What Salary is Lower, Middle, Upper Class ? (pay, rate, Arizona)

[Milwaukee City]

Depends on what you tie in to the South.

Obviously! Atlanta is a lot different than 100miles of ATL. This goes without saying.

[GeminiGal]

Originally Posted by Milwaukee City

Obviously! Atlanta is a lot different than 100miles of ATL. This goes without saying.

Suburban ATL and ATL "proper" can have quite drastic COL comparisons as well.

Oh, and I think I just posted on your personal finance thread as well - you are a hoot.

[Humboldt1]

For Chicago for single person (double for family of 4):

0-20,000 lower class

20-50,000 lower middle class

50-100,000 middle class

100,000-200,000 upper middle class

200,000-500,000, lower upper class

500,000 +, upper class

For outlying suburbs you can maybe discount this by 25%.

[DonnaReed]

Originally Posted by Randomdude

Thats a cool show. To answer your question he worked as a foreman on a loading dock for most of the show, and eventually bought Kelsy's bar.

Yes, they lived in Astoria.

Those were the daaaaays...

[ivanabacowboy]

I think my list would work well for the plain states and the south and some desert southwest.

Not in this piece of the desert southwest. For 2007 (most recent stats I could find) median income for my zip was well over $100K.

[GregW]

Could one of you express these statistics in terms of percentiles of local income? Or provide a link that does.

[texdav]

I always think that middle class rather than middle income or median income is based on a lifstyle.That lifestyle changes from time to time. Just as the income it takes to live that style is different from region to region.my father and mothers income was upper midlle class but they spent like most middle class families at the time. Lifestyle than was very diiferent in any class. For example we went to Pennsylvannia every year to visit relatives from texas ;a three day drive then. We often eat lunch at a park of sandwiches my mother made. For supper you eat in local owned cafes as there were no big restaurnts or chains in most towns. The ones there were were too expensive except for special occasions just like where we lived. You stayed in a small motel or travel court.You paid cash or used travelers checks for everything because their were no credit cards for middle class. American express was the first I remember and they charged a fee ;you paid in full monthly and it had income requirements. My father quialfied but he could not see paying for one.So what is middle class just changes with the times and the old middle class lifestyle is common now days IMO.If you could afford a home;a car and had enough food to eat;bascially you were middle class.

[neil0311]

It also depends on how many children you have. Making 200K in the northeast, supporting a family of 5 (wife and 3 children) certainly doesn't make you "upper class."

[NYMD67]

Originally Posted by DonnaReed

Not for NY. Those numbers are quite low.

My take:

$30,000 wouldn't make lower middle class. I'd consider that low-income.

Your Upper Middle Class ($60,000 to $100,000) is closer to lower middle class or fairly equivalent to what we call "working class".

Your salary for Upper middle class $100,000 I'd consider the low end of middle class.

And upper middle class, I consider $200,000 or $250,000 to $500,000.

Depends on where in NY you are talking about... I assume this is pertaining to NYC? and not Western,NY.

[mbuszu]

Ultimately I think creating a specific and relevant definition of middle class (or other class) incomes isn't possible with all the variables that exist in any dialogue's context.

"Middle Class" as a label I use when discussing US loss of white collar jobs to offshore outsourcing means individual occupation of $50k-140k annual income.

In the context of political discussions I remember thinking that McCain was way out of touch when in one speech he described middle class as people who earned about $250k per year.

When I look in the context of my hometown, the cost of living is so small here that I have friends with no college education who earn perhaps $13.00/hr working for the city but because their spouse also works full-time for a similar amount of money, and because they are rather thrifty (and I might add also looking forward to getting a pension upon retirement), they have a house, two cars, a lake property, and he's a member in weekly golf and bowling leagues. They actually live a pretty good life and have even raised two children up through adulthood.

If there's one thing I've learned over my lifetime, it seems like money can buy a lot of things, but it doesn't necessarily buy happiness. Yes a cliche, but one I'm learning actually makes sense. A life partner you consider a best friend, a job which is perceived as secure (even when very low paying), and close friends go a lot farther than having a lot of wealth when looking at the happiness equation.

Right now I see so much stress among my friends and family regarding the economy, their jobs, and projections for their retirement savings, it is easy to see why some are depressed. Lower, Middle, Upper Class, etc, income mean nothing if you don't have the above things and if you don't live within your means whatever amount of money you have.