Lots of people in here fighting about what "working class" means. If you have to work to survive (other than minor household chores), you're working class. If you have enough money, or assets that you get dividends from or can borrow against, or passive income so you don't need a regular employment then you probably aren't working class.
Working Poor isn't as common and definition varies a lot.
If I dialed back everything, I could probably live a few years off my savings/investments, and selling some stuff. But I would be just burning trough my money, and I would need to go back to work eventually. So I’m still working class, even if I’m in a luckier situation than most people.
There really isn't. Each group has a wider pay rate than maybe is implied, but functionally, there isn't a role in capitalism between them. Wealthy people want us to think there is a wide range of classes so we argue with each other instead of cooperating against them.
There is a class in between though. Those who can't stop working and live on capital alone, but still have enough leeway to try and an asset that'll improve their financial status. For example:
Investing in higher education that can bring you higher salary. For the middle class it's a gamble - maybe you won't make it, or maybe you won't be able to get a job that justifies your degree - but that's categorically different from the rich who are pretty much guaranteed to graduate and get a good job using their connections (with the degree used as laundered merit) and from the poor who can't afford to invest the time (let alone the money) because their families will be in big trouble for several years if they don't work and bring income.
Buying a house. Not a problem for the rich, not a possibility for the poor, but for the middle class it's a huge thing - both in the effort it requires and the benefit of not having to rent (or being able to rent it to others)
Oh I think working poor is pretty easy to define. If you work full time (or equivalent at multiple jobs) and you're not able to pay your bills without government assistance then you're the working poor.
I’m not sure on the exact definition of working poor, but I’d say someone who works to make just barely enough to live (aka don’t need/get assistance) but don’t earn enough for more than that and saving for when necessary utilities like fridges break down is still working poor.
I don't know. I get that it seems like being poor and it's certainly a dangerous financial area that could make you poor. But if you're covering all your bases then I don't think we can say your poor.
I know it seems like splitting a hair but if we define it like that, in general terms, then people who are just financially irresponsible would also qualify, while someone making less then them would not. I'd probably put together a basket of required goods in an area, average rent, average grocery, healthcare, average utilities for X number bedrooms (i.e. kids), etc and set that as the standard you need to be able to cover and not be poor. That way if you're making more than those items added together we know you're actually doing alright and we can focus elsewhere.
In a less capitalist focused system I'd probably include funding vacations, pets, and retirement.
What I find interesting is how often statements like this that are trying to unify the working class (or whatever you end up calling it) just derails into semantics instead of actually people bringing out the pitchforks and shouting "eat the rich"
Amongst the little mice fighting under the table for crumbs falling from the cake being divided above, once in a while one finds a slightly larger crumb, proudly raises it over his head and shouts: "See?! The system woks!"
Hol up, you left your retirement fund in the hands of your employer? You didn't diversify and invest in the broader market? Most plans make you hold some for a period of time, every single plan offers a way to get out of being fully invested in one company. That's insane.
Employee stock purchase plans usually don't match, they just offer a 10-15% discount. I honestly have no idea what they're talking about. 401k isn't held by your employer, and ESPP doesn't match.
Ten shares per paycheck? Wow, that's an amazing benefit, assuming you can sell. That is basically doubling your money. The best one I've ever had was a 15% discount off the lower price between the start of the quarter and the end of the quarter. If the stock was moving upwards I'd hold it, and if it was moving downwards I'd just sell it immediately for the free 15%.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I've never heard of an employer that requires their 401k match to be invested in the company. Everywhere I or my wife has worked you could put it in any fund available with that 401k plan.
Even so, every company I've worked for allows withdrawals at various times for parts of the fund. I need to keep a certain % of mine in company stocks, I move the overflow asap into a different fund to protect myself.
If your retirement plan absolutely has to be locked into your employer, you have a rather large risk to yourself there and I'd potentially consider finding a new employer if I ended up there. Too many companies disappear to be comfortable with that.
Don't be fooled. It's billionaires against everyone else. Even multimillionaires are closer to the everyday person. The working class consists of two groups: those without disposable income (nominally those with "hours" in income), and those with some disposable income (days in income).
If they ain't got a "year" in income, their they're one of us.
How do you make your money? Do you need to make a wage? Or can you let your property (land, buildings, stocks, etc.) be your income?
The real amount doesn't matter, it's whether you have to work to live or not.
If you have to work, you are the working class. If you don't, you are the owner/capitalist class. But your analysis is still somewhat correct: millionaires and small business owners are closer to the working class than billionaires, it does still matter how they make it though.
I think I generally agree, yeah. There's something to be said too for if your money is made by owning or by maintaining. I don't give a shit about landlords who rent shit out and do nothing else, but I think building administrators who fix issues and handle maintenance are probably working class.
Comes back to what you were saying. Do you make money through labor, or through ownership?
It's generally considered safe to withdraw 4% of your nest egg each year. Someone with 2 million can support an 80k/year retirement.
The average multimillionaire is literally just any person with a six figure salary who has been saving for retirement and is nearing retirement. You basically can't retire without at least being a millionaire.
Yeah the big difference is now much it takes to amass that money. If we have a capitalist system, there's nothing wrong with workers saving money to retire with a few million.
That’s not the commonly accepted definition of working or middle class. Middle class has never meant “don’t have to work to live”.
In the U.S. the differences have always been defined by income level. Depending on the context, working class has also been used to mean someone working a blue collar non-salary job without a college degree.
I don’t think anyone has ever seriously defined a college educated person making over a quarter million a year “working class”.
Working and middle class by the American cultural standard (as in, defined solely by income bracket and working conditions) are ultimately useless designations meant to drive a wedge between the working class or proletariat as defined by marx; "individuals who sell their labour power for wages and who do not own the means of production"; those responsible for creating the wealth of a society.
The american concept of class is harmful because it groups together the working class members most vulnerable to exploitation; those earning the least and doing the hardest work for the longest hours; and pits them against the better off members of this very same class; those with more time, formal education, and expendable income; who might have more power and means to do legwork in organizing and uplifting the class as a whole through solidarity and collective action.
You are somewhat correct though, in that it would be difficult to make over 250k/yr without engaging in some sort of profit from capital ownership and/or labor exploitation. That person would become middle class and cease to be working class not because they made over an arbitrary dollar amount per year, however, or because they went to school in order to do so, but because they are earning profits from capital ownership and labor exploitation rather than solely those generated by their own work. Yet, by working for most of their living, they are still subject to many of the same conditions as the working class and would likely still benefit from solidarity with the working class.
The lower middle class or the petty (petite) bourgeoisie, "are smallowners who still work their own means of production, or owner-workers" (Adams and Sydie, p. 134). The characteristic of this class is that it does own some property, but not sufficient to have all work done by employees or workers. Members of this class must also work in order to survive, so they have a dual existence – as (small scale) property owners and as workers.
Capitalists are the owners of capital, purchasing and exploiting labour power, using the surplus value from employment of this labour power to accumulate or expand their capital. It is the ownership of capital and its use to exploit labour and expand capital that are key here. Being wealthy is, in itself, not sufficient to make one a capitalist. To be a capitalist or member of the bourgeoisie, the owner of a sum of money must be actively involved in capital accumulation, using this money to organize production, employ and exploit labour, and make the money self-expansive by using the surplus value to continue this cycle of capital accumulation.
Software and finance tech are both fields where one can make 300k/y without owning anything. Company stock I guess is technically owning a piece of the means of production, but not to a degree that they can really make change to the company. I would argue additionally that owning some index funds does not kick one out of the working class.
For that amount of money, they'd be lucky to get a couple hundred in dividends each month. I used to work for a company that gave dividends, and their reasoning for laying people off instead of touching the dividend was that a lot of people relied on the dividend to make ends meet.
A coworker of mine did the math, and you'd need to have millions invested in the stock to get a dividend you could actually live on. The fact of the matter is that working class goes up to over 1 million. You have to be born rich or be an immoral businessman like Gates or Bezos to live off just investments.
Even a lot of celebrities don't qualify! You had John Boyega protesting with people because even most actors aren't that rich. It's why Hollywood tends liberal instead of conservative.
Then your coworker fucked up the math. Once you get about 1.8M in stocks you can get around 80k in dividends. 200,000 a year (2/3rds a 300,000 take home) would reach 1.8M in about 9 years.
This is how people retire in their late 30's (or earlier if they got handed that kind of pay via nepotism/networking)
Getting a million dollars a year and calling yourself working class is fucking ridiculous. At that point you have so much access to assets that if you don't create a self sustaining income it's nobody's fault but your own.
Our company has a 3.88% dividend rate, and when things were okay and stock price was like $60. That's $2.328 annually from one stock when things are mediocre, and at the time, it was worse than mediocre. For that annual dividend, you'd need to own roughly 34.4k stock, or $2M worth, to make $80k a year.
Your math on take home pay doesn't check out. Someone making $300k is looking at like $60k in income tax, plus $60k in housing if they follow the 20%ish rule there. If they're making $300k they're probably in a high cost of living area, so food and gas and electricity are going to add up too, not to mention insurance. If they're lucky, they'll put away $100k, tops, but only after their savings cover 3 months of expenses. Long story short, they might have enough for $80k a year after 20 years of intense saving from a $300k a year job. They'll probably need closer to $150k, frankly
My coworkers and I were upper middle class at $100k or so a year, and I lived significantly below my means. I was able to put away roughly 40k a year at best. It would've taken me 50 years to buy enough stock.
If you're making $300k a year single, you're almost definitely not able to put $200k away into investments each year unless you have significant expenses covered through other means.
I don't have to invest in your company dude. And assuming we're not talking about take home pay in general finance stuff is just ridiculous.
If you want to talk about 300k before taxes though then let's do that. Your take home will be around 182k in California, (more in other states). You can easily live off 70k, leaving 110k for early retirement savings. So it takes about 18 years instead of about 10 years with a 300k take home.
The biggest mistake people make is living larger instead of saving larger.
I think 150k (ish) in my city would be solidly middle class. You could buy a house/car/retire on that.
I'm in a super weird spot, because I make good enough money that I have savings to support me after job loss, and I make enough money that I don't really have to worry about my grocery bill (within reason). Heck, there's even a chance that I'll be able to have a decent retirement.
But a house? Not happening. New car? No chance. Even eating out every week isn't viable. And even what I have is only because I have a pretty sweet rent situation.
That's ridiculous. Middle class is absolutely part of the working class. It starts around 70k for a single income in a rural area. And 120k for double income in a high cost area.
Your cost for a rural house is way off. It's more like 200k in the current market. Mine was less.
I'm the one you're asking about - "who in those income brackets can afford their house, car, and vacation?" because I'm in that income bracket and and able to afford it all. I could buy a car with the money in my checking account, own my house, and take vacations on occasion.
I hope you didn't take that question as an insult. I didn't mean it to be. It just seemed so similar to the rants my teachers would go on when someone pissed them off.
That's an American point of view. Here in Britain there are pretty much only two main classes: aristocracy and dirty peasants. Doesn't matter what you do and how rich you are, if your ancestors didn't sit at the round table - you're a peasant.
*Upper working class (what the media likes calling the middle class)
It's useful, because it more accurately matches what the rest of the world means when they say "middle class". It's always weird watching British panel shows and the like when I hear someone refer to someone as being "so middle class" as a synonym for "so posh". Because here, it has basically the opposite meaning.
I'm from the UK and there are 3 classes. The Upper, middle, and lower. The 4th is not some bizarre difference between the landed gentry and the otherwise rich.
Upper class don't need to worry about money. You get some odd situations where they have it all tied up in some assets they don't want to sell but ultimately that's a choice.
Middle class can afford some luxuries. I had sailing as a hobby and classical music training as well as my own instrument to play, that's where a cultural element comes in. If the working class can't afford it, it's "posh". I didn't go to a private school requiring fees but it wasn't impossible financially if my parents made that choice.
Working class. Earn enough to just about survive. Cannot afford extras or luxuries. Hobbies are cheap. Gonto the local field and play football. The pub and play pool. Video games and TV. If music is your thing, it's the guitar because there's loads of those and skip the lessons, just learn off YouTube.
Unemployed and homeless fall below this. We've been developing a larger 4th underclass since 2010 and the dismantling of the social safety net. What was a tiny minority of the population has grown and may justifiably be called a class now.
But we each have a class reality and a cultural class.
I was born middle class. I experienced life as someone who was middle class. I financially dipped down into working class and experienced that as an adult.
So my cultural references and how people view my accent and habits are a bit of a mix. I'll appear posh to some and working class to others.
Some identify strongly with their class because ultimately it is about shared experience. You'll have someone who's managed to get rich still calling themselves working class. They might feel that way but the tragedy is other working class people they know will see the effect of joining the upper class. They'll get treated differently and eventually feel less working class. Those born into the upper class will still treat them differently because not having been brought up upper class, they have some working class mannerisms and references.
Hence the Yorkshireman sketch by Monty Python. Former working class men, now upper class. Discussing the old days.
TLDR: everyone really has 3 classes. The one they are in financially, the one they identify with personally, and the one others identify them as being in. Those 3 might match or might not.
Edit: as a bonus you can be a "class traitor". As an example Lord Alan Sugar grew up working class. Went from running market stalls to an electronics company to the UKs example of the apprentice. He was a Labour party supporter and the left leaning Labour party out him into the Lord's.
Even while a Lord some would call him working class because of his roots.
Then he flew back to the UK in order to vote through a right wing bill cutting benefits for working class people and the disabled. He's now a class traitor.
I don't think most people would restrict "middle class" to only those who can live off their investments.
We have a much more complicated relationship with class in the UK which is not well reflected by the language we use, that's certainly true. We often determine what class someone "is" by their social status and cultural interests moreso than the Marxist way. I read an article some time ago which identified 7 classes separated both by cultural and economic capital... This is closer to the reality in the UK imo.
I don't think that's true. There's definitely the three classes, but many people believe they're middle class when they're not.
It's basically impossible to become upper class. I think I read somewhere that it takes 3 or 4 successive generations at somewhere like Eton to be considered upper class.
Middle class was originally defined as a class that gets at least some significant percent of their income from stocks bonds and other investments. I'm willing to bet that ain't you.
Is this a definition common in a specific country outside the U.S.? I see this claim in multiple places in the thread, but that's not how it has been historically defined in the U.S. or in France where the term originated. Middle class in the original context evolved out of the mercantile class that traded goods in cities - neither aristocrat nor serf - during the middle ages. That original definition had nothing to do with investments.
Does it not? Maybe the definition of investments has expanded to include more abstract things like stock in a company, but still a merchant needs to invest in goods that they then sell. Which now that i think about it is also called stock...
I'm a couple decades under 50 and was making like 30-40k up until a couple years ago (and about double that last year) and I expect my retirement accounts average annual growth to be more than 1/3rd of my annual spending.
Sure. I wasn't implying otherwise. But a definition of middle class that considering someone who makes twice my income in my local area non-middle-class but considers me middle class would seem non-intuitive at best when my retirement accounts have been entirely self-funded (granted, I can only afford to do that because I haven't needed to go into debt, a luxury many don't have.
That's a definition of "working class" but not generally what people outside certain academic contexts mean when they say that phrase; using the more common definition does not indicate "confusion about your class status."
As with many terms describing social class, working class is defined and used in many different ways. One definition, used by many socialists, is that the working class includes all those who have nothing to sell but their labour. These people used to be referred to as the proletariat. In that sense, the working class today includes both white and blue-collar workers, manual and menial workers of all types, excluding only individuals who derive their livelihood from business ownership and the labour of others.
Emphasis mine. I'm not sure how the OP differs in this definition. If you HAVE to work to survive, you aren't earning a livelihood from ownership and the labor of others (passive income).
So the poor CEO making a few million a year who is only selling his labor to the company, is working class. The guy who retired at 70 is upper class because he's living off his investments
Yeah, insisting on using a nonstandard definition exclusive to a tiny minority of speakers, so that you can then talk past your interlocutor, wasting both of your time until they finally realize you're intentionally being an uncooperative speaker, makes way more sense. 🙄
I guess at least this way you get to feel a smug, undeserved sense of superiority in the process though, so who's to say which way is really better.
My point is that Joe Blow off the streets who might be seeing the OP's tweet doesn't know (or care) that there's another, more niche definition - Joe Blow only knows "working class" as mainly people doing manual or unskilled labor (another term I see this problem with all too often), and "working poor" as the part of that class subsisting around or below poverty level.
So, if you're trying to get Joe Blow off the street (or pretty much any other regular person, for that matter) to understand, agree with, and support you, saying things that don't make sense, like "80% of Americans are working poor" or "unskilled labor doesn't exist", and then insisting that you're right when he objects, is only going to cause misunderstanding, and Joe probably does not care enough to learn the nonstandard definitions you think are better for whatever reason.
This isn't directed at you, but sometimes it's really not surprising that conservatives do so much better than socialists/communists at attracting working-class people to their cause, if only because they don't require a four-year bachelor's in the terminology of niche political theory to have a basic conversation with them.
No, I've never taken a debate class, and I have no idea what adjectives you're talking about.
But, it seems that making an honest effort to "drop the 5 dollar words" and engage with you here was a mistake, as you seem determined to miss the point, so I won't waste my time any longer trying to make sure you understand what the heck I'm talkin bout yo.
I can afford to miss a paycheck. In fact, I'm currently planning for a four month stretch where I'll need to live off of savings. Thinking that I, with my 11 year old honda fit, 10 year old PC, and my 2 roommates, am in the top 20% of this stat is very alarming.
Man, if I could split my living expenses with TWO other people? 🤤 Currently I'm paying them for 2 kids and a husband (who recently wrecked our only car).
I almost quit my job after Christmas because they canceled my holiday time off without any work for me to do. I was just going to live off of savings while looking for a job, but the job market is so weird right now I decided to power through it
I work paycheck to paycheck but if I told people how much I made and called myself poor I'd probably anger people. I just make sure that I do what's in my power to keep myself comfortable now, even if that means overspending on luxuries
I stress quite quickly so I spend money to avoid stress. Stuff like cooking, cleaning, variable bills I am happy to pay a premium on so they don't affect my everyday
I'm not condoning how I live but I've been on both ends of the spectrum and the fact I transitioned from one to the other should give some indication of how well it went.
She's probably American and talking about America. We shouldn't have to qualify every single thing we say, if it doesn't apply to you then it doesn't apply. It's certainly worthwhile to the discussion to add your own experiences in places it doesn't apply, but just pointing out that she didn't explicitly say she's talking about America (even though she very nearly did) isn't super relevant.
Real talk, I suspect there are a number of contributing factors to that phenomenon that have very little to do with John American sharing a twitter screenshot with Lemmy. I mean, Americans are just online, talking to each other. If we're that overwhelming, I wouldn't point any fingers at normal american people.
Americans dominate the English speaking Internet, because there are more English speakers. There are sites in German or Hindi that have almost never used by Americans.
no one is stopping you. Just like no one is stopping an American posting American stuff, you can probably safely assume that not everything posted online is about you or to you directly. Feel free to go about your day posting what you want to. You don’t need an American’s or really anyone’s permission to do so. They didn’t ask your permission to post. Nor should they have to.
I disagree. You are NOT poor just because you end up without money at the months end.
My brother is an perfect example. He earns A TON of cash every month. Nearly as much as I, my fiance, my Dad and Mum combined.
And still he lives from payday to payday without any reserves. Because he can not handle money.
He eats in restaurants at least ten times a week. At least twice in highest luxury restaurants. He has leased four different cars in three years, none less than €2000 per month. Lifes in an absurdetly huge penthouse. Buys his girl friend so much bullshit she gave me a €5.000 collier because she ran out of space and I drove her home after parties a couple of times. But still he asked Pa and me several times for fuel money at the end of the month.
See, if he would live like I do he could live two years from one months earnings.
So you think I am poor I guess?
Nope. I own a huge plot of land. I am going to build my own house and I am talking about a nice big house made from stone at the gates of Munich where land is expensive and houses are even more expensive. I have paid generous amounts of pension insurance. If I would stop working in five years when I am 35 I would be a made girl and could live from my savings although on a low level.
So he can absolutely afford to miss at least one paycheck, he just doesn't want to. That's already covered in the image. "You can't afford to miss a paycheck".
This is really irrelevant. He obviously can miss a paycheck. He is rich, so if he says "I'll pay you next month" to anyone, they go "sure". Even if that doesn't work, he can just sell a piece of jewelry. This is just an elaborate version of the "avocado toast" trope.
If that is how he spends than he can clearly afford to miss a paycheck. Its not the same as having spend it all.
When you cant ask the landlord to pay rent next month because you already had to ask last month is when you cant afford to miss it.
It would really suck for your borther and he wont keep up the lifestyle but at the end of that month when the next paycheck does arrive he is going to be just fine.
Multiple restaurants in a week sounds like he can afford to let someone else manage his money and still have enough pocketmoney for his vices. He should Look into it.
You have no idea how hard it is to get rid of an unwilling renter as a landlord in Germany. In the event of rent arrears of two months' rent or more, the landlord can terminate the lease without notice. Only then can he or she file an action for eviction which can take another two to four months. And if the tenant only pays the arrears for one month, the cycle starts all over again. I have seen people dragging this out for five years and when leaving the premise they left behind a battlefield. And absurdetly I am not even allowed to burn or sell their shit because it is still their properties so I have to store it, show it to a bailiff for evaluation, sell the few things worth anything, then store it for another two years and only then I am legally allowed to burn it.
(And yes, my brother missed his rent a couple of times but always caught up after one or two months. Given how expensive rents in Germany are we are not talking about small sums. A 1960th 84m² apartment in a suburb is around €1500, a 1870th 70m² apartment in the centre of munich is around €3500 per month. The penthouse my brother lives in... just short of five digits. If he ever gets seriously sick he will go broke within two months and will take decades to pay of the debts. Again, he has no long term insurrances, no savings, nothing at all. And social wellfare and social health care of a couple of €100 will only bring him so far...)
I don’t want to dismiss the challenges and difficulties you speak off. All experiences are valid and personal. Yet i feel like there is a disconnect here where i don't think you gravity of what is meant with not being able to afford.
I don't live in Germany but just the fact that there is social wellfard and that you speak of him still having a couple of hundred says plenty of the privileges compared to the people this post is actually all above who may not even have that money after working. (Not everyone on the globe is granted fair and legal Working conditions and rights)
I assume with renter protections and your brother having a a good job missing a payment for him can be solved with an annoying call to the landlord who can reasonably expect that your brother has the means to make enough money.
For people who love in slums, who can barely
Afford their home ij the slum when they do have money and sometimes need to chose between heat, food and rent the relation with the landlord who is routinely dealing with tenants who dont have the means to pay.
Also, it sounds like you care about your brother and you yourself ard doing reasonably well. Imagine that he does end up jobless with no home or food. Would you or some other family not help him out? Poverty is a systematic issue, there are exceptions but most poor families come from poor families. If they end up on the street and there is no wellfare that cares they and their kids may just die on the street.
That is the distinction that i believe should
Be made here when we talk about not being able to afford. Its nog about hardship or financial ruin.
Its about the difference between barely surviving and not surviving.
I must confess, currently I am not even living on my own. A storm in 2019 destroyed the apartment my fiance and I lived in and as housing is insanely hard to find in Germany we fled literally into my old childhood room at my parents house and annexed the room of my brother too - he hasn't needed it for like five years so who cares. Which is fine because I am working at my family business anyway and it is just a two minutes walk from home. Then the Pandemic hit and in 2023 my fiance and afterwards we realized how much money we had saved - because my parents only charge a miniscoul amount of money from us - we can literally buy a complete house, something we didn't even think about five years ago.
Another renter in the wrecked apartment building moved into a trailer park, or to be more precise, a container park - yes, they exist around here too but are not as Ultra-Low-Class as i have seen them in the US. It is okeyish and pretty cheap and you can literally get a container on short notice but usually they are so deep in the bonneys that you need to ride to work on a horse. I mean when the shit really hits the fan this seems a good emergency solution even in the US. I have been visiting some when I did work-study (*1) over there and while they were less nice than those around here I was surprised how nice the people around there were.
(*1) I am mortician and embalmer and we picked up some deceased over there for funeral preparations. Which means we had very close interaction and looking into private stuff, literally helping the local police to recover papers and documents from their stuff.
Too many of you are confused about your class status. If you can't afford to miss a paycheck, you're the working poor, and part of the 80% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck. If you HAVE to wark to survive, you're working class.
Not when health insurance is a fixed cost and retirement savings match is a percentage. People needing more money have it better than people making less.
It's an interesting take on classism in the US, and it's certainly compelling. But a lot of the claims here, most notably the population percentages, have no supporting citations or research.
If nothing else, the idea that society is stratified on two axes based on income and social values, is kind of brilliant.
Looks like this was purged from his blog along with everything before 2013. Makes me wonder if the author himself moved on from this idea: https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/
Trying to label everything in concrete terms like this does nobody any favors.
I know plenty of very high earners that are just stupid with money and blow it as fast as they get it. People making $300k+ and living paycheck to paycheck with no savings or retirement because they bought two $100k+ cars, overextended themselves on buying a house, spend hundreds a week on restaurants and shopping, etc.
Are they the “working poor”?
As far as working class goes, sure if you want to break it down into only a two class structure then yeah. You’re either working class or owner class. That ignores a lot of nuance though within the working class. There’s quite a bit of difference between someone at the bottom of the working class and someone like a high earning professional that still needs to work, but has a much higher standard of living.
There’s quite a bit of difference between someone at the bottom of the working class and someone like a high earning professional that still needs to work, but has a much higher standard of living.
True. But they have much more in common with each other than they have with the owner class. We’re often fighting amongst ourselves while the billionaires are laughing all the way to the bank.
That really depends. A landlord with 10-20 units and a management company may not have to work, but they have a lot more in common with the working class than they do the Waltons or Buffets in the owner class.
In terms of net worth, sure. 10-20 million dollars is pretty much a billion dollars away from being a billion. But in terms of paying taxes? Unearned income pays the least in taxes. Psychology? It depends. If they have big mortgages and have to do a lot of the work themselves and be really careful with money? Then they might not feel rich (and may actually have a low net worth). If they own it all outright and have a employees take care of it all? That’s pretty different.
People who make high incomes from wages/salary are still working class, as they don't own the capital. However the higher the income (relative to necessary living expenses, mind you) the more incentives they have to have interests more aligned with the Capitalist class and can become "class traitors".
But anyhow, 99% of the people who will read this post probably aren't making $300k
I’m not sure how broadening it to include like half the country helps them?
Lots of people live paycheck to paycheck because they have to - other people live paycheck to paycheck because they want to drive a BMW and have a house 50% larger they can afford. They’re not the same.
There is a range of working class. Some get paid more for their work. They are still working to survive.
As many of the higher wager earners disagree with how the lesser wage earners spend their meager earnings as the less wager earners disagree with the high wager earners.
This is crab mentality. You need to unlearn yours or accept yourself as part of the problem. Some may have larger claws than others but we are all crabs in the same bucket.
I’m not arguing we aren’t all crabs in a bucket - but telling someone who’s working poor that the guy making 5-10x as much as them and still living paycheck to paycheck just like them doesn’t help anyone?
Nor does it accurately represent how much worse their situation is?
It's not about representing how good or bad a worker has it on the spectrum of working class. It's about recognizing a class of lifeway that two extreme ends share.
Put it this way, you have housecats who are pampered and treated to the finest food and veterinary care, and housecats who are left to limp around pathetically getting barely enough food.
But they're both pets.
It has nothing to do with how well they're treated, it's just what they are.
The point isn't to erase the difference between the two, it's to get those on the "good" end of the spectrum to realise they have more in common with those on the "bad" end, than their owners. "There but for the grace of god go I" kind of stuff.
It's about class solidarity. If the two ends can recognise how similar in kind (if not in material comforts) they are, then those with more power can bargain to get those with less a better life.
Lots of articles are saying 60 to 69%. CNBC, Barrons, LendingClub. I can’t find a better source but.. 40% from a rich person’s mag like forbes is just too much man. I would estimate 55% to 70%, so 80% doesn’t seem that far off.
I mean, forbes did the survey. Do you think they didn’t use their reader base?
As for only surveying readers, lemme look at the survey and see if it said that. My concern is that a magazine performing a survey is going to have some issues with selection bias.
edit:
So, in this case, it suffers from a very small sample size. There may be funding concerns too.
Lots of articles are saying 60 to 69%. CNBC, Barrons, LendingClub. I can’t find a better source but.. 40% from a rich person’s mag like forbes is just too much man. I would estimate 55% to 70%, so 80% doesn’t seem that far off.
you're also not the working poor if you live paycheck to paycheck and make 150k/year. you just fucking aren't, it's your own fault you're not saving money at that point
This is the problem with consumerism. Most American households do live with very little savings. Even people with really high income do this. It's culturally normal and encouraged with all the advertising to buy more stuff.
A doctor earning over $300,000 a year in the Midwest should but under any circumstances be considered the working poor simply because they don't have any savings.
Just because you had to live in a neighborhood with $5000/month rent doesn't mean you're poor just because you piss your money away. A doctor with no money leftover every month isn't poor, he's just retarded.
Don't be fooled, there has always been a class system in every society. Some choose to formalize it, but the best ones pretend it doesn't exist and dangle the illusion of social mobility.
We don't live in a post-scarcity society, so the rules of nature still apply. People need food, water, shelter, energy and someone has to work to provide those things.
My fellow Lemmy user, we dont live in a post-scarity world because profits matter more than people in our Capitalist Society. We could live in a post-scarity world, but that would come at the cost of profits for the 1% who do effectively zero work.
We could live in a post-scarity world, but that would come at the cost of profits for the 1%
No we couldn't. If those profits went away, it wouldn't lead to a post-scarcity society, those companies would simply cease to exist. Along with the goods they produce and the jobs they create.
Actually, they wouldn't cease to exist without profits. Profits are income in excess of expenses.
Without profits, investors don't get dividends. Businesses can be entirely successful without every turning a profit because they "only" produce goods and distribute the income entirely to cover costs including labor.
If we did something radical like taking ownership of companies away from investors and holding them in public trust, you wouldn't see the companies cease to exist, you'd see prices come down, wages go up, or heavy infrastructure investment.
Profit is an indicator of market inefficiency. The equilibrium state for a market is zero profit.
You also end up with management and incentive issues. You can correct those with violence or starvation in the short term and hope everything works out in the long term.
What, to you, is the difference between the owners being the government, and the owners being investors, all else being equal?
Do you think people don't get paid if there's no profit? Profit is just money left over after everyone gets paid and the bills are settled. It just goes to investors, and the employees don't see it.
Profit is an indicator of market inefficiency. The equilibrium state for a market is zero profit.
What a dumb take. If I work all day to earn money, and I use some of it to pay my bills and save the rest, does that mean I'm being inefficient? Is my employer being inefficient by paying me more than I need?
That's literally a guiding tenet of capitalism. Profit is an indicator of market inefficiency because not enough of a good is being produced to satisfy demand. The existence of profit in a market segment signals to others that they should enter the market to try to capture some of the profit, which lowers the profit each party gets. As competition increases, profits lower until supply is in equilibrium with demand.
If it's a situation where competition isn't feasible, then profit is an indicator that the business is artificially charging more than they need to.
Market efficiency is one type of efficiency. Is a widget maker suddenly becomes more efficient at producing widgets, they can sell more widgets at the same price, leading to increased profits.
Production became more efficient, but the market became less efficient, signalling that other firms should find a way to compete and get those profits, until competition drives prices down to the cost of production.
You are not a market segment, so your personal finances aren't comparable.
Your boss is being inefficient if they're paying more for labor than they have to. Labor is a market, and high wages signal to workers that they should enter a labor segment, which eventually drives wages in that segment down until an equilibrium is reached.
you wouldn't see the companies cease to exist, you'd see prices come down, wages go up, or heavy infrastructure investment.
Exactly, you'd also see the inovation to drop, effectiveness of people's work would decrease slowly and also quality of products would go down. It's actually not that radical, many, many countries have tried that, both small and large, gigantic even. But rarely (if ever) it worked in a long run
Why do you think work effectiveness or innovation would drop? The people doing the work already don't see the profits. Nothing would change for them.
There's no difference between the board of directors being appointed by investors and then being appointed by elected officials, as far as the employees are concerned.
There's a difference between a state run and a state owned enterprise.
A publicly owned enterprise is perfectly common, and indistinguishable from any other business.
They're quite common around the world, and some of the largest companies on the planet are state owned.
And yet many of them do anyway. And what percent of that class has never worked a day in their life? Most of them probably have years or decades of experience in their career and had to work hard to get to where they're at.
Maybe you didn't read the entirely of OP picture. "If you HAVE to work to survive you are working class". Some of them still work, to keep their power and privileges, or to pursue their personal needs on the arts and other alike.
The point is they don't need to work. Sure, if I didn't need to work for money then I would probably get bored and find something to do, but it's not same as selling your labour because you have to.
I think we're lumping different kinds of "work" here. But even if we accept the premise, what would that say about people who who don't need to work? Are they unnatural?
After years of working and saving, I can now afford to miss ONE paycheck. I'm no longer poor! /s
Capitalist scum!
Fuck outta here with your weak-ass bones!
Give that man some milk!
We need r/neverbrokeabone over here.
When the revolution comes, you will not be spared.
Lots of people in here fighting about what "working class" means. If you have to work to survive (other than minor household chores), you're working class. If you have enough money, or assets that you get dividends from or can borrow against, or passive income so you don't need a regular employment then you probably aren't working class.
Working Poor isn't as common and definition varies a lot.
This is it, it’s super simple.
If I dialed back everything, I could probably live a few years off my savings/investments, and selling some stuff. But I would be just burning trough my money, and I would need to go back to work eventually. So I’m still working class, even if I’m in a luckier situation than most people.
I feel like there is a world in between of these two
There really isn't. Each group has a wider pay rate than maybe is implied, but functionally, there isn't a role in capitalism between them. Wealthy people want us to think there is a wide range of classes so we argue with each other instead of cooperating against them.
There is a class in between though. Those who can't stop working and live on capital alone, but still have enough leeway to try and an asset that'll improve their financial status. For example:
I can stop working for about 2 or 3 years depending on sacrifices I am willing to make. Do I qualify as a working poor class?
That's what they want you to think. If we're infighting, we're not outfighting.
Oh I think working poor is pretty easy to define. If you work full time (or equivalent at multiple jobs) and you're not able to pay your bills without government assistance then you're the working poor.
But you can be working poor and not in those conditions
You mean above the assistance line? I'm willing to entertain it, but please explain.
I’m not sure on the exact definition of working poor, but I’d say someone who works to make just barely enough to live (aka don’t need/get assistance) but don’t earn enough for more than that and saving for when necessary utilities like fridges break down is still working poor.
I don't know. I get that it seems like being poor and it's certainly a dangerous financial area that could make you poor. But if you're covering all your bases then I don't think we can say your poor.
I know it seems like splitting a hair but if we define it like that, in general terms, then people who are just financially irresponsible would also qualify, while someone making less then them would not. I'd probably put together a basket of required goods in an area, average rent, average grocery, healthcare, average utilities for X number bedrooms (i.e. kids), etc and set that as the standard you need to be able to cover and not be poor. That way if you're making more than those items added together we know you're actually doing alright and we can focus elsewhere.
In a less capitalist focused system I'd probably include funding vacations, pets, and retirement.
I see, I hadn’t thought of that but you make a good point.
It is a contentious subject. The basket of goods is constantly argued over in policy circles. So it's not a settled thing by any means.
What I find interesting is how often statements like this that are trying to unify the working class (or whatever you end up calling it) just derails into semantics instead of actually people bringing out the pitchforks and shouting "eat the rich"
We are all fucked.
Amongst the little mice fighting under the table for crumbs falling from the cake being divided above, once in a while one finds a slightly larger crumb, proudly raises it over his head and shouts: "See?! The system woks!"
Fuxking right?!
Which sounds like the statement wasn't well crafted
"But through my retirement I own .000000001% of a company!"
Having stock in a company doesn't make you a capitalist anymore than checking out a bible from the library makes you a Christian.
.000000001% of a $100 billion company is $1. The average person could own per year $5000 if they used automatic deposits and got the employer match.
I know you are trying to exaggerate to make a point, but don't discourage people from getting the employer match if they can.
I employee matched for years just to watch our CEO tank our stock to 1/5 the original price.
Point being, remember it's still an investment in a single stock and comes with that amount of risk.
Hol up, you left your retirement fund in the hands of your employer? You didn't diversify and invest in the broader market? Most plans make you hold some for a period of time, every single plan offers a way to get out of being fully invested in one company. That's insane.
He's talking specifically about company matching of their stock purchase, no?
Employee stock purchase plans usually don't match, they just offer a 10-15% discount. I honestly have no idea what they're talking about. 401k isn't held by your employer, and ESPP doesn't match.
My ESPP would match up to ten shares, which is why I thought they meant ESPP. But yeah, I'm confused as well
Ten shares per paycheck? Wow, that's an amazing benefit, assuming you can sell. That is basically doubling your money. The best one I've ever had was a 15% discount off the lower price between the start of the quarter and the end of the quarter. If the stock was moving upwards I'd hold it, and if it was moving downwards I'd just sell it immediately for the free 15%.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I've never heard of an employer that requires their 401k match to be invested in the company. Everywhere I or my wife has worked you could put it in any fund available with that 401k plan.
Oh, 401k. I was thinking they meant ESPP.
Even so, every company I've worked for allows withdrawals at various times for parts of the fund. I need to keep a certain % of mine in company stocks, I move the overflow asap into a different fund to protect myself.
If your retirement plan absolutely has to be locked into your employer, you have a rather large risk to yourself there and I'd potentially consider finding a new employer if I ended up there. Too many companies disappear to be comfortable with that.
Don't be fooled. It's billionaires against everyone else. Even multimillionaires are closer to the everyday person. The working class consists of two groups: those without disposable income (nominally those with "hours" in income), and those with some disposable income (days in income).
If they ain't got a "year" in income, their they're one of us.
I think it's better to think of it like this:
How do you make your money? Do you need to make a wage? Or can you let your property (land, buildings, stocks, etc.) be your income?
The real amount doesn't matter, it's whether you have to work to live or not.
If you have to work, you are the working class. If you don't, you are the owner/capitalist class. But your analysis is still somewhat correct: millionaires and small business owners are closer to the working class than billionaires, it does still matter how they make it though.
I think I generally agree, yeah. There's something to be said too for if your money is made by owning or by maintaining. I don't give a shit about landlords who rent shit out and do nothing else, but I think building administrators who fix issues and handle maintenance are probably working class.
Comes back to what you were saying. Do you make money through labor, or through ownership?
Modern America is like Tsarist Russia. A tiny elite, a small 'middle class,' and a vast army of poor people.
It's generally considered safe to withdraw 4% of your nest egg each year. Someone with 2 million can support an 80k/year retirement.
The average multimillionaire is literally just any person with a six figure salary who has been saving for retirement and is nearing retirement. You basically can't retire without at least being a millionaire.
Yeah the big difference is now much it takes to amass that money. If we have a capitalist system, there's nothing wrong with workers saving money to retire with a few million.
What if I can miss two paychecks? Super-rich, or?
GET EMMMM!! WHERES MY GUILLOTINE!?
Yeah people don’t believe me when i say middle class is 300k because they want to be middle class
A person making 300k can still be working class. Unless you own capital that makes enough money for you to live off, you are working class
Exactly. It's how you make your money, not how much you make.
That’s not the commonly accepted definition of working or middle class. Middle class has never meant “don’t have to work to live”.
In the U.S. the differences have always been defined by income level. Depending on the context, working class has also been used to mean someone working a blue collar non-salary job without a college degree.
I don’t think anyone has ever seriously defined a college educated person making over a quarter million a year “working class”.
Working and middle class by the American cultural standard (as in, defined solely by income bracket and working conditions) are ultimately useless designations meant to drive a wedge between the working class or proletariat as defined by marx; "individuals who sell their labour power for wages and who do not own the means of production"; those responsible for creating the wealth of a society.
The american concept of class is harmful because it groups together the working class members most vulnerable to exploitation; those earning the least and doing the hardest work for the longest hours; and pits them against the better off members of this very same class; those with more time, formal education, and expendable income; who might have more power and means to do legwork in organizing and uplifting the class as a whole through solidarity and collective action.
You are somewhat correct though, in that it would be difficult to make over 250k/yr without engaging in some sort of profit from capital ownership and/or labor exploitation. That person would become middle class and cease to be working class not because they made over an arbitrary dollar amount per year, however, or because they went to school in order to do so, but because they are earning profits from capital ownership and labor exploitation rather than solely those generated by their own work. Yet, by working for most of their living, they are still subject to many of the same conditions as the working class and would likely still benefit from solidarity with the working class.
via https://uregina.ca/~gingrich/o402.htm
Software and finance tech are both fields where one can make 300k/y without owning anything. Company stock I guess is technically owning a piece of the means of production, but not to a degree that they can really make change to the company. I would argue additionally that owning some index funds does not kick one out of the working class.
Okay but they can easily invest 2/3rds of that for a decade and then live off the dividends. That's not middle class or working class.
For that amount of money, they'd be lucky to get a couple hundred in dividends each month. I used to work for a company that gave dividends, and their reasoning for laying people off instead of touching the dividend was that a lot of people relied on the dividend to make ends meet.
A coworker of mine did the math, and you'd need to have millions invested in the stock to get a dividend you could actually live on. The fact of the matter is that working class goes up to over 1 million. You have to be born rich or be an immoral businessman like Gates or Bezos to live off just investments.
Even a lot of celebrities don't qualify! You had John Boyega protesting with people because even most actors aren't that rich. It's why Hollywood tends liberal instead of conservative.
Then your coworker fucked up the math. Once you get about 1.8M in stocks you can get around 80k in dividends. 200,000 a year (2/3rds a 300,000 take home) would reach 1.8M in about 9 years.
This is how people retire in their late 30's (or earlier if they got handed that kind of pay via nepotism/networking)
Getting a million dollars a year and calling yourself working class is fucking ridiculous. At that point you have so much access to assets that if you don't create a self sustaining income it's nobody's fault but your own.
Our company has a 3.88% dividend rate, and when things were okay and stock price was like $60. That's $2.328 annually from one stock when things are mediocre, and at the time, it was worse than mediocre. For that annual dividend, you'd need to own roughly 34.4k stock, or $2M worth, to make $80k a year.
Your math on take home pay doesn't check out. Someone making $300k is looking at like $60k in income tax, plus $60k in housing if they follow the 20%ish rule there. If they're making $300k they're probably in a high cost of living area, so food and gas and electricity are going to add up too, not to mention insurance. If they're lucky, they'll put away $100k, tops, but only after their savings cover 3 months of expenses. Long story short, they might have enough for $80k a year after 20 years of intense saving from a $300k a year job. They'll probably need closer to $150k, frankly
My coworkers and I were upper middle class at $100k or so a year, and I lived significantly below my means. I was able to put away roughly 40k a year at best. It would've taken me 50 years to buy enough stock.
If you're making $300k a year single, you're almost definitely not able to put $200k away into investments each year unless you have significant expenses covered through other means.
I don't have to invest in your company dude. And assuming we're not talking about take home pay in general finance stuff is just ridiculous.
If you want to talk about 300k before taxes though then let's do that. Your take home will be around 182k in California, (more in other states). You can easily live off 70k, leaving 110k for early retirement savings. So it takes about 18 years instead of about 10 years with a 300k take home.
The biggest mistake people make is living larger instead of saving larger.
I agree on your last point. I still think though 70k is way too low an estimate, especially for California.
I think 150k (ish) in my city would be solidly middle class. You could buy a house/car/retire on that.
I'm in a super weird spot, because I make good enough money that I have savings to support me after job loss, and I make enough money that I don't really have to worry about my grocery bill (within reason). Heck, there's even a chance that I'll be able to have a decent retirement.
But a house? Not happening. New car? No chance. Even eating out every week isn't viable. And even what I have is only because I have a pretty sweet rent situation.
That's ridiculous. Middle class is absolutely part of the working class. It starts around 70k for a single income in a rural area. And 120k for double income in a high cost area.
Who in those income brackets can afford their house, car, and vacations?
600k for a rural house, 5% mortgage is 30k
1.5m in urban, 5% mortgage is 75k
Car is 20-40k
Food is 16k/year
30+20+16= 66 out of 70 but you aren’t buying a new car every year
So let’s say you’re spending 1.8/L on it and going 20 000km per year. CX-5 is 8.2L per 100
I believe that’s 1640L so an expense of 2952
Our number then is 30+2.952+16 for simplicity we will just say 49
So we have 21k left, for heating I found it cost 3840, again round up to 4 so we have 17k
I know what you’re thinking what about tax?
Property tax we will go cheap with 1% because we rounded the other things up. 6k
Now we have 11k
Income tax?
Thats 12 333 but we will round down to 12k
We are now -1k
Yearly vacation that you take if you’re middle class? Let’s say 5k
We are now -6k
there are more expenses of course but you get the idea
Your cost for a rural house is way off. It's more like 200k in the current market. Mine was less.
I'm the one you're asking about - "who in those income brackets can afford their house, car, and vacation?" because I'm in that income bracket and and able to afford it all. I could buy a car with the money in my checking account, own my house, and take vacations on occasion.
I am currently looking, it’s not
Your price would be vacant land or American
Are you a teacher?
I only ask because this sounds exactly like the response a fed up teacher would give
I studied for it but not currently
I hope you didn't take that question as an insult. I didn't mean it to be. It just seemed so similar to the rants my teachers would go on when someone pissed them off.
I laughed at it
That's an American point of view. Here in Britain there are pretty much only two main classes: aristocracy and dirty peasants. Doesn't matter what you do and how rich you are, if your ancestors didn't sit at the round table - you're a peasant.
There are 4 in the UK.
The upper class aka the aristocracy. Born into money and titles.
Middle class. Rich enough to live purely off their investments, don't need to work, but also don't the the old blood titles.
*Upper working class (what the media likes calling the middle class). Lives well, but reliant on a job income.
The bottom 2 are peasants. The 2nd are "vaguely acceptable breeding stock/upstart peasants.
It's useful, because it more accurately matches what the rest of the world means when they say "middle class". It's always weird watching British panel shows and the like when I hear someone refer to someone as being "so middle class" as a synonym for "so posh". Because here, it has basically the opposite meaning.
I'm from the UK and there are 3 classes. The Upper, middle, and lower. The 4th is not some bizarre difference between the landed gentry and the otherwise rich.
Upper class don't need to worry about money. You get some odd situations where they have it all tied up in some assets they don't want to sell but ultimately that's a choice.
Middle class can afford some luxuries. I had sailing as a hobby and classical music training as well as my own instrument to play, that's where a cultural element comes in. If the working class can't afford it, it's "posh". I didn't go to a private school requiring fees but it wasn't impossible financially if my parents made that choice.
Working class. Earn enough to just about survive. Cannot afford extras or luxuries. Hobbies are cheap. Gonto the local field and play football. The pub and play pool. Video games and TV. If music is your thing, it's the guitar because there's loads of those and skip the lessons, just learn off YouTube.
Unemployed and homeless fall below this. We've been developing a larger 4th underclass since 2010 and the dismantling of the social safety net. What was a tiny minority of the population has grown and may justifiably be called a class now.
But we each have a class reality and a cultural class.
I was born middle class. I experienced life as someone who was middle class. I financially dipped down into working class and experienced that as an adult.
So my cultural references and how people view my accent and habits are a bit of a mix. I'll appear posh to some and working class to others.
Some identify strongly with their class because ultimately it is about shared experience. You'll have someone who's managed to get rich still calling themselves working class. They might feel that way but the tragedy is other working class people they know will see the effect of joining the upper class. They'll get treated differently and eventually feel less working class. Those born into the upper class will still treat them differently because not having been brought up upper class, they have some working class mannerisms and references.
Hence the Yorkshireman sketch by Monty Python. Former working class men, now upper class. Discussing the old days.
TLDR: everyone really has 3 classes. The one they are in financially, the one they identify with personally, and the one others identify them as being in. Those 3 might match or might not.
Edit: as a bonus you can be a "class traitor". As an example Lord Alan Sugar grew up working class. Went from running market stalls to an electronics company to the UKs example of the apprentice. He was a Labour party supporter and the left leaning Labour party out him into the Lord's.
Even while a Lord some would call him working class because of his roots.
Then he flew back to the UK in order to vote through a right wing bill cutting benefits for working class people and the disabled. He's now a class traitor.
I don't think most people would restrict "middle class" to only those who can live off their investments.
We have a much more complicated relationship with class in the UK which is not well reflected by the language we use, that's certainly true. We often determine what class someone "is" by their social status and cultural interests moreso than the Marxist way. I read an article some time ago which identified 7 classes separated both by cultural and economic capital... This is closer to the reality in the UK imo.
I don't think that's true. There's definitely the three classes, but many people believe they're middle class when they're not.
It's basically impossible to become upper class. I think I read somewhere that it takes 3 or 4 successive generations at somewhere like Eton to be considered upper class.
Middle class was originally defined as a class that gets at least some significant percent of their income from stocks bonds and other investments. I'm willing to bet that ain't you.
Is this a definition common in a specific country outside the U.S.? I see this claim in multiple places in the thread, but that's not how it has been historically defined in the U.S. or in France where the term originated. Middle class in the original context evolved out of the mercantile class that traded goods in cities - neither aristocrat nor serf - during the middle ages. That original definition had nothing to do with investments.
Does it not? Maybe the definition of investments has expanded to include more abstract things like stock in a company, but still a merchant needs to invest in goods that they then sell. Which now that i think about it is also called stock...
Technically that's anyone with a pension or decent retirement account.
So no one under 50?
I'm a couple decades under 50 and was making like 30-40k up until a couple years ago (and about double that last year) and I expect my retirement accounts average annual growth to be more than 1/3rd of my annual spending.
You're the exception, not the rule.
Sure. I wasn't implying otherwise. But a definition of middle class that considering someone who makes twice my income in my local area non-middle-class but considers me middle class would seem non-intuitive at best when my retirement accounts have been entirely self-funded (granted, I can only afford to do that because I haven't needed to go into debt, a luxury many don't have.
ITT: lots of people making very concrete statements about cost of living that somehow apply equally to every single city in the US at the same time
That's a definition of "working class" but not generally what people outside certain academic contexts mean when they say that phrase; using the more common definition does not indicate "confusion about your class status."
Emphasis mine. I'm not sure how the OP differs in this definition. If you HAVE to work to survive, you aren't earning a livelihood from ownership and the labor of others (passive income).
So the poor CEO making a few million a year who is only selling his labor to the company, is working class. The guy who retired at 70 is upper class because he's living off his investments
Only if he needs that job. But he probably has enough stock options he could retire.
So now some random office worker with stock options is upper class? Tech companies often offer them as part of compensation, not sure about other ones
Buying into strategic labour divisions perpetuated by the ownership class for their benefit does not convey a comprehension of the language.
Yeah, insisting on using a nonstandard definition exclusive to a tiny minority of speakers, so that you can then talk past your interlocutor, wasting both of your time until they finally realize you're intentionally being an uncooperative speaker, makes way more sense. 🙄
I guess at least this way you get to feel a smug, undeserved sense of superiority in the process though, so who's to say which way is really better.
My point is that Joe Blow off the streets who might be seeing the OP's tweet doesn't know (or care) that there's another, more niche definition - Joe Blow only knows "working class" as mainly people doing manual or unskilled labor (another term I see this problem with all too often), and "working poor" as the part of that class subsisting around or below poverty level.
So, if you're trying to get Joe Blow off the street (or pretty much any other regular person, for that matter) to understand, agree with, and support you, saying things that don't make sense, like "80% of Americans are working poor" or "unskilled labor doesn't exist", and then insisting that you're right when he objects, is only going to cause misunderstanding, and Joe probably does not care enough to learn the nonstandard definitions you think are better for whatever reason.
This isn't directed at you, but sometimes it's really not surprising that conservatives do so much better than socialists/communists at attracting working-class people to their cause, if only because they don't require a four-year bachelor's in the terminology of niche political theory to have a basic conversation with them.
No, I've never taken a debate class, and I have no idea what adjectives you're talking about.
But, it seems that making an honest effort to "drop the 5 dollar words" and engage with you here was a mistake, as you seem determined to miss the point, so I won't waste my time any longer trying to make sure you understand what the heck I'm talkin bout yo.
Workers work because they have to. Owners own and work if they want to.
I can afford to miss a paycheck. In fact, I'm currently planning for a four month stretch where I'll need to live off of savings. Thinking that I, with my 11 year old honda fit, 10 year old PC, and my 2 roommates, am in the top 20% of this stat is very alarming.
Man, if I could split my living expenses with TWO other people? 🤤 Currently I'm paying them for 2 kids and a husband (who recently wrecked our only car).
I almost quit my job after Christmas because they canceled my holiday time off without any work for me to do. I was just going to live off of savings while looking for a job, but the job market is so weird right now I decided to power through it
I work paycheck to paycheck but if I told people how much I made and called myself poor I'd probably anger people. I just make sure that I do what's in my power to keep myself comfortable now, even if that means overspending on luxuries
If you have no financial reserves, you are IMO poor or stupid. One of both.
Which are you?
Edit: I’m going to go with both.
Being comfortable does not require luxuries or overspending.
I stress quite quickly so I spend money to avoid stress. Stuff like cooking, cleaning, variable bills I am happy to pay a premium on so they don't affect my everyday
I'm not condoning how I live but I've been on both ends of the spectrum and the fact I transitioned from one to the other should give some indication of how well it went.
That really sounds like a therapy thing. Because there are far better ways to cope with stress.
how much do you make though
I like how things are defaulting to the US as if that's the whole world.
She's probably American and talking about America. We shouldn't have to qualify every single thing we say, if it doesn't apply to you then it doesn't apply. It's certainly worthwhile to the discussion to add your own experiences in places it doesn't apply, but just pointing out that she didn't explicitly say she's talking about America (even though she very nearly did) isn't super relevant.
Looks like every single international online space, not just Lemmy, is somehow dominated by Americans.
Do Americans exist outside Internet?
That's not the point
It's probably equally slanted towards your country if we all got on their network your country invented
Bold of you to assume I'm American.
That was silly of her. I mean, look at you? Clearly nowhere near America. She should apologize to you.
Still I incline on agree that Internet got super America-centric
There's over 96% of people living outside land of the free, can we talk about it for a second?
Real talk, I suspect there are a number of contributing factors to that phenomenon that have very little to do with John American sharing a twitter screenshot with Lemmy. I mean, Americans are just online, talking to each other. If we're that overwhelming, I wouldn't point any fingers at normal american people.
Everyone is online, what makes me wonder is how Americans and not say Indians dominate the interwebs?
Americans dominate the English speaking Internet, because there are more English speakers. There are sites in German or Hindi that have almost never used by Americans.
no one is stopping you. Just like no one is stopping an American posting American stuff, you can probably safely assume that not everything posted online is about you or to you directly. Feel free to go about your day posting what you want to. You don’t need an American’s or really anyone’s permission to do so. They didn’t ask your permission to post. Nor should they have to.
Maybe she wasn’t talking to you though.
I disagree. You are NOT poor just because you end up without money at the months end.
My brother is an perfect example. He earns A TON of cash every month. Nearly as much as I, my fiance, my Dad and Mum combined.
And still he lives from payday to payday without any reserves. Because he can not handle money.
He eats in restaurants at least ten times a week. At least twice in highest luxury restaurants. He has leased four different cars in three years, none less than €2000 per month. Lifes in an absurdetly huge penthouse. Buys his girl friend so much bullshit she gave me a €5.000 collier because she ran out of space and I drove her home after parties a couple of times. But still he asked Pa and me several times for fuel money at the end of the month.
See, if he would live like I do he could live two years from one months earnings.
So you think I am poor I guess?
Nope. I own a huge plot of land. I am going to build my own house and I am talking about a nice big house made from stone at the gates of Munich where land is expensive and houses are even more expensive. I have paid generous amounts of pension insurance. If I would stop working in five years when I am 35 I would be a made girl and could live from my savings although on a low level.
So he can absolutely afford to miss at least one paycheck, he just doesn't want to. That's already covered in the image. "You can't afford to miss a paycheck".
This is really irrelevant. He obviously can miss a paycheck. He is rich, so if he says "I'll pay you next month" to anyone, they go "sure". Even if that doesn't work, he can just sell a piece of jewelry. This is just an elaborate version of the "avocado toast" trope.
If that is how he spends than he can clearly afford to miss a paycheck. Its not the same as having spend it all.
When you cant ask the landlord to pay rent next month because you already had to ask last month is when you cant afford to miss it.
It would really suck for your borther and he wont keep up the lifestyle but at the end of that month when the next paycheck does arrive he is going to be just fine.
Multiple restaurants in a week sounds like he can afford to let someone else manage his money and still have enough pocketmoney for his vices. He should Look into it.
You have no idea how hard it is to get rid of an unwilling renter as a landlord in Germany. In the event of rent arrears of two months' rent or more, the landlord can terminate the lease without notice. Only then can he or she file an action for eviction which can take another two to four months. And if the tenant only pays the arrears for one month, the cycle starts all over again. I have seen people dragging this out for five years and when leaving the premise they left behind a battlefield. And absurdetly I am not even allowed to burn or sell their shit because it is still their properties so I have to store it, show it to a bailiff for evaluation, sell the few things worth anything, then store it for another two years and only then I am legally allowed to burn it.
(And yes, my brother missed his rent a couple of times but always caught up after one or two months. Given how expensive rents in Germany are we are not talking about small sums. A 1960th 84m² apartment in a suburb is around €1500, a 1870th 70m² apartment in the centre of munich is around €3500 per month. The penthouse my brother lives in... just short of five digits. If he ever gets seriously sick he will go broke within two months and will take decades to pay of the debts. Again, he has no long term insurrances, no savings, nothing at all. And social wellfare and social health care of a couple of €100 will only bring him so far...)
I don’t want to dismiss the challenges and difficulties you speak off. All experiences are valid and personal. Yet i feel like there is a disconnect here where i don't think you gravity of what is meant with not being able to afford.
I don't live in Germany but just the fact that there is social wellfard and that you speak of him still having a couple of hundred says plenty of the privileges compared to the people this post is actually all above who may not even have that money after working. (Not everyone on the globe is granted fair and legal Working conditions and rights)
I assume with renter protections and your brother having a a good job missing a payment for him can be solved with an annoying call to the landlord who can reasonably expect that your brother has the means to make enough money.
For people who love in slums, who can barely Afford their home ij the slum when they do have money and sometimes need to chose between heat, food and rent the relation with the landlord who is routinely dealing with tenants who dont have the means to pay.
Also, it sounds like you care about your brother and you yourself ard doing reasonably well. Imagine that he does end up jobless with no home or food. Would you or some other family not help him out? Poverty is a systematic issue, there are exceptions but most poor families come from poor families. If they end up on the street and there is no wellfare that cares they and their kids may just die on the street.
That is the distinction that i believe should Be made here when we talk about not being able to afford. Its nog about hardship or financial ruin. Its about the difference between barely surviving and not surviving.
I must confess, currently I am not even living on my own. A storm in 2019 destroyed the apartment my fiance and I lived in and as housing is insanely hard to find in Germany we fled literally into my old childhood room at my parents house and annexed the room of my brother too - he hasn't needed it for like five years so who cares. Which is fine because I am working at my family business anyway and it is just a two minutes walk from home. Then the Pandemic hit and in 2023 my fiance and afterwards we realized how much money we had saved - because my parents only charge a miniscoul amount of money from us - we can literally buy a complete house, something we didn't even think about five years ago.
Another renter in the wrecked apartment building moved into a trailer park, or to be more precise, a container park - yes, they exist around here too but are not as Ultra-Low-Class as i have seen them in the US. It is okeyish and pretty cheap and you can literally get a container on short notice but usually they are so deep in the bonneys that you need to ride to work on a horse. I mean when the shit really hits the fan this seems a good emergency solution even in the US. I have been visiting some when I did work-study (*1) over there and while they were less nice than those around here I was surprised how nice the people around there were.
(*1) I am mortician and embalmer and we picked up some deceased over there for funeral preparations. Which means we had very close interaction and looking into private stuff, literally helping the local police to recover papers and documents from their stuff.
Being irresponsible wasn’t the topic.
Either person doesn’t need a tonne of money to survive. Not that they aren't using it to survive.
Image Transcription: Twitter Post
AshleyStevens, @The_Acumen
Too many of you are confused about your class status. If you can't afford to miss a paycheck, you're the working poor, and part of the 80% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck. If you HAVE to wark to survive, you're working class.
At least you've got class.
Good meme
Not when health insurance is a fixed cost and retirement savings match is a percentage. People needing more money have it better than people making less.
And Elon musk does not represent you. Stop talking like his fight is your fight. We’re not all in this together.
https://web.archive.org/web/20151006183427/https:/michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/the-3-ladder-system-of-social-class-in-the-u-s/
Whoa.
It's an interesting take on classism in the US, and it's certainly compelling. But a lot of the claims here, most notably the population percentages, have no supporting citations or research.
If nothing else, the idea that society is stratified on two axes based on income and social values, is kind of brilliant.
Looks like this was purged from his blog along with everything before 2013. Makes me wonder if the author himself moved on from this idea: https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/
Trying to label everything in concrete terms like this does nobody any favors.
I know plenty of very high earners that are just stupid with money and blow it as fast as they get it. People making $300k+ and living paycheck to paycheck with no savings or retirement because they bought two $100k+ cars, overextended themselves on buying a house, spend hundreds a week on restaurants and shopping, etc.
Are they the “working poor”?
As far as working class goes, sure if you want to break it down into only a two class structure then yeah. You’re either working class or owner class. That ignores a lot of nuance though within the working class. There’s quite a bit of difference between someone at the bottom of the working class and someone like a high earning professional that still needs to work, but has a much higher standard of living.
But they ARE still a part of the working class. Thats kinda the point.
True. But they have much more in common with each other than they have with the owner class. We’re often fighting amongst ourselves while the billionaires are laughing all the way to the bank.
Yes, they are both closer to homelessnes, than being rich enough to not work.
That really depends. A landlord with 10-20 units and a management company may not have to work, but they have a lot more in common with the working class than they do the Waltons or Buffets in the owner class.
In terms of net worth, sure. 10-20 million dollars is pretty much a billion dollars away from being a billion. But in terms of paying taxes? Unearned income pays the least in taxes. Psychology? It depends. If they have big mortgages and have to do a lot of the work themselves and be really careful with money? Then they might not feel rich (and may actually have a low net worth). If they own it all outright and have a employees take care of it all? That’s pretty different.
People who make high incomes from wages/salary are still working class, as they don't own the capital. However the higher the income (relative to necessary living expenses, mind you) the more incentives they have to have interests more aligned with the Capitalist class and can become "class traitors".
But anyhow, 99% of the people who will read this post probably aren't making $300k
Why do we keep trying to pervert defined terms?
The working poor are those who work at least 27 weeks a year and still have income below the poverty line.
Because that definition is woefully inadequate to describe the conditions of people experiencing poverty.
I’m not sure how broadening it to include like half the country helps them?
Lots of people live paycheck to paycheck because they have to - other people live paycheck to paycheck because they want to drive a BMW and have a house 50% larger they can afford. They’re not the same.
There is a range of working class. Some get paid more for their work. They are still working to survive.
As many of the higher wager earners disagree with how the lesser wage earners spend their meager earnings as the less wager earners disagree with the high wager earners.
This is crab mentality. You need to unlearn yours or accept yourself as part of the problem. Some may have larger claws than others but we are all crabs in the same bucket.
I’m not arguing we aren’t all crabs in a bucket - but telling someone who’s working poor that the guy making 5-10x as much as them and still living paycheck to paycheck just like them doesn’t help anyone?
Nor does it accurately represent how much worse their situation is?
It's not about representing how good or bad a worker has it on the spectrum of working class. It's about recognizing a class of lifeway that two extreme ends share.
Put it this way, you have housecats who are pampered and treated to the finest food and veterinary care, and housecats who are left to limp around pathetically getting barely enough food.
But they're both pets.
It has nothing to do with how well they're treated, it's just what they are.
I think if you asked the two cats they might tell you something else.
I know which one I’d prefer to be.
They might even tell you’re they’re not the same. And one cat would kill a bitch to be the other cat.
The point isn't to erase the difference between the two, it's to get those on the "good" end of the spectrum to realise they have more in common with those on the "bad" end, than their owners. "There but for the grace of god go I" kind of stuff.
It's about class solidarity. If the two ends can recognise how similar in kind (if not in material comforts) they are, then those with more power can bargain to get those with less a better life.
It helps win elections
Fast forward a few years and the size of house I will be able to afford is a shoebox.
Oh man you can still afford any house at all where you are? Lucky :(
Getting terribly close to a rendition of the 4 yorkshiremen.
80% are not living paycheck to paycheck
Cite?
Yes, the person making the claim that 80% live paycheck to paycheck should cite
You’ve claimed that they aren’t. Please prove.
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/credit-cards/survey-living-paycheck-to-paycheck/
40% live paycheck to paycheck
You mean 40% of forbes readers live paycheck to paycheck?!
This may surprise you but not everyone reads forbes.
(selection bias)
Lots of articles are saying 60 to 69%. CNBC, Barrons, LendingClub. I can’t find a better source but.. 40% from a rich person’s mag like forbes is just too much man. I would estimate 55% to 70%, so 80% doesn’t seem that far off.
His citation is a forbes survey saying 40% (riddled with selection bias)
Based on vibes or what?
The person who makes the claim should prove it first
Good point. So, prove your claim, please.
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/credit-cards/survey-living-paycheck-to-paycheck/
40% live paycheck to paycheck
You mean 40% of forbes readers live paycheck to paycheck?!
This may surprise you but not everyone reads forbes.
(selection bias)
Where does it say they only surveyed readers?
I mean, forbes did the survey. Do you think they didn’t use their reader base?
As for only surveying readers, lemme look at the survey and see if it said that. My concern is that a magazine performing a survey is going to have some issues with selection bias.
edit:
So, in this case, it suffers from a very small sample size. There may be funding concerns too.
Lots of articles are saying 60 to 69%. CNBC, Barrons, LendingClub. I can’t find a better source but.. 40% from a rich person’s mag like forbes is just too much man. I would estimate 55% to 70%, so 80% doesn’t seem that far off.
Source?
60% to 80% is literally a jump of 2x, meaning twice as many people who have savings
80% is incredibly far off
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/27/60percent-of-americans-are-still-living-paycheck-to-paycheck.html
Gives lending club as source so basically it's the same source
Where did you get 69%
you're also not the working poor if you live paycheck to paycheck and make 150k/year. you just fucking aren't, it's your own fault you're not saving money at that point
This is the problem with consumerism. Most American households do live with very little savings. Even people with really high income do this. It's culturally normal and encouraged with all the advertising to buy more stuff.
A doctor earning over $300,000 a year in the Midwest should but under any circumstances be considered the working poor simply because they don't have any savings.
HCOL
My dad made around this amount in SF Bay Area and we made do, including a big mortgage payment, car payments, etc.
150K is a lot of money
In 2024?
He made 130K a some years ago, which is only a bit over 150K in 2024 money
Uh huh..
Just because you had to live in a neighborhood with $5000/month rent doesn't mean you're poor just because you piss your money away. A doctor with no money leftover every month isn't poor, he's just retarded.
That’s the thing about HCOL areas, they generally don’t pay well, either.
Some more accurate data from Forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/credit-cards/survey-living-paycheck-to-paycheck/
We have class system now again?
always did
Don't be fooled, there has always been a class system in every society. Some choose to formalize it, but the best ones pretend it doesn't exist and dangle the illusion of social mobility.
Having to work to survive is the default state of nature, unless you are a baby or an elder. It doesn't mean you're oppressed.
What about our modern world makes you think humanity exsists in a default state of nature?
We don't live in a post-scarcity society, so the rules of nature still apply. People need food, water, shelter, energy and someone has to work to provide those things.
My fellow Lemmy user, we dont live in a post-scarity world because profits matter more than people in our Capitalist Society. We could live in a post-scarity world, but that would come at the cost of profits for the 1% who do effectively zero work.
We literally destroy food in this country instead of giving it to people who have nothing. The "scarcity" is entirely manufactured.
No we couldn't. If those profits went away, it wouldn't lead to a post-scarcity society, those companies would simply cease to exist. Along with the goods they produce and the jobs they create.
Actually, they wouldn't cease to exist without profits. Profits are income in excess of expenses.
Without profits, investors don't get dividends. Businesses can be entirely successful without every turning a profit because they "only" produce goods and distribute the income entirely to cover costs including labor.
If we did something radical like taking ownership of companies away from investors and holding them in public trust, you wouldn't see the companies cease to exist, you'd see prices come down, wages go up, or heavy infrastructure investment.
Profit is an indicator of market inefficiency. The equilibrium state for a market is zero profit.
You also end up with management and incentive issues. You can correct those with violence or starvation in the short term and hope everything works out in the long term.
What, to you, is the difference between the owners being the government, and the owners being investors, all else being equal?
Do you think people don't get paid if there's no profit? Profit is just money left over after everyone gets paid and the bills are settled. It just goes to investors, and the employees don't see it.
What a dumb take. If I work all day to earn money, and I use some of it to pay my bills and save the rest, does that mean I'm being inefficient? Is my employer being inefficient by paying me more than I need?
That's literally a guiding tenet of capitalism. Profit is an indicator of market inefficiency because not enough of a good is being produced to satisfy demand. The existence of profit in a market segment signals to others that they should enter the market to try to capture some of the profit, which lowers the profit each party gets. As competition increases, profits lower until supply is in equilibrium with demand.
If it's a situation where competition isn't feasible, then profit is an indicator that the business is artificially charging more than they need to.
Market efficiency is one type of efficiency. Is a widget maker suddenly becomes more efficient at producing widgets, they can sell more widgets at the same price, leading to increased profits.
Production became more efficient, but the market became less efficient, signalling that other firms should find a way to compete and get those profits, until competition drives prices down to the cost of production.
https://youtu.be/b-4ry8ZLwoQ?si=1r0GU8HVCT7dC1OP
You are not a market segment, so your personal finances aren't comparable.
Your boss is being inefficient if they're paying more for labor than they have to. Labor is a market, and high wages signal to workers that they should enter a labor segment, which eventually drives wages in that segment down until an equilibrium is reached.
Exactly, you'd also see the inovation to drop, effectiveness of people's work would decrease slowly and also quality of products would go down. It's actually not that radical, many, many countries have tried that, both small and large, gigantic even. But rarely (if ever) it worked in a long run
Why do you think work effectiveness or innovation would drop? The people doing the work already don't see the profits. Nothing would change for them.
There's no difference between the board of directors being appointed by investors and then being appointed by elected officials, as far as the employees are concerned.
There's a difference between a state run and a state owned enterprise.
A publicly owned enterprise is perfectly common, and indistinguishable from any other business.
They're quite common around the world, and some of the largest companies on the planet are state owned.
So you honestly believe that if executive compensation was more modest, they would simply shut down their companies?
And if that did happen, that nobody else would jump into the gap in the market?
The means of production would still exist.
Do you know what the means of production are? Labor. Not magic!
Factories, farming equipment ,machinery all would still exist.
And yet, there's a class, that neither me or you belong to, who dosen't need to work a day of their life to survive.
Sounds like a parasite. We're supposed to kill those, right?
And yet many of them do anyway. And what percent of that class has never worked a day in their life? Most of them probably have years or decades of experience in their career and had to work hard to get to where they're at.
Lol, lmao even
Maybe you didn't read the entirely of OP picture. "If you HAVE to work to survive you are working class". Some of them still work, to keep their power and privileges, or to pursue their personal needs on the arts and other alike.
A gentleman should have something to do after all. Not employment of course, but some enterprise
Not /s but said in like a mocking tone. Anyway, I'm agreeing with you
The point is they don't need to work. Sure, if I didn't need to work for money then I would probably get bored and find something to do, but it's not same as selling your labour because you have to.
I don't see where she said this makes you oppressed.
I think we're lumping different kinds of "work" here. But even if we accept the premise, what would that say about people who who don't need to work? Are they unnatural?