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It's easy, if you were fired today would you be ok for at least two or three months? If not you're working class/poor. A lot of people including my working class sister in law doesn't think she's working class because she has a little money left over after she pays her bills and has little less than a months worth of survival money in savings. She thinks that's not living paycheck to paycheck! She rents a house, still not working class on her eyes.
Meanwhile right wingers use the "I-phones in the ghetto" argument to explain poverty away in the States.
As Steinbeck said, American don't see themselves as workers but temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
It's easy, if you were fired today would you be ok for at least two or three months? If not you're working class/poor. A lot of people including my working class sister in law doesn't think she's working class because she has a little money left over after she pays her bills and has little less than a months worth of survival money in savings. She thinks that's not living paycheck to paycheck! She rents a house, still not working class on her eyes.
Meanwhile right wingers use the "I-phones in the ghetto" argument to explain poverty away in the States.
As Steinbeck said, American don't see themselves as workers but temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
2 or 3 months is checking account money. What about savings and investments? If you are truly middle class you can go for several years without working.
2 or 3 months is checking account money. What about savings and investments? If you are truly middle class you can go for several years without working.
That's what I am saying. True middle class and upper middle class people have ample savings and investments and can manage without work for several years. My father in law was extremely hurt during the real estate crash. He was in construction and now rarely bids but two jobs every six months or so if he's lucky. He still has plenty of money. Why? Because he was a small business man with plenty investments.
My sister in law rents a home in a middle class neighborhood and has a fairly nice truck. But she works and 11 dollar an hour job and her husband a 15 dollar an hour job. They live well, but with three kids and the bills, that doesn't leave them much. They still think they're middle class though. They live paycheck to paycheck but don't think so because they have some money little leftover to play with after bills. Their impression of living paycheck to paycheck means having hardly anything after bills. Just living to work/subsist.
To me middle class includes everyone who has to work for a living. Your paycheck can be big or it can be little but you need.
In the USA, the poor get welfare handouts and live very well but they don't earn their money, the rich can live off their investments or inheritance. The rest of us have to work and have income.
I think "working class" is an obsolete expression because it implies that wealthy people don't work.
Yes, some of those who work the longest and most stressful hours are high income but they also need a paycheck as much as the little guy. That term "working class" implies that only lower wage types need their incomes, that the others are all independently wealthy and could lose their jobs and be fine.
Middle class just means you must work for your living, if you want something it comes from having a job.
The independently wealthy might even choose to have a job but their lifestyle doesn't depend on it.
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