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Or maybe I'm just honestly confused as to what middle class means in this city. Looking at the statistics, the average salary in my area is around 20K, but I hear tons of people here on CD talking about not being able to make ends meet with 100K.
I didn't know what class I was growing up, and I don't know how having a kid affects one's social class either. I used to believe middle class was in between the 40K zone and the 70K zone but then I kept hearing about my school being labeled as Title 1 or whatever or people believing I was poor. It ground my gears, I was offended, and my father identified as rich but he made close to 40K.
don't confuse median income with middle class lifestyle , they are two very different metrics and reflect two very different lifestyles .
as the ny times said :
There is no single, formal definition of class status in this country.
Statisticians and demographers all use slightly different methods to divvy up the great American whole into quintiles and median ranges. Complicating things, most people like to think of themselves as middle class. It feels good, after all, and more egalitarian than proclaiming yourself to be rich or poor. A $70,000 annual income is middle class for a family of four, according to the median response in a recent Pew Research Center survey, and yet people at a wide range of income levels, including those making less than $30,000 and more than $100,000 a year, said they, too, belonged to the middle.
By one measure, in cities like Houston or Phoenix — places considered by statisticians to be more typical of average United States incomes than New York — a solidly middle-class life can be had for wages that fall between $33,000 and $100,000 a year.
By the same formula — measuring by who sits in the middle of the income spectrum — Manhattan’s middle class exists somewhere between $45,000 and $134,000.
But if you are defining middle class by lifestyle, to accommodate the cost of living in Manhattan, that salary would have to fall between $80,000 and $235,000. This means someone making $70,000 a year in other parts of the country would need to make $166,000 in Manhattan to enjoy the same purchasing power.
Using the rule of thumb that buyers should expect to spend two and a half times their annual salary on a home purchase, the properties in Manhattan that could be said to be middle class would run between $200,000 and $588,000.
On the low end, the pickings are slim. The least expensive properties are mostly uptown, in neighborhoods like Yorkville, Washington Heights and Inwood. The most pleasing options in this range, however, are one-bedroom apartments not designed for children or families.
It is not surprising, then, that a family of four with an annual income of $68,700 or less qualifies to apply for the New York City Housing Authority’s public housing.
I've heard of people paying the same rent in Nashville and Queens. The costs are not that different outside of Manhattan. My friend moved to the Bronx to escape the squalor of Reading and he feels the COL, adjusted for PPP, is the same.
If you are paying same rent in Nashville, you must be living on a Plantation and possibly with accompanying servants.
even having to pay for health insurance can be a big factor . an aca plan can run a couple 19k a year with almost 10,000 in out of pockets
Yeah Obamacare did not help much. Plus families just got hit with the SALT limit thanks to Trump. Politicians are NOT your best friend no matter what side of the fence.
If you are paying same rent in Nashville, you must be living on a Plantation and possibly with accompanying servants.
well i can tell you what happened in our case ..
we live in a nice 2 bedroom 2 bath apartment in a high rise . it is just my wife and i and all the kids and grandkids are local ... no one stays here .
well when we bought a 2nd home in the poconos where we were thinking of retiring we needed a 3000 sq ft home to house 8 adults and 6 grand kids because EVERYONE STAYED THERE ..... the house in pa cost us more then our rent here .
so at the end of the day we would have seen an increase in housing costs moving to a cheaper area with 1/2 the pay i make here in new york . . we could make due with about 1/3 less in pa but not 1/2 . so we sold it .
Or maybe I'm just honestly confused as to what middle class means in this city. Looking at the statistics, the average salary in my area is around 20K, but I hear tons of people here on CD talking about not being able to make ends meet with 100K.
I didn't know what class I was growing up, and I don't know how having a kid affects one's social class either. I used to believe middle class was in between the 40K zone and the 70K zone but then I kept hearing about my school being labeled as Title 1 or whatever or people believing I was poor. It ground my gears, I was offended, and my father identified as rich but he made close to 40K.
Again with this; middle class is a construct, not something easily defined and or otherwise written in stone.
Households pulling sold three large per year (which by the way would classify them as wealthy anywhere else) moan they are barely holding onto middle class lifestyle in NYC and much of the surrounding metro area.
At best middle class once was considered those whose incomes were comfortable enough they weren't living pay check to pay check. That has changed in that many (again) even with very good incomes find themselves strapped. Only thing middle class has over working and the poor is they often have higher credit scores and thus can paper over/have more options to keep up their lifestyle.
If you are dirt poor or whatever and can't make your rent/house payment; you can likely turn to some sort of credit line (balance transfer, zero percent interest offers, etc... ) that allow you access to funds at a very good rate. Lower income households either don't have that access and or will pay very dearly in interest for the privilege.
Households pulling sold three large per year (which by the way would classify them as wealthy anywhere else) moan they are barely holding onto middle class lifestyle in NYC and much of the surrounding metro area.
At best middle class once was considered those whose incomes were comfortable enough they weren't living pay check to pay check. That has changed in that many (again) even with very good incomes find themselves strapped. Only thing middle class has over working and the poor is they often have higher credit scores and thus can paper over/have more options to keep up their lifestyle.
If you are dirt poor or whatever and can't make your rent/house payment; you can likely turn to some sort of credit line (balance transfer, zero percent interest offers, etc... ) that allow you access to funds at a very good rate. Lower income households either don't have that access and or will pay very dearly in interest for the privilege.
Too late for an edit so will have to correct.
That should be "if you are middle class.......". Meaning at least on paper and or far as one's credit rolls you are "middle class" in terms of income.
Well you can always see if Mr. Jeff Bezos, Mr. Mark Zuckerberg, Mr. Bill Gates and or any of the other tech multi billionaires need a boy toy or something. But don't think they play for that team.
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