Middle and Upper class (insurance, taxes, money, salary)

[ogplife]

In your opinion what household income levels would constitute a lower middle class family of four? Same question for upper middle class?

[Humanoid]

The difference between middle class and upper class has little to do with income levels. Taking someone from the middle-class and giving them 1 million a year will not make them upper class, to start they won't even know how to manage that sort of money!

The different classes are about who you are and how you were raised.

[bls5555]

It's pretty hard to say as giving a family of four $75,000 a year in Omaha, NE is quite a bit different than giving a family of four $75,000 in CA or NY or FLA.

I think it kind of jumps around quite a bit.

My opinion would be that if you give a family of 4 a $60,000 salary per year, in most places you are going to be doing just fine. Of course assuming correct handling of the money.

[ogplife]

Originally Posted by ogplife

In your opinion what household income levels would constitute a lower middle class family of four? Same question for upper middle class?

I meant middle and upper middle class. Wrote middle and upper class in the thread title which may be misleading. I don't know how to change that.

[evilnewbie]

You can't base it on salary but base middle and upper class on spending. If one family made 80k and bought a 500k house, they don't have much left to spend whereas a family making 60k and bought a 200k house has much more to spend. Similarly, a family making 80k in Southern California is different from a family making 80k in Oklahoma, the ones in Oklahoma has more spending power. Honestly, states that "need" people are ones where housing prices are way too high and if people "brighten" up a bit and move away, these wealthy cities would have major problems. The power is in the middle class to control housing prices within these cities but it is greed that dictates behavior more than common sense. So to answer your question, middle class is dictated by spending and location... not income... income helps when spending and location are controlled but in this age, we don't know how to control our spending...

[tallrick]

In Florida the entire state is overpriced, and due for a crash. South Florida has artificially high prices driven up by wealthy Venezuelans who had more money than sense and pushed the price of a shack to 400,000.00 from 90,00.000 To be upper middle class in Miami you would have to earn at least 150K per year and probably over 1M per year to be "upper class". I always think of middle class as 3 times median home value and upper middle as 6 times median. Rich would be 60 times median.

[Niners fan]

I think it is entirely salary. What someone does with their income is up to them but doesn't change how much money they are making. If someone makes $1 million per year but spends $1.1 million does that make them lower class? Obviously no.

Since the OP was a simple question here is my opinion, for a family of four:

Lower class: <$24,000
Lower middle: $24,000 - 42,000
Middle: $42,000-72,000
Upper middle: $72,000 - 216,000

This is pretty subjective and also depends on where you live because of cost of living and taxes.

[bbguy05]

According to Wolf Blitzer on Late Edition, anything below $100,000/yr is considered middle class.

[southernnaturelover]

People's expectations are different too. IMO, a 3 bedroom 1700 sq foot house with a single garage is middle class living, but some people think a 3500 sq foot 5 bedroom house with 3 car garage is middle class. Obviously those require very different incomes.

[Niners fan]

Originally Posted by bbguy05

According to Wolf Blitzer on Late Edition, anything below $100,000/yr is considered middle class.

I think that's what the Democrats in Congress were claiming when they were trying to expand the SCHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program).

Of course, when it came to taxes the same Democrats claimed that $60,000 per year put you among the "Rich."