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That is not upper middle class unless there are no kids in the household. It does tend to irritate me to some degree when you lump together based on income without regard to household size. $80K/yr for a single individual with no children is very different from $80K/yr for a family of five!
$80K/yr for a family of five can actually be quite tight if it comes from both parents working full-time, and thus having to incur hefty childcare and commute costs and making it difficult to find time to cook.
Totally. I can live pretty well even on $50k as a single guy here in Indiana. If I was making that in SF, no way could I do a fraction of what I do now.
Maybe those people have a good savings and didn't need to save more? Where do they get the info anyway? How do they know these folks aren't saving? Isn't that information private? How do you know how many jars of money I have buried in the back field?
Maybe their taxes went up? The well off are the enemy now........
I'm extremely conservative when it comes to my money, mainly, due to the fact that I have ZERO relatives in this country to help me if anything bad happens to me.
I've paid cash for the last 3 cars that I bought, I don't have cable at home, I take my food to work... I only buy what I need
Thanks to this.... I have a huge rainy day fund.
Feels good... but then is funny to get the feeling that people think you are cheap, every now and then somebody makes a little sarcastic comment.
If I spend too much money people will whine, if I don't, people will whine.
So I'll just do whatever I want.
That is not upper middle class unless there are no kids in the household. It does tend to irritate me to some degree when you lump together based on income without regard to household size. $80K/yr for a single individual with no children is very different from $80K/yr for a family of five!
Quote:
Originally Posted by JasonF
Of course it matters how much that amount buys you. Otherwise you have a statistic that doesn't mean anything.
The term "upper middle class" loses all meaning when it's just a number. Upper middle class is not the same number in Manhattan as it is in Bumblescum Oklahoma or the Congo.
Quote:
Originally Posted by unthought_known
I completely agree. It's absurd to say "It doesn't matter how little that amount buys you in "some" areas of the country", when those areas of the country are where the majority of the $75-100k families are living.
I seriously hope none of you majored in economics. If you didn't I can understand you all making the above statements. If you did there are no excuses for the statements made above . You all are referring to the article in the context of microeconomics. The article is a study of MACROeconomics so it's irrelevant what you define as upper middle class (although you are correct in the sense of microeconomics) in specific areas of the USA. The article is referring to what the definition of upper middle class is in general in the USA. The only flaw with the article is their definition of what income level upper middle class in general starts at. However, a few renowned economists have differing opinions on that figure as well. So the article probably went by someone who defines it at a lower number.
Last edited by griffon652; 11-03-2014 at 12:22 PM..
So many people seem to be under the impression that, "well, if I made that much, I'd have no problem saving."
It's a lot different than one might think. You make a bit more, you want a few more vacations, live a little more comfortable, etc. etc. I've saved over $30,000 cash this year, yet I make around 90k more than what I did 4 or 5 years ago.
Not many people just double their income and think, "wow, I'm going to keep everything the same until I retire and just save the rest."
Most people say they will, but have also never been in that position.
I seriously hope none of you majored in economics. If you didn't I can understand you all making the above statements. If you did there are no excuses for the statements made above . You all are referring to the article in the context of microeconomics. The article is a study of MACROeconomics so it's irrelevant what you define as upper middle class (although you are correct in the sense of microeconomics) in specific areas of the USA. The article is referring to what the definition of upper middle class is in general in the USA. The only flaw with the article is their definition of what income level upper middle class in general starts at. However, a few renowned economists have differing opinions on that figure as well. So the article probably went by someone who defines it at a lower number.
If that is what the article is referring to, then what's the point of the article? It seems like an irrelevant article to me. If a household of 4 is making $75K/year in Manhattan, of course they're not going to be saving money. It would be significantly more relevant if they looked into people who are making good money for their location. The average household income in Manhattan is close to $70K, and very few people would consider $75K to be Upper Middle Class there.
If that family makes a good salary for the USA as a whole, then so what? You don't pay rent, bills, daycare, etc, based on country-wide averages. You pay based on where you live.
You titled this thread "Even the well off fail to plan for a rainy day". "Well off" is not based on national averages. It's based on where you are. For instance, I moved from San Francisco to North Carolina without taking a paycut. I'm more well off now than I was in SF, because my expenses dropped considerably.
So many people seem to be under the impression that, "well, if I made that much, I'd have no problem saving."
It's a lot different than one might think. You make a bit more, you want a few more vacations, live a little more comfortable, etc. etc. I've saved over $30,000 cash this year, yet I make around 90k more than what I did 4 or 5 years ago.
Not many people just double their income and think, "wow, I'm going to keep everything the same until I retire and just save the rest."
Most people say they will, but have also never been in that position.
Yup, exactly.
This is commonly seen in the medical profession where resident physicians (who make about 50k a year for 3-5 years) and then once they become full fledged physicians, their salaries most often triple or even quadruple than the prior year (50k - 300k).
So the lifestyle inflates with the bigger paycheck. Instead of that measly 3k monthly amount you're used to, you are now getting 15k-20k a month, and THAT is gonna take some tough discipline to keep from splurging all that cash away.
Most do. Many new docs go out and buy big houses and new German cars
This is commonly seen in the medical profession where resident physicians (who make about 50k a year for 3-5 years) and then once they become full fledged physicians, their salaries most often triple or even quadruple than the prior year (50k - 300k).
So the lifestyle inflates with the bigger paycheck. Instead of that measly 3k monthly amount you're used to, you are now getting 15k-20k a month, and THAT is gonna take some tough discipline to keep from splurging all that cash away.
Most do. Many new docs go out and buy big houses and new German cars
Most don't splurge it all away. Big houses and cars financed might be the norm. But when you're making $30K a month, a $10K\mo outlay is doable. And one can still save/invest.
11-03-2014, 06:50 PM
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n/a posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by griffon652
I seriously hope none of you majored in economics. If you didn't I can understand you all making the above statements. If you did there are no excuses for the statements made above . You all are referring to the article in the context of microeconomics. The article is a study of MACROeconomics so it's irrelevant what you define as upper middle class (although you are correct in the sense of microeconomics) in specific areas of the USA. The article is referring to what the definition of upper middle class is in general in the USA. The only flaw with the article is their definition of what income level upper middle class in general starts at. However, a few renowned economists have differing opinions on that figure as well. So the article probably went by someone who defines it at a lower number.
You don't need an econ degree to understand that statistics like this are often meaningless. If the claim is that people who earn 75-100k aren't saving, then fine. But to then call all those people upper middle class is completely silly.
Quote:
It seems like an irrelevant article to me.
It is irrelevant. It lumps people into a meaningless group and then tries to say something about that group. It may be factually accurate, but it's completely irrelevant and doesn't actually convey any useful information.
So many people seem to be under the impression that, "well, if I made that much, I'd have no problem saving."
It's a lot different than one might think. You make a bit more, you want a few more vacations, live a little more comfortable, etc. etc. I've saved over $30,000 cash this year, yet I make around 90k more than what I did 4 or 5 years ago.
Not many people just double their income and think, "wow, I'm going to keep everything the same until I retire and just save the rest."
Most people say they will, but have also never been in that position.
My wife and I went from 120-130k annual income to 200-220k now and we didn't change our lifestyle. It's certainly not the norm and other people question why we haven't purchased new cars or a bigger house it pretty comical other's expectations. If you can vault income and maintain expenses that where real wealth can start building
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. You all are referring to the article in the context of microeconomics. The article is a study of MACROeconomics so it's irrelevant what you define as upper middle class (although you are correct in the sense of microeconomics) in specific areas of the USA. The article is referring to what the definition of upper middle class is in general in the USA. The only flaw with the article is their definition of what income level upper middle class in general starts at. However, a few renowned economists have differing opinions on that figure as well. So the article probably went by someone who defines it at a lower number.
