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This. Upper-class means being able to, if you so chose, live the lifestyle of the middle class without either working or eating into inflation-adjusted assets.
More concretely and assuming a ~3% safe draw-down rate (in a combination of cash and imputed rent), this means a minimum of about $2 million dollars * sqrt(family size), give or take.
I find it fascinating that Americans claim a strong work ethic while affording its highest class labels to those who have the least need to work.
This is sort of my Pacific Northwest standard. For folks in California or New York, it's probably a bit different. And for folks in lower COL areas, it may also be somewhat different.
Where the heck did you get that $100k is upper class? $100k is still middle class. We make twice that and are nowhere near upper class.
Closer to $400k is upper class. At $100k you've not even made it to upper middle class yet.
Bill Gates isn't just merely "upper class", he's part of a very small group of elite ruling class that (literally) owns this country.
Agreed. I'd go a step further and say he's a frontman for even richer and more powerful people whose names are never seen or heard in the mainstream media.
Where the heck did you get that $100k is upper class? $100k is still middle class. We make twice that and are nowhere near upper class.
Closer to $400k is upper class. At $100k you've not even made it to upper middle class yet.
if all we had was 100k pretax to live on a year we would not have retired ,forget about living the high life here in ny . i would need to have little enough income that the 22k a year we spent on health insurance and long term care insurance with no employer subsidy in after tax dollars would be paid for by the tax payers .
after rent , taxes and insurance that eats up more than 1/2 the income . that certainly is not even a middle class lifestyle here without it being a struggle and watching every expense. .
Last edited by mathjak107; 04-23-2017 at 02:49 AM..
Where the heck did you get that $100k is upper class? $100k is still middle class. We make twice that and are nowhere near upper class.
Closer to $400k is upper class. At $100k you've not even made it to upper middle class yet.
I would say for people still working and/or have not accumulated enough wealth to simply live off their investments (a little nebulous...you could technically be living in an RV camper down by the river and be "living off your investments" but most people would not consider that an "upper class" existence), breaking into the top 1% of all wage earners would be the threshold for upper class. That number changes all the time but it is somewhere in the $400-450k/yr right now so that was a pretty good guess. The threshold between upper class and classes above that are harder to pin down because they apply to so few people and you get into really bizarre economics that just don't apply to normal people. I would say if you're wealthy enough to be on the Forbes 400 list that you're comfortably in the elite ruling class. To make that list you have to have a net worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5B. Obviously there's a lot of space between that and somebody making $450,000 a year.
Bill Gates was not raised upper class. He grew up knowing he was going to have to work for a living, attended public schools, etc. What was Melinda's upbringing? That will contribute to the mindset of their children.
In my view upper class is a set of values and approach to life as much as income and wealth.
Upper Class is a measurement of wealth, not income. The way I'd define it, Upper Class means you have accrued enough wealth to live an upper middle class lifestyle without needing to work.
If your financial world ends abruptly if you get fired from your $250K job, you're not upper class. You're upper middle class with a savings rate problem.
This. Upper-class means being able to, if you so chose, live the lifestyle of the middle class without either working or eating into inflation-adjusted assets.
More concretely and assuming a ~3% safe draw-down rate (in a combination of cash and imputed rent), this means a minimum of about $2 million dollars * sqrt(family size), give or take.
I think this is part of the definition of upper class in terms of income. I'm referring to individual income only since that is what the thread asked. More specifically, anyone who in a normal COL area makeing at least $100K in passive income can technically be considered upper class since he is literally doing nothing to earn an income that puts him in the top 8% of income earners.
The other definition would would be anyone who works and makes $250K or more. As per the latest data released by the SSA, $250K puts you in the 1% in terms of individual income. If you do not fit either of the above you are not part of the upper class. If we throw in net worth, then the answer becomes even more complicated.
Quote:
Originally Posted by freemkt
I find it fascinating that Americans claim a strong work ethic while affording its highest class labels to those who have the least need to work.
How is that "fascinating?" There is only a small minority of people who have high passive income from an inheritance/trust fund or something involving luck like the lottery. Everyone else who is at that level worked very hard to get to a point where they barely have to work. So I fail to see the point you are trying to make.
Bill Gates isn't just merely "upper class", he's part of a very small group of elite ruling class that (literally) owns this country.
I picked Bill Gates as the easy example. If I had mentioned as an example of an upper class person as someone I know personally who worked his butt off, got to $30 million in net worth by the time he was 50, and then dropped out of earning a paycheck to go play on his own ranch in Montana, living quite well off his investment income, how many would call shenanigans on me?
I still stand by my point - the upper class is defined by wealth, not income.
Why else did someone coin the term 'wage slave'?
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