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You do realize that median means that, half make more and half make less (or atleast a good portion still make more). You act like the median incomes means that is the top of the top, and nobody makes more than that.
How many times to I have to repeat the word median? Can you really, in good faith, accuse me of not understanding what a median is after having such a long discussion on this? If anyone in this discussion has a fundamental misunderstanding of income statistics in this discussion, it is most certainly not I (or bmwguydc, for that matter).
Rent control is immaterial because a median is a median no matter who is included in it, and this includes people on rent control and billionaires alike. I am quoting median statistics, not mean statistics, which tend to skew the data.
How many times to I have to repeat the word median? Can you really, in good faith, accuse me of not understanding what a median is after having such a long discussion on this? If anyone in this discussion has a fundamental misunderstanding of income statistics in this discussion, it is most certainly not I (or bmwguydc, for that matter).
Rent control is immaterial because those people are counted into the median. And so are billionaires! I am quoting median statistics, not mean statistics, which tend to skew the data.
I don't think you do UNDERSTAND. If you got people living in 'affluent' nabes that are living in 'rent controlled' apts, they will LOWER the median income. Chances are, those people's wages are way lower than the nabes average. What is so hard to understand about this?
Go and throw up a bunch of section 8 or housing projects anywhere in America that is considered to be be an affluent nabe, guess what, it will LOWER the 'median income stats' that you love to go by so much.
You need to think outside the box more, everything on paper can be scewed.
I don't think you do UNDERSTAND. If you got people living in 'affluent' nabes that are living in 'rent controlled' apts, they will LOWER the median income. Chances are, those people's wages are way lower than the nabes average. What is so hard to understand about this?
Go and throw up a bunch of section 8 or housing projects anywhere in America that is considered to be be an affluent nabe, guess what, it will LOWER the 'median income stats' that you love to go by so much.
You need to think outside the box more, everything on paper can be scewed.
Re-read my post. EVERYONE is included in a median. People living with rent control and billionaires alike. It's not only misleading - but also statistically inaccurate - to not count these people with lower incomes in the statistics. It would be like me saying "let's exclude the billionaires. There are too many of them and they raise the median too much." It's an unfair manipulation of the numbers to not count everyone. After all, socieconomic class is based on your income compared with that of everyone else.
Re-read my post. EVERYONE is included in a median. People living with rent control and billionaires alike. It's not only misleading - but also statistically inaccurate - to not count these people with lower incomes in the statistics. It would be like me saying "let's exclude the billionaires. There are too many of them and they raise the median too much." It's an unfair manipulation of the numbers to not count everyone. After all, socieconomic class is based on your income compared with that of everyone else.
For some reason you don't get the point. The LOWER wage earner's are LOWERING 'those' stats. The "working poor" of course is going to outnumber 6 firgure salary earners. Nobody on here is denying that, certainly not me. But you in turn, translate this to make your point that 160 grand a year is "upper middle class".
If EVERY 100 grand a year job in America disappeared tommorow, but all the prices of realestate, food, gas cars, etc remained the same, would you then say that ANYBODY making 100 grand a year on Thursday would be rich? No, you couldn't. Cause a 100 grand a year job can ONLY pay for so much.
You are hung up on the amount that someone earns a year, more than the ACTUAL 'purchasing power' that is provides. You really need to think about what I just said here. You really are confusing the two wage class'es. Look how much someone has to make in Mannhattan just to have their own decent 1 bedroom apt (without a roommate).
Miles - please tell me you don't agree having lived her all this time that 160K will allow what is thought to be an upper middle class lifestyle? Say it ain't so - LOL
You are hung up on the amount that someone earns a year, more than the ACTUAL 'purchasing power' that is provides.
It took you this long to realize that, in the context of this discussion, I don't care about purchasing power in a given MSA? I explicitly stated this several times. In a discussion about socioeconomic class, how much you earn and how you earn that money is relevant; purchasing parity between MSA's (in my opinion) is not relevant. If you don't like what your upper middle class $120,000 salary buys you in Manhattan, move to Pittsburgh/Atlanta/Denver/wherever where you can make yourself "feel" more affluent. Your socioeconomic class, however, won't change - it doesn't matter if you live in a tiny studio or a sprawling McMansion, you would still be upper middle class. You have the OPTION of moving and you have the OPTION of consuming your money however you'd like; you can't change your class by these decisions. Again, I strongly disagree with the notion that your class changes as you move between MSA's with a constant income.
Even if I were to accept the premise that class distinctions should vary between MSA's (which I reject), some of your class distinctions are still unreasonable, even when applied to the NYC metro area alone.
Here is list of some of the most affluent municipalities/towns in the NYC metro area and their respective median household incomes. Under some of your definitions, these would be "middle" class towns... and "upper middle" class and "upper" class towns literally would not exist!
Scarsdale: $182,792
Bronxville: $144,940
Darien: $160,274
New Canaan: $178,651
Westport: $147,391
Alpine: $130,740
Upper Saddle River: $127,635
Woodcliff Lake: $123,022
Millburn (includes Short Hills): $130,848
Westfield: $120,978
Old Brookville: $133,192
Garden City: $142,788
East Hills: $149,796
As for the most affluent Manhattan zipcodes, there are several with median household income of $100,000+, but almost none with median household income of $200,000+. Most tracts below 96th Street have median household incomes of $100,000 and below, and would be considered "middle class" (or below!) by some of you.
Want to know the median household income within a 1 mile radius of East 62nd Street (located in 10065, one of the most coveted zip codes in all of the city) in the Upper East Side? $105,601. Even the mean household income (which allows billionaire and mega millionaire households to skew the data) barely cracks $200,000!
I don't recall referring to median incomes, which is a different measure. I was speaking in terms of plotting HHIs to determine cutoff points for class distinctions that are referenced to an MSA. That's a different aspect than definining a municipality by median income and stating that it represents a class distinction, since it's the proportion of households that make up various classes that will tend to skew data.
Take Scarsdale, there is a higher proportion of upper middle class and wealthy households in the village/town, which is why the median is higher. All the median references is the degree to which the prevailing income level in the defined area is higher/lower than neighboring areas. There are middle class people in Scarsdale, with relatively small houses, which contrasts with with upper middle class and wealthy areas of the village. If one were to look at an income distribution for Scarsdale, the propoprtion of households defined as upper middle class and wealthy would tend to be higher.
But, the definitions for class come from the income distribution from the MSA, reflecting the standard of living afforded by a middle, upper middle, or wealthy class HHI. So, the prevailing trend in Scarsdale might be upper middle class, but one cannot presume that every household within the community is upper middle class.
Of course, I am invoking ceteris paribus with regard to social qualifications that can influence class distinction and focusing solely on the HHI as an accurate representation as to the definition of a particular household.
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