Hmmm... I think I consider middle class to be about $50,000-200,000... In my area, we are all pretty much poor. lol. I've got a four year degree and make $1400 a month working in the public sector and that's considered a "good" job around here.

Luckily, my husband is a successful farmer and we do good some years. Of course, our income varies depending on the harvest, weather, market but our house and student loans are paid off. Tractors and combines cost so much that I know I will always be able to afford groceries, etc. My purchases really add up to nothing compared to gas for combines, you know? We are doing well, but I wouldn't consider ourselves upper middle class by no means.

Basically, I think it depends on what area you live in, maybe family size? I don't know.

Totally an interesting conversation though!

I tend to define lower class as if you qualify for reduced lunches, which is $45,000 a year of a family of 4 here. If you make more than that you are middle class until you make about $300,000. But it is so subjective to where you live.

Going with the old definition of middle class, we are middle class who live among the peasants. :) I live in a poor rural area but my husband has a professional job. By the standards of the area we are middle class, but if we moved 50-60 miles north, toward DC, we would be poor. We couldn't afford to buy a home, let alone save money for anything if we lived in a more expensive area. Here you don't need a 6 figure income to own a house, save for retirement, etc. But you do need more than $60,000.

We can afford for me to be a SAHM while the kids were little but we sacrificed savings for that. Right now we have house and older cars. We can save some money but we don't necessarily consider college as a route to a better life. Our mechanic makes more money than we do. :)

This is so true! And with the expense of 4-year colleges sky rocketing serious and thoughtful discussions need to take place before a student just jumps into a 4-year college. Cheyanne and I have been discussing having her go to the community college for 2 years (we have 3 locally) and earning her core credits while living at home and working part-time rather than piling up excessive college expenses (even with a college fund who knows how much it will cover in another 5 years when she graduates HS). We have the University of Maine system with one campus in our back yard and she can choose which one to attend after earning her core credits based on what she wants to study.

We have also talked about how a 4-year degree isn't the only route - her brother makes a great wage as a level 3 paramedic and firefighter - never went to a 4-year college, got his paramedic degree by attending night school at CC. Many trades (mechanics, plumbers, electricians, HVAC, etc. do very well. Time will tell where the job market lies in another 10 years, but my friends and family members who are engineers are struggling with no increase in wages for several years and higher COL, layoffs, no job market to speak of, etc.

The middle class is a huge range, I believe. To me, for my area of the country, I would say it is from $35K-250K.

My husband and I are in professional positions. My husband was an attorney and I am librarian. I used to work at a university and my salary was in the mid $40s, great benefits, about 2 months off per year (vacation, holidays, etc). While we were both working those jobs we made close to $100K, no kids. And we lived paycheck to paycheck because we made stupid financial decisions. Then we had a kid, my husband got laid off, and he became the SAHP for 6 years. He went to back to school to change careers --- to become a teacher -- and spent 2.5-3 of those years looking for work.

Anyway...I am now a school librarian at a private K-12 school and he is teaching part time at the same school. We are making close to $50K and are comfortable at this point. Our private school salaries don't even come close to what the local public schools pay (starting salary for public school teachers in our county is around $35K, with a masters which is what most teachers from the local university end up with -- it is a 5 yr program), but they are very fair since we don't work for about 11 weeks out of the year. Would I like to make more? Yes. Who wouldn't?

I think that "middle class" is more than just a set of numbers on a paycheck. And I realize that my household salary would not give me the same standard of living in another section of the country. But I would expect that if we had similar jobs we would make a salary that would match the standard of living for that area, if that makes sense.

True, I totally agree. However, I think the worry for a lot of us is that we are never going to do as well as our parents did and that our children may even be worse off than we are. We may feel middle class, but is it sustainable for our kids? That's the problem and that's why people are talking about it so much with the elections coming up.

By the way, one thing that I really LOVE about digiscrapping is that when I buy a kit here, I know the money is going to real people with real families. Traci, Kristin, Shawna, Krystal, Ru, Misty, etc. Robin too. I might not be able to buy much every week, but I know over time that I'm not just getting amazing art for my scrapbooks, but that I'm making an investment in real people and real families. I know that none of them are getting fabulously wealthy off designing, but I do want to say that I would much prefer buying from SSD than a Big Box craft supply store.

THIS!!! :wub:

Yep!

oh, I completely agree...While I feel middle class (and think that our lifestyle is middle class), I do not feel like we are as "settled" as my parents were at my age. I do worry about what my kids' future is going to be...I am not automatically assuming that they will go to a 4 yr college. I honestly don't think that higher education is going to look for them what it looked like for me.

Yes...me too. I try to buy all of my crafting supplies from smaller crafting organizations (my local yarn shop, etc.). :)

We live in a pretty poor area over all. I think the average income for a family of 4 a few years back was less than $27K. We have a lot of single parents and a lot of one income families. From what I recall our free/reduced lunch rate was somewhere around 80%.

Just had another thought on this about college. My husband never graduated in fact he did not go past ninth grade. He did learn several trades from the time he was a teenager he was a mechanic and then went to work as an auto body tech. People saying trades pay very well are right. We defenitely made more money then a lot of our neighbors but we also lived in rural area outside Orlando where housing was much less expensive. If we lived in the city I do not think we could have afforded to live on what he made. Both of my boys have always talked about working in public service. My son always wanted to become a police officer. Where we live the incomes for those in law enforcement is considered high among construction workers and a lot of menial labor jobs and very high unemployment. A lot of teenagers also aspire to work military jobs and retire through that. My nieces husband is army as is my nephew and my sister. Not sure if they will all retire but I know that if they all left the army they would make a lot less in private sector jobs.

I am another one that is for trade jobs...I did do some college, but I am a laboratory technician by trade (went to school for it in the Navy) and I make pretty decent money. Alot of medical field jobs are trade based (EMT's paramedics, firefighters, lab techs, xray techs, surgical techs, nuclear medicine techs, etc) so I do think our kids need to really think about school and if that is what they want to do. My DD has considered going to Vet Tech school and I believe she is still debating....she is going to the local CC and as of right now, we nor her have any debt and this is her 2nd year. And honestly, their is nothing wrong with the military either :)

<3:wub:

I think "middle class" is definitely dependent on where you live. What I make in California doesn't go nearly as it would ANYWHERE else. LOL

My REAL family appreciates every dollar. :wub:

I think what you make/spend in cali would go way further here lol Or maybe I just read you wrong

I think it does definitely depend on where you live with the cost of living, taxes, and job median salaries.

yes $5 in cali is way less than $5 in everywhereelseintheworlditfeelslikeexceptnewyorkci ty.

Don't forget Chicago, Traci :p tho, I will agree that it seems like all of Cali is like that vs. not all of IL or NY is like that... tho, I think the northeast in general is pretty expensive

We're in the bottom of the middle class, but we choose to be a one income family and me staying at home... and the only way we could afford a house was by buying a short sale or foreclosure and we were barely making ends meet in our two bedroom apt, with only one vehicle that we fully owned and we don't carry any credit card debt... but I know if we lived in other parts of the US, we'd be rich... and I also know that this is exactly why all my neighbors are two income families and it's rare to find other SAHMs around here

It's good to know that you ARE real, Traci, and not made up like Betty Crocker. LOL! :p

Is it only me or is this conversation making you hate $$$. gah. i hate money! LOL!

Where we live/my husband is employed is a fairly decent wage but again you have to factor in all the other things. Groceries are insane where i live, same with gas.. as is the fact that you have to drive 2 hours to the closest city for shopping.. you can't really shop online for most things here because they consider us remote and charge ridiculous shipping fees (some online stores for clothing don't which is nice)

Also.. most people here would like to have a 2nd income but there is no shopping where I live so unless you are something like a nurse or medical profession or want to work in the mine there isn't really much here job wise. Then don't get me started on daycare! The women who do it here charge $80 a day. :/ I was looking into trying to see if I could put lucas in for a couple days a week to be able to do work here at home designing while my husband is at work instead of doing the bulk when he is off buuuuut yea.

I think its impossible to even classify a middle class in all of america considering how different one area can be to the next.

I still wonder if traci is real or if she has battery power somewhere hidden because seriously. lol

Shush you, I'm efficient!

you should dress up as that little girl from "small wonder" from the 80's for halloween :P

I know where Traci hides her batteries.
:p

I did have a professor in college who said half the people he has taught had no business being there (in college) because it was actually pointless and stupid money-wise with their career choices. It was about that time I said forget this. lol

YES! She is my hero! I used to love that show!

Well, I'm still pushing my youngest to finish college. He was forced to take a semester off because of all the budget cuts here in Cali and he couldn't get any classes. He's just too smart and I'll be so upset at him if he drops out!

I wish we had trade schools like they do in Europe. There are just kids that are not meant to go on to universities...and I think that if they are trained well in their trade, they can earn a decent living and live in the middle class.

We have always been lower to mid middle class. There were years that we were on the high end, but the glory days are over!! LOL! My dh will be retiring in January. We could NOT live on that income alone unless our vehicles were paid off, and we didn't run the AC in the summer. Anywhere else, we could probably live very well. He is going to try to work as well as get his retirement, so we can be paying things off quickly and get our savings back up. He was disabled last year and we've gone through a lot of our savings to pay medical bills and just survive. We like to have nice things though and eat out, travel, so we know we need more money to do those things.

I have always thought that middle class was about $50,000 at the low end up to $150,000. Above that up to $250,000 was upper middle class.

We moved from Oregon to California just over a year ago. Everything is more expensive. The most obvious one is housing. We built a modest house for $350,000 not including the land. The codes are just so much more rigorous (like we had to have specific windows that would withstand a forest fire) which make the cost of building so much more expensive.

The thing that surprised me the most was food. California grows alot of food right? Should be cheaper living closer to the grower? Nope. And I'm not sure why either especially staples. Pasta is Pasta right? Must be some 'tax' or hidden cost of selling in California that I'm not privey too. Or because the cost of living is more expensive, salaries are higher which in turn makes basic things like pasta more expensive too.

Yeah, Cali is expensive! Its cities usually occupy 5-6 spots in the annual top 10 list of the most expensive cities to live in the U.S. Seattle is top 15, I've seen it as high as 9. I think we are 12 right now. Other places like HI and AK are quite expensive, in addition to the typical places like NY, MA and DC.

I have to agree with those who say it is regional. I grew up dirt poor, on welfare. I know poor. But middle class? Well, my husband and I are both full time professionals. We both put ourselves through college on our own dime (no parental contribution) and had some very lean years to reach where we are today. Together, we earn slightly under that upper range (<200k) We live in a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath home, about 2000 sq. ft. Nice, but not extravagant by any means. We drive two older cars - mine has 130,000 miles on it, his has over 220,000 miles. Repairs lately have been costly. None of our girls got cars when they turned 16. In fact, none of them yet has a car! I buy my clothes at Kohls and JCPenney, not Neiman Marcus or Ann Taylor. We just put one daughter through college without incurring debt. We went several years without any vacations to pull that off. We now have 2 in college. If it wasn't for the fact that one is in community college, we'd be living on rice and ramen noodles this year! Since the economy tanked 4-5 years ago, we've been paycheck to paycheck just keeping up with expenses and not able to save except for what is taken out of our paychecks for 401K, most of which is lost every year. A year ago my husband lost his job (layoffs, downsizing). He was able to find employment, but it was a 30% cut in pay from what he had been earning. This seems to be the new normal. And yet, the government, in its infinite wisdom, has declared that my children are not eligible for any aid for college and that we should be able to afford $50K/year (EFC). Huh? Because the EFC means the entire cost is out of pocket, we've had to limit the younger two to state schools even though the older one went to a private college (she had a sizeable academic scholarship). It is all we can afford without incurring massive debt. So yes, I fit the definition of [upper] middle class if you go strictly by the numbers, but where I live (northeast) the money just doesn't go that far. And don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining at all. I consider us to fit the "comfortable" range, but not rich, and I'm quite content being "comfortable." If I could transplant my income to the south I'm sure I'd be considered wealthy. I know housing costs are way less. On the other hand, if I tried to live on my income in California, I'd be struggling. So it's all subjective.

It really does depend on so many factors. For those of you responding that you are able to make your house payments, live relatively debt-free, and, if you're really careful, save for your children's education or for retirement - that is, to me, the better definition of this country's middle class. And you should be really proud, those are some significant accomplishments! It may sound like you're poor if you look strictly at income, but income is not necessarily indicative of lifestyle.

In California most people that I know are heavily in debt, living far beyond their income. So even if their income is $250,000, if they spend more than that and lose their houses or can't put their kids through college because they live too extravagantly, would they still be defined as middle class strictly based on their income? I don't know. But I think the people recognizing the importance of living within their means are the smarter
ones, no matter if they're not considered middle class.

Interesting discussion!

It does seem that until a few years ago, a lot of people were financing a middle class lifestyle by heavy debt spending, so it's hard judge what's "real" and what's just living on borrowed time. Hopefully the recession has made it a bit more acceptable to live within your own means and not "have to" buy a new car every couple years.

As for us, DH and I are both professionals and make decent money but we live in one of the most modest neighborhoods in our town and our kids think we are "poor" compared to others around here, like the several kids who go to their [public] school whose parents are pro sports players. I try very, very hard not to compare our lifestyle to other people because nothing good can come of that. :)

wow, us with one income are super poor =(

I think living within your means is by far the most important thing! Even in college my DH and I were able to save for a small down payment on our first house (this was in the early 1990's). That made a huge difference in getting into the real estate market for the first time. Then even with the 'debt' of a mortgage we have always tried to save and set a little aside to begin building a nest egg.

My inlaws have been a good role model. My father-in-law makes good money, but they are always super thrifty. THey've built up a nest egg primarily because of that attitude.

Over all, the cost of living here is very reasonable. Some things are kind of crazy. We pay more for food than a lot of my friends living in larger/more expensive areas. That part always makes me scratch my head. Gasoline is on the high end here too. However, things like preschool we pay quite a bit less for. Housing is pretty reasonable too. It used to be that housing was dirt cheap here. That has changed over the years though. Our first house was bought in '96, a 910 sq foot 2 bedroom, 1 bath. We paid $8K for it (yep, you read that right, $8,000). We bought this house 12 years later. We had a period of roughly 4 years in between where we rented. When we started looking at houses again the ones very much like our first house were going in the $30K range. Big jump. Anything with 3 bedrooms automatically fetched $50K no matter the condition. We were pretty discouraged. Then we found this one, 5 bedrooms, 2 bath, attached garage and bonus room with an asking price in the low $50K range. We got it for less than $50K and 4 years later I still think we got the deal of the decade considering what other houses around here are still going for. However, I had someone tell me that my house would fetch roughly $400K in their area so based on that, housing is cheap here. LOL

DH makes good money. We are blue collar workers. We both went to college but neither are doing anything close to what we went to school for. He works at a printing company. It is, easily, one of the top paying jobs around here without getting in to professional careers. I work for not much over minimum wage (at a school) but we don't count on my income for anything. I do it to get out of the house and I should be paying them to let me go in, I enjoy it so much. :) Essentially we are a one income household.

I can't imagine finding a 2 bedroom house for 50x around here (or even 1 bedroom if such a thing existed) let alone a 5 bedroom. My dad buys houses at auction (the ones that have been foreclosed on and are going dirt cheap) and his last 4 bedroom still cost $250,000 and he had to put $50,000 into it to make it inhabitable.

Exactly. Too many people in the last few years before the recession hit weren't spending real money.

We live in a suburb of DC. I can't even imagine real estate prices like that! In '99 DH and I bought a 3 bedroom townhouse for $150K. That was just before prices started skyrocketing, and when we left in 2005 it sold for almost $400K. Even now, 3 bedroom townhouses in that community go for $300K+. And that community isn't new or upscale, just average. Your home would probably be $400K or more here.

ETA: I was curious, so I checked listings. Even leaving out new construction and upscale neighborhoods, a single family 4 to 5 bedroom house here could be anywhere from the high $300's to the high $500's.

thats what I was thinking. I'm a store manager and I have a working husband.. and we touch NOTHING close to that. My husbands family is very wealthy in my mind and they only break 100,000... those numbers make absolutely no sense of what middle class is.

I see the nobility- upper class/middle class/lower class thing more than I see the dollar signs on class.
upper class- corporates, large business owners, etc.
middle class- professionals, small business owners, etc.
lower class- working/trades/service workers, etc

I completely agree with this. My entire family both sides have not gone to college (but one sister in law who only breaks 30,000.) We've either went to trade schools stuff like that and we make as much as people with 4 year degrees. Like I said my brother in law and father in law both break the 100,000 marks and I do okay ;) even tho i don't use my trade degree either (even tho I pay 10,000 in student loans I've been paying since 07.) So I do have some issues with college.

I always thought of us as middle class until recently and now we are just dirt poor. lol!

As I understand it, the middle class isn't really defined by an income range as much as aspirations: home ownership, higher education, economic stability, etc. Which is why you'll see people with such a wide range of income refer to themselves as "middle class" even though they're technically way above or below the middle income in the US - something like 91% of Americans label themselves as middle class even if income-wise they technically aren't. That $250,000 mark is just the number the politicians have chosen as the line for tax purposes. It does seem high to me but then again, the cost of a true middle class income has increased a ton due to the high costs of housing, education, etc so that number may not be that far off for being the high end of the upper middle class.