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these folks are middle class here . they are our teachers , police , middle mgmt workers , etc . many are in sales . again , middle class lifestyle has nothing to do with median incomes in the country .
we saw this effect first hand when we had a home in PA . all the transplants who lived and worked in high cost areas came with lots more then the locals had .
we thought of relocating there but the trade off just wasn't worth it . so we stayed in queens and eventually sold the pocono house . had we retired there we would have went from middle class new yorkers to upper middle class poconoites .
Last edited by mathjak107; 04-25-2016 at 04:35 PM..
If you choose to spend $200 on a fancy dinner or $40 on a regular dinner, it doesn't change how much you have in the bank. Upper class people just have more options for dinners they can afford.
Funny you mention Dallas. That's where we're looking to relocate, so I've been researching all things DFW. During a scouting trip down there last August, my eyes bugged out at how far our money went there vs here in Chicago.
Maybe it doesn't seem like it to the people that live there, but the homes in our price range felt like Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous. All brick homes, 3-4k sqft, gated communities, in-ground heated pools with waterfalls, etc. The same homes here are 2k sqft from the 1960's. If we wanted a Chicago home in that Texas style, we're looking at $800k minimum, but usually in the $1.2-1.4MM range.
With the money we're saving by relocating (works out to almost $2,000/mo), we could live a much more lavish lifestyle. But that's not for us, we'd rather retire earlier. It just opens up more options to relocate.
Well the point I was making was that people buying 1 million dollar homes in high cost living areas tend to be less affluent then people buying 1 million dollar properties in low cost living areas. I know one person who lives in a 400k house in Dallas but the other person who lives in a high cost living area and has the same profession lives in a 1 million dollar house, and they both are fairly average employees. People making 60k in Dallas are buying houses valued around 200k-300k. The very-middle in the middle class are usually not buying those 4k sqft houses.
these folks are middle class here . they are our teachers , police , middle mgmt workers , etc . many are in sales . again , middle class lifestyle has nothing to do with median incomes in the country .
we saw this effect first hand when we had a home in PA . all the transplants who lived and worked in high cost areas came with lots more then the locals had .
we thought of relocating there but the trade off just wasn't worth it . so we stayed in queens and eventually sold the pocono house . had we retired there we would have went from middle class new yorkers to upper middle class poconoites .
How can one go from middle class to upper middle class just based on were they live....
The definitions of middle class and upper middle class are focused more on their professions,values, income and wealth.
Its not like "Oh you live in manhattan as a corporate marketer, your middle class bud, but that other corporate marketer in Dallas Tx now he is upper middle have you seen his HOSUE!!!!!!!" This is not how you define classes.
As this political season approaches us, I keep hearing about the "middle class" and I started wondering what class I am. I define myself as middle class, as I'm sure many on here do, but I wanted to know if I truly was and what middle class means to you.
- I'm 33 and I make $101,000 a year.
- Currently owe $346,000 on a condo worth about $480k in Santa Monica, CA
- $85k in retirement
- $55k in mutual funds
- $23k in cash for emergencies
- Drive around a 2008 Toyota that is paid for
- I have a roommate that pays $1350/month
- No debt
- Networth of $289k
Since I don't really define middle class as just money, here are some other things about me:
- Own a dog, never married or no kids
- Undergraduate degree at a State school
- Wear a $400 watch and wear Banana Republic
- Most friends have undergrad or Master degree
How can one go from middle class to upper middle class just based on were they live....
The definitions of middle class and upper middle class are focused more on their professions,values, income and wealth.
Its not like "Oh you live in manhattan as a corporate marketer, your middle class bud, but that other corporate marketer in Dallas Tx now he is upper middle have you seen his HOSUE!!!!!!!" This is not how you define classes.
Right^^ I agree. People making a lot of $$ in big cities and high cost of living areas are not automatically "upper class" they might possibly, eventually become part of the upper class. But most are just high-earning professionals. They might live more lavishly in certain parts of the country vs others, but they are still middle class or upper middle class. I don't think "upper class" is a bad thing, I just don't consider every person who has a higher income than the average American to be "upper class." Upper income, sure. Upper class, no.
The definitions of the various "social classes" are BROAD! One doesn't just jump from class to class with every move or job change. Just like a poor, uneducated person who wins the lottery isn't instantly an upper class socialite.
How can one go from middle class to upper middle class just based on were they live....
The definitions of middle class and upper middle class are focused more on their professions,values, income and wealth.
Its not like "Oh you live in manhattan as a corporate marketer, your middle class bud, but that other corporate marketer in Dallas Tx now he is upper middle have you seen his HOSUE!!!!!!!" This is not how you define classes.
how ?
as the ny times said in their study :
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 low income public housing.
Last edited by mathjak107; 04-26-2016 at 03:23 AM..
The lower class was edged out of Manhattan long ago. The middle class disappearing there is a more recent development, and goes to show how screwed up it is there.
Places like Manhattan and Beverly Hills are the exception, not the norm. Thays why there aren't articles like this for all over the country. Just affluent places (aka places only the wealthiest of Americans can afford).
here in new york we live a middle class lifestyle but stick us in cheapsville and we may be rich . just medical insurance , and our long term care insurance when combined with our rent is 45k alone and that is in a rent stabilized building in queens not even manhattan . .
but when we were thinking at one time of relocating to where we had a home in the pocono's we figured out we needed about 1/3 less income . but salary's were less then 1/2 for my industry so we had a better deal here .
in fact we are glad we stayed because being retired our social security is based on the higher new york salary's . now if we decide to relocate we are way ahead of the locals .
Last edited by mathjak107; 04-26-2016 at 07:51 AM..
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