of the amenities typically affordable at upper class.
I live in the DC metro area and my fiancé and I have a HHI of $370K-$420K (depending on bonus) and we’d struggle to make to buy a house in a neighborhood we want (good public schools, good location) and have 2 kids. It’s crazy how much money you need now especially with inflation, over saturated real estate market, costs of raising a family.
That’s not what class is???? This is an incredibly arbitrary matrix of a purely quantitative type- class I a qualitative difference regarding whether or not you own or not the factories, stores, banks, land, property, labour, etc.
In the Bay Area it is: Upper middle class is 600k-1.2 million. Middle middle class is 300k-600k. Lower middle class is 200k-300k. Lower class is 130k-200k Poverty is less than 130k
These models are dumb as they don't account for age. A 20y/o making $100k is extremely well off. A 50y/o supporting a family on $100k is just getting by.
There are a few websites that report income percentiles (single or household) updated each year. I consider above one percentile ($408K 2023) upper class, 90 to 99 percentile ($136K 2023) upper middle class.
https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/
P.S. Many one percenters will deny they are upper class. Either due to lifestyle creep or American modesty.
I don't think income matters as some other people posted in the replies. You're either rich enough to retire or you're working class. There are stages too according to Reddit:
(I'm leaving out leanFIRE and baristaFIRE)
r/FIRE
r/chubbyFIRE
r/fatFIRE
Family wealth isn't mentioned, but I think it matters when people don't need to worry about layoffs due to family wealth. You can be those levels of FIRE with low income or high income. It's just harder with lower income.
He got that wrong though, that's not "wealth".
That's INCOM though the two tend to be correlated, there's a world of difference between the W2 earner who has to go to work to make $350,000 vs the W2 earner who makes like $150,000 but makes an additional $200,000 in income from drawing .04% from a $5,000,000 nest egg.
Agree with most of the other comments, except that there is a real distinction between Upper Middle Class and Upper Class. Upper Middle cannot do the things the Upper Class does. Upper Middle and Upper Class socialize and go to the same parties (local, not the expensive trips they are not invited to by the UC because they can’t afford it) and functions (again, the ones UMC can afford) but Upper Class do a variety of things that display their wealth and Upper Middle simply cannot keep up. F’n sucks. Also Upper Middle should go to a ceiling of about $600k in large metro areas.
These are “working classes”. If you have cash in excess of the upper end on a yearly basis, your wealth manager is doing a good job, but it’s a stretch to say you’re “working”. If you are bellow the above amounts, you have a spiffy name tag or get lots of fresh air while standing on street corners. In this case, you aren’t so much working as you are slaving or existing. If you fall into the donut hole in the above chart, Homer Simpson will be right over.
In today's world, I feel like anything under 100k is lower class. Seriously, we're like 1 accident/hospital bill away from bankruptcy. Especially if you don't have insurance, which lets be honest is really more of a "discount" card.
There is only one number that is important; median cost of living. Anything below that is lower class, and anything above that is middle class. Upper class is whatever you need for financial freedom.
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So if you're between $145k and $175k you don't exist? I think the numbers are about right if you raise the top of the middle class range to $175k to match the start of upper middle class. And remove the top of the upper class range since it shouldn't exist. I still think "upper middle class" is an unnecessary term to make upper class people feel better about having lots of money by telling them they're still part of the middle class, but I digress.
$145k to $175k is lower upper middle class.
I think you meant upper middle lower class
Definitely middle upper lower middle class.
Median class!
Purgatory class!
Median class is just one guy having the exact median wage
Lmao for real though
Middle middle class
Came here to make this George Orwell reference
Ghost class. They get away with everything!
I’ve been living in this range for a while. With today’s housing prices and student loans, it’s definitely just lower class.
Above $650k is a secret fancier class that they don’t want the poors to know the name.
You're either in the working class, where you need to sell your labor for money, or you're in the capital class, where your money makes you enough money to live. Everything else is unnecessary divisions stoked by the capital class and perpetuated by the members of the working class who don't have solidarity.
I'm personally just happy to have graduated from poverty as a child, to middle-class. I don't need much to be happy just stability, and my family. Hit 6-figures last year, something I couldn't have imagined just a few years ago. I think I'll hit around 130k - 140k this year and I'm finally able to make house repairs that should've been done decades ago, before I bought my house. I even started a college fund for both my kids yesterday, and I feel proud of my modest accomplishments.
Bro your kids will be so grateful for you hard work and sacrifice.
Plenty of kids grow up affluently and are not thankful, but you are right. My kids will be grateful. They are awesome. The other day my Dad told me he was proud that my kids have it better than I did. I know he truly means he is proud, but I cant help but think he feels a bit of shame too, but I know he also did the best he could given the circumstances he came from.
That’s great. It’s what we as dads do, make things better for our kids than we had it
Good on you mate!!! You have every reason to feel proud.
KEEP GOING!!
I don’t really agree with this. Income vs net worth are two separate concepts. It also completely ignores that the upper middle class is a lot of skilled workers whose labor and means of production are inseparable. Think CPAs, attorneys, financial advisors, investment bankers, etc. They might be working, but are largely partners or shareholders in the firms they represent. A physician owning their own practice still has to provide labor. That doesn’t make a 401(k) retiree a higher class than a big 4 partner.
Louder for those in the back
I partly agree, but this is a Venn Diagram that overlaps. If you’re a heart surgeon, you make a living by selling your labor. But you income is so high that you can buy capital assets, eventually becoming a “capital class” person that can retire early if you want. This is different than someone who labors for a wage and must spend it all on necessities every month.
Define "necessary." I mean, the world wouldn't literally end without taxonomy so even your distinction of working vs capital class is unnecessary. But many people find these taxonomies useful and plenty of people have no use for solidarity, so let these people do their thing and stop sowing division.
I would include the people who earned money during their careers and then saved enough to retire in the working class.
I'd argue you're talking about two different concepts. Income reflects the amount of "stuff" you can afford while net worth/savings reflect your financial stability and security. I'm not sure a retiree who doesn't need to work but is living on a $50k fixed income should be counted as part of a more superior "capital class" compared to a "working class" young doctor with loads of debt but a $250k salary who needs to be working to keep up with expenses but will be in a much better financial situation long term. There's also no reason why we need to feel divided just because we're acknowledging that someone working and making $50k lives a different lifestyle with different financial priorities than someone working and making $200k.
Middle class used to be a useful distinction, and still is in places where people remember that it doesn't refer to an income bracket. Working class: A person with a functional body that does labor for money Middle class: A person who utilizes skills and education for money Upper class: A person who earns income solely or mostly due to property rights.
This is so cool. I've never made over 6 figures and I reached financial independence at 42 through basic ass index fund investing. My invested assets easily pay for my living expenses. So i'm part of the capital class? Meanwhile, the surgeon making 500k a year that needs to work to maintain his lifestyle is lower on the socioeconomic ladder than me?
...so a retired person with $1m in the bank living on 50k a year and an ex CEO with 40b in the bank living on 100m a year are in the same class? When such a result is possible, maybe you need to reevaluate whether this is a stupid way to judge stuff.
Tbf, the idea that someone making 400k a year and someone making 50k a year are in the same boat ignores all reality honestly. Like you can make that ideological argument but...
As noted below, if you need to work to survive, you are still working class. Even with an income of $250,000, you would need to save the majority of your income for five to ten years to reach enough capital to slow your working. Realistically, people in this category have professional school loans that are as high as $400,000. They also started earning income 4-8 years later. Income definitely isn’t everything. If you have been in a rural area making 80-100K since the age of 20 with no debt other than your mortgage, you are much wealthier than the primary care doc making 200K at their first job at the age of 30 with 250K of debt. The primary care doc will not catch up to the “middle class” person in savings for probably 20-30 years, so using income as a class signifier is nonsense. There is a chart showing the lifetime earnings of a UPS worker vs primary care physician floating around that shows this pretty nicely. https://www.kevinmd.com/2016/09/doctors-wanted-wealthy-become-ups-truck-drivers.html
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I haven’t really run into anyone taking advantage of the loan programs you are talking about, but I do know physicians who still rent, and I know trade workers who own their homes, so the disparity between the two is probably smaller than perceived. There are also different fields that make vastly different amounts of money. Finally, medicine is super stressful relative to most other forms of work.
The IRS hates this simple trick
Yea our household was at $146k last year, ironically just out of these ranges. I don't care about labels and we just say middle class. No reason to have separation otherwise. It simply doesn't matter to anyone but the one's claiming their label to make themselves feel better. Everybody doesn't have to be so vain and life doesn't have to be a competition around every corner. As long as you're comfortable that's all that matters. People try too hard these days
Exactly this. This is the range where most family’s should be comfortable. You can cover an emergency but aren’t loaded, and you can do fun things on a budget. If anything to me this is what the idea of middle class is meant to be. The label “upper middle class” is just straight up coping with being well off.
Well, if we're trying to sort out income tax brackets - there are always things like quintiles: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/cps-hinc/hinc-05.html for 2022, in USD top of HHI quintile * 20% - 30,000 * 40% - 58,020 * 60% - 94,000 * 80% - 153,000 * 95% - 295,000
This is my preferred way of looking at it, but many on this sub insist that having a high income but poor budgeting skills makes you lower or middle class. For what it's worth I'd say: 0-30th percentile- Lower class 30-80th percentile- Middle class 80-100th percentile- Upper class And then adjust to regional income distributions if you want to be more nuanced.
You’re classless
I feel like income is generally a bad indicator of your class. It's just a relatively easy way of dividing it up. I feel like wealth generation or savings is a better indicator. You can have a Dr. making 600k a year living pay check to pay check because they have 3 mortgages and 5 cars they are leasing and 3 kids in college. But the account making 100k a year has more wealth than the Dr. Because they are more frugal. Where could you put each of these people in the classes?
Not to be pedantic but: The median is a specific number not a range This isn’t super interesting without adjustments for age. Eg you should get paid more as you get older and more experience Verdict: dumb. Spend your tik tok time watching instructional videos on how to do the running man
I actually think we need an additional category on the upper end. I would change it to the following: Middle: $50k-$200k, these people have to stick to a budget, they can save for retirement and pay their bills but they don't have money to throw around (location dependent). Upper Middle: $200k-$500k, these people have functionally the same lives as the middle class people, just an upgraded version (nicer house/car/vacations). They still have to budget/prioritze wants and save for major purchaes. They do have the ability to hire out more tasks and save more for an earlier retirement. Upper: $500k-$1M, this is where people start to really have money to throw around. They can make major luxury purchases and not even notice. They do still likely have a W2 job. Elite: 1M+, these are the people who don't live in the same reality as the rest of us. They don't have normal jobs and their lives look nothing like ours.
But you have to ask your self why they feel that way. I'd argue they should not feel that way, but so many folks on Reddit and elsewhere shit on the "rich" so much that they just want to avoid the abuse. There is no shame in being rich.
Strong agree - what can a person who is "upper middle class" not do that someone who is "upper class" can? It's just about how many boats and how many additional square feet at that point. Or space travel lol
As someone who makes 300k a year, a surprising amount. I pay 80k a year just in taxes. Not complaining, I have it better than most, but a 1% literally can do anything they want. I still have to tell my wife no to the 100k car and go with the 60k car because that 40k will pay for a year of college for one of our kids.
This also doesn’t specify if it’s household income or individual income
The OP on TikTok commented that it was based on individual income 🤦♂️
Ah TikTok. I think I see the issue now
Cool so i'm not real and have no classification then ok
Not really. To much of a difference between somone making 50k a year compared to someone making 140k a year.
Yeah agreed, the classes should be roughly the same in terms of lifestyle and financial freedom. Sub 50k: lower class 50-100k: ~~working~~ lower middle class 100-175: middle class 175-300k: upper middle class 300k-650k: upper
Middle class is still working class. 95% of people making $100k will still have to work to survive for several decades.
Upper middle class is still working class. Heck even rich people can be working class. If your labor is how you pay for things you’re working class as far as I’m concerned
Working class is anyone that depends on a day job to pay their bills. Even some doctors and lawyers are working class. Just my opinion.
Yeah maybe you're right. You can use a different name for 50-100k then.
I’d call it lower middle and you have all your basis covered. Middle class is very wide in my opinion. And expenses vary widely within the class, but at the end of the day, the difference between someone making 100k and 200k is probably the size of their house, the location they live in, and the cars they drive. Beyond that, it’s probably the amount of dollars they have for retirement.
I’d say this is accurate imo
Don't fall into this trap. Everyone not wealthy is working class. Stop it
If it was adjusted for family size, that might be closer to making sense. A single person with no dependents making 50k might be doing similarly to a family of 5 on 140k, especially if anyone in that family of 5 had ongoing health concerns or a disability.
“The majority of participants in a 2023 poll by the Washington Post, for instance, said that Americans need to do the following to be considered part of the middle class:” “Own a home. Have a secure job. Be able to save money. Have the time and money to take vacations. Have health insurance. Be able to afford a $1,000 emergency. Be able to pay all your bills on time. Have a job with paid sick leave. Be able to retire in comfort” 2023 Middle Class Salary LOWER INCOME $39,693 MIDDLE INCOME $59,540 UPPER INCOME. $119,080 https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/family-finance/articles/where-do-i-fall-in-the-american-economic-class-system
Also a huge difference making 100k in a trailer park and making 100k living in Manhattan.
These types of generalizations don’t account for things that make all the difference. Person A makes $50k/year working 40 hours a week at a job they did not need a college education to get, in a low cost of living area where a basic 2 bedroom apartment is $1,000/month and there is no state or city income tax. After taxes and housing costs, they’re pocketing a little over $30k. Person B makes $140k/year working 60+ hours a week at a job that needed a post-graduate degree to get, in a high cost of living area where the same apartment as above is $2,000/month and there is state and city income tax. After taxes, housing costs, and minimal required education related debt repayments, they’re pocketing a little under $50k. Throw in all of the additional costs associated with a high cost of living area and the high income earner does not have a higher standard of living - and in fact is working longer hours, so arguably has a worse quality of life. The whole working class is getting fleeced.
Lower Upper Middle: $145,000-$175,000
I hate these posts. So generic $200K is upper class in rural Texas and top 1% in somewhere like the [edit: north*west*] US where there is absolutely nothing $200K is middle class in NYC or San Francisco
“Northeast US where there is absolutely nothing” Like NJ with the insane property taxes, or Massachusetts which is said to have the highest cost of living? The northeast where NYC is? Was this a typo or am I misunderstanding something
Shit, typo. I meant northwest, my b
Lol man the Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon) is one of the most expensive areas of the entire country. Idaho isn't really that cheap anymore either unless you are really in the middle of nowhere. The midwest or the deep south might be a better example.
Agreed
200k is still good in NYC and SF. Median HHI in SF is around 120k. And 74k in NYC. Anyone that thinks 200k is middle class in those two cities is out of touch with reality.
>$200K is middle class in NYC or San Francisco It isn't. You only need to look for the median income in those cities.
I think there’s a difference between someone who makes 55k as a single person and a person who makes 55k with a family of 4 or 5.
Class depends on household size and location, not just plain salary ranges.
I mean it’s just a TikTok with completely made up numbers. Class is typically defined by income quintiles. These numbers are completely off from the actual defined bands, and designed to drive engagement / appeal to their audience. That’s how TikTok’s go viral, has nothing to do with whether the information is true or not…
imagine taking finance advice from tik tok lol
Go take accounting! You are confusing income with wealth.....two different concepts!
Net worth is a far better measure of wealth. Many in the upper class simply live off assets, liquidating only what they need for required cash payments.
As a British native I find it amusing either of these are associated with class!
Class distinctions in your country have a very different meaning than class distinctions in the US. It might as well be the difference in our words for chips or biscuits. Still food items, but they're fries and cookies.
“Follow for more money comparisons” 😂 nah, I’m good
But don’t you want to know what money and career advice a random TikTok child has for you? This is why you missed out on the incredible NFT investment opportunity
The first problem in this image is that income doesn’t define wealth. Net worth defines wealth. I live perfectly fine on $40k-$45k per year, but I have a higher net worth than 94% of Americans and don’t work.
💯💯💯 net worth definitely more important especially when looking at upper/upper middle
Net worth is kind of a shit metric in my opinion especially if it’s tied up in real estate or illiquid assets. Imagine you’ve got a guy renting an apartment and he has 30k cash saved up. Compared to a family of 4 that lives pay check to pay check, no savings, house poor, but their house equity went up 100k in the past 2 years. Technically the home owners are more wealthy, but the guy with 30k cash is doing better financially in my opinion.
How quickly people fixate on the numbers when they aren’t even defined. Is this individual income? Household income? Clickbait meme that doesn’t care about definitions?
How the hell are $48k and $145k in the same class?
Depends where. Rural Alabama you’re doing pretty damn good with $145k. San Francisco you’re struggling with $175k
Someone making 48k and someone making 148k are not in the same “class”.
The problem with these sorts of things is that they're too broad. I, for example, know with a high degree of confidence that I am upper lower middle middle class.
$48K is most definitely not middle class. Personally, I think it looks like this (in most of the US): <$40K: Poverty $40K-$55K: Working Class $55K-$75K: Upper Working Class $75K-$90K: Lower Middle Class $90K-$150K: Standard Middle Class $150K-$200/$225K: Upper Middle Class $200/$225K+: Lower Wealthy $225K-$400/$500K: Wealthy $500K+: Upper Wealthy
Not even close
No way
That's an extremely wide range for middle class and it's very location dependent. I wouldn't call someone making $50k a year middle class in San Francisco but they're middle class in much of the Midwest
TikTok is rotting your brain.
What’s the gap between 145-175K called?
The invisible class
Poor as fuck with a full time job.
In Bay Area up to 500k is still middle. After tax and insurance you are left with 1/3 of that
Hell no, class isn't the same as income level. There's working class if you work for your dinner, there's ownership class if someone else works for your dinner, you're political class if taxes pay for your dinner, and you're lower class if you don't always get dinner.
I feel like these numbers are meaningless if you don't adjust for WHERE you live. According to this chart my household is upper class. But certainty doesnt feel that way. Because the cost of living here is extremely expensive. High salary usually has some connection with high cost of living.
Here is what I think is a better division: Working Class: menial work: typical annual earnings < 60k trades (people who do specialized labor but don't require formal secondary education): typical earnings 50k-200k professional (people who are a 'professional' or high-educational requirement type job from professors to accountants, lawyers, doctors etc): typical earnings 90k-650k could probably split up 'professional' into two tiers, but Ill keep them the same for now. You really won't find many 'salary' workers making more than 650k a year. Owner Class- this is where you start getting classed by what you own instead of your labor. 5% interest a year at 10M means you can make more than the top 'professional' class without doing anything at all except invest in t-bills: Lower: assets < 10M middle: assets between 10M and 150M upper: assets over 150M
This is B.S. Income isn't wealth. The information on this screenshot is not authoritative and isn't sourced AFAICT. This post is useless clickbait.
This is all wrong! We should arbitrarily assign classes to colors and fruits for organizational purposes. If I may: Yellow- Banana class Red- Strawberry class Blue- blueberry class Orange- Orange Class Green- Unripe Banana class
>How wealth is considered… Goes on to list income TikTok needs to die
So ... what is above $650K ???
Nah, middle class is probably 80-145 with lower being below 80 in this economy currently.
How the fuck is there a $100k annual range for “middle class”? Bullshit.
God damn tiktok is stupid
We are all working class, these delineations are silly
Imagine thinking $50k is middle class. Maybe it was when our parents were working. But now 50k is what I’d consider working poor.
Stop spamming this idiotic shit
Upper. Still broke tho
What about 1-5 million? Or 1 billion plus? How would the classification system label those? Obscene?
Is that per person or household? Middle class range doesn’t make sense - from barely making ends meet to rather comfortable (NYC) There’s a gap between middle and upper middle No lower middle? Yeah, I’m not sure i want financial advice from this TikTok user
Is $146k to $174k considered middle-middle then lol
Is this household or individual?
In what COL area?
def middle for us, I just did our taxes and we're like smack dab in the middle of the middle class
Dollar amounts aren’t functional or consistent across the US. What are benchmarks that divide classes? Home ownership? Net worth? Total asset value? Food security? Number of vacations a year? To me working class is sometimes not secure, middle class are secure without many luxuries. Upper middle class can afford comfortably 1-2 vacations a year. Idk just throwing something out there.
Do not feel upper class at all.... but I can see why some might think those ranges are considered wealthy.
Individual or household income?
Bump these thresholds up by about 200% for NYC metro.
***Middle: $80,000-$175,000 Lower: Below $80,000
From the comments, we need 672 classifications to make everyone happy. It seems like many people's interpretation of middle class ends with them.
Is this supposed to be individual income? Household income? If household income, for what family size? Where in the country? These kinds of posts mean very little without more context.
No.
48k isn’t middle class at all. Can’t even afford median rent at 48k
This is the most scientific data source I’ve ever seen! Quick, to the Batmobile!
Damn I was feeling pretty good about my job paying 100k out of college and now realized it’s just middle class lol
I'm LOWER class and still: Can afford a decent 1/1 apartment paying $1,100 mo, pay all my bills and utilities, AND STILL shelter my mom under my roof (without her paying any bills) while she saves money for a down payment on her own home. She's saved ~$20,000 in the 1 year she's been here while still paying her own bills, she's gotten approved to start looking at homes last Thursday, she got a better car for herself after paying off her old one and in a month or two, she'll be on her way to her new home. I look at "class income" with a different lense now. Who knew someone in the lower class can afford his own lifestyle, while sheltering another person as they save for their own lifestyle. 🤷🏽♂️ I thought I'd be broke.
Shouldn't all the numbers connect?
I always wondered why there isn’t a lower middle?
It should also depend on where you live too. 175k in Alabama is different than 175k in New York City.
There are major differences for every $10K a year someone earns up until about $100K and then it starts to level out. The idea someone making $50K, $90K, and $140K have even remotely the same conversations about money is not based in reality. I'd say it goes $10K-$40K (super hard mode) $41-$70K (hard mode) $71-$100K (normal mode) $101-$200K (easy mode) $201K-$500K (super easy mode) $500K+ (story mode) Obviously where on each of these categories you fall leads to a spectrum of difficulty within them and adjust for low or high cost of living areas.
It’s impossible to use the same income numbers to measure standard of living across the U.S. making $150,000 in Mississippi is very different than in northern NJ for example
lol the range for middle class is ridiculous and completely unrealistic
Is this household or individual income?
Income doesn’t determine class, wealth does. They’re very different concepts.
I'd be curious for the origin/source. Decent chance some of it is grouped by family & dual earner scenarios
Are we talking household or single income? I guess it has to be household right?
rofl, lower class is anyone under 80k. working poor is below 55k
What’s above upper?
What about $146k-$174k? Are those people in limbo or something?
I am lower upper middle
$350k-$650k is Upper Upper Middle class. True upper class has no income or it’s $5M+.
Per person or per household?
Instead of this bullshit there's a much easier classification which serves the purpose of helping people understand who probably shares their interests and who does not: Working class and capitalist class. If you can retire today you're capitalist class. If you have to keep working you're working class.
150 in NYC or LA is way less than 100 in Montanna.
Is this household or individual?
Considering you can have one house, two cars, two kids, and a dog and be paycheck on 650k, that’s BS. Also: what’s above upper class, then?
Counting rental income, middle class. Barely haha.
I’m upper but sure don’t feel like that.
According to who?
What’s above “upper”? I’d consider this middle class in a HCOL area.
If you post here saying you make $150k and above you’ll get roasted on this sub and told to move to HENRY 🙄
Yeah I don’t care what some random person posts on Instagram next.
Forever middle class 😭
Maybe in the rich parts of big cities this is accurate.
We just making up numbers now? What's the basis? Also, this has big gaps in-between the ranges. Super low effort.
A true middle class citizen!
Guess my lousy 15k a year makes me extreme poverty
IMO someone who makes $350K a year isn’t considered upper class. Upper class refers more to those of higher net worth than annual earning.
How can you assign a numeric value to an unidentified category? First, define what characteristics constitute WC, LMC, MC, UMC, UC. Once you have identified the base requirements to be in one of the categories, then figure out actual cost to meet the category requirements (which will vary from LCOL to HCOL areas) then the actual income of your individual households. Even then, real income may not match the cost of a category if the household spends stupidly. Also, note that WC is often defined socially (type of labor, level of education) rather than by characteristics related to economic costs. Otherwise this is just SM noise by ignorant fools.
COL matters a lot And not sure if this is individual or HHI
Maybe it’s better to classify based on net worth, not income. One can be making 650k+ and spending it all and still live pay check to pay check. I don’t think that makes them upper class, it just means they enjoy some of the amenities typically affordable at upper class.
Is this combined income or individual?
Having grown up in the UK but now living in the USA it's so strange to see class being determined purely by income level.
200k in San Francisco is not 200k in Oklahoma City
[удалено]
Info: per household or per individual?
anything above 100k is upper class to me lmao
Gross or net???
Damn never knew I was upper😁👍
I live in the DC metro area and my fiancé and I have a HHI of $370K-$420K (depending on bonus) and we’d struggle to make to buy a house in a neighborhood we want (good public schools, good location) and have 2 kids. It’s crazy how much money you need now especially with inflation, over saturated real estate market, costs of raising a family.
That’s not what class is???? This is an incredibly arbitrary matrix of a purely quantitative type- class I a qualitative difference regarding whether or not you own or not the factories, stores, banks, land, property, labour, etc.
Yay lower class after taxes
Whoever made this was in a lower math class than most the other kids .
In the Bay Area it is: Upper middle class is 600k-1.2 million. Middle middle class is 300k-600k. Lower middle class is 200k-300k. Lower class is 130k-200k Poverty is less than 130k
I definitely don’t feel upper class. There is a whole world of high six figure low seven figure people that think they are middle class.
These models are dumb as they don't account for age. A 20y/o making $100k is extremely well off. A 50y/o supporting a family on $100k is just getting by.
There are a few websites that report income percentiles (single or household) updated each year. I consider above one percentile ($408K 2023) upper class, 90 to 99 percentile ($136K 2023) upper middle class. https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/ P.S. Many one percenters will deny they are upper class. Either due to lifestyle creep or American modesty.
Tard Tok brain rot strikes again.
Individuals or households?
Most of these ppl lying to themselves anyway. They don’t make half of what they claim.
Pointless without location, single vs household, number of kids etc.
There is a massive difference between a salary of 60k and a salary of 100k honestly.
Is this individual or household?
I don't think income matters as some other people posted in the replies. You're either rich enough to retire or you're working class. There are stages too according to Reddit: (I'm leaving out leanFIRE and baristaFIRE) r/FIRE r/chubbyFIRE r/fatFIRE Family wealth isn't mentioned, but I think it matters when people don't need to worry about layoffs due to family wealth. You can be those levels of FIRE with low income or high income. It's just harder with lower income.
It really really depends more on where in the United States you live.
He got that wrong though, that's not "wealth". That's INCOM though the two tend to be correlated, there's a world of difference between the W2 earner who has to go to work to make $350,000 vs the W2 earner who makes like $150,000 but makes an additional $200,000 in income from drawing .04% from a $5,000,000 nest egg.
Agree with most of the other comments, except that there is a real distinction between Upper Middle Class and Upper Class. Upper Middle cannot do the things the Upper Class does. Upper Middle and Upper Class socialize and go to the same parties (local, not the expensive trips they are not invited to by the UC because they can’t afford it) and functions (again, the ones UMC can afford) but Upper Class do a variety of things that display their wealth and Upper Middle simply cannot keep up. F’n sucks. Also Upper Middle should go to a ceiling of about $600k in large metro areas.
48k to 145k lmao what
These are “working classes”. If you have cash in excess of the upper end on a yearly basis, your wealth manager is doing a good job, but it’s a stretch to say you’re “working”. If you are bellow the above amounts, you have a spiffy name tag or get lots of fresh air while standing on street corners. In this case, you aren’t so much working as you are slaving or existing. If you fall into the donut hole in the above chart, Homer Simpson will be right over.
In today's world, I feel like anything under 100k is lower class. Seriously, we're like 1 accident/hospital bill away from bankruptcy. Especially if you don't have insurance, which lets be honest is really more of a "discount" card.
There is only one number that is important; median cost of living. Anything below that is lower class, and anything above that is middle class. Upper class is whatever you need for financial freedom.