Blame Ide for America's problems

[crazy canuck]

a futon counts, kinda....

Only if you have a frame.

If you only have the frame it would be hard to sleep

[Ideologue]

Your notion that median income means a middle class lifestyle such as enjoyed by our parents is hilariously out of date.  In SC, a household of two people making $42k a year (God forbid with kids) are not middle class.

Median household income hasn't been as low as $42,000 in the US since the early 1970s.

I make well over the median wage, and I ain't middle class such as is, or was, routinely understood.   

I don't think you ever understood middle class if you think that a single male making "well over" $43,000 and change a year isn't middle class.  You really need to climb down from that ivory tower.

1)I was referring to South Carolina, not the U.S., which is why I said South Carolina, not the U.S. (that said, it is apparently $44.5k for 2012)
2)"median wage" is not the same thing as "median household income."*

*I did happen to make more than the median household income last year and it was great.  But you need stability and year-over-year income of that nature.  This year, I fell to about $30k-$35k, which is reasonably poor (and very disruptive).  One should also not forget the student loan tax, to the tune of about $4800 a year, depending on various factors, but which also impacts my effort to rejoin the middle class.

[mongers]

Your notion that median income means a middle class lifestyle such as enjoyed by our parents is hilariously out of date.  In SC, a household of two people making $42k a year (God forbid with kids) are not middle class.

Median household income hasn't been as low as $42,000 in the US since the early 1970s.

I make well over the median wage, and I ain't middle class such as is, or was, routinely understood.   

I don't think you ever understood middle class if you think that a single male making "well over" $43,000 and change a year isn't middle class.  You really need to climb down from that ivory tower.

1)I was referring to South Carolina, not the U.S., which is why I said South Carolina, not the U.S. (that said, it is apparently $44.5k for 2012)
2)"median wage" is not the same thing as "median household income."*

*I did happen to make more than the median household income last year and it was great.  But you need stability and year-over-year income of that nature.  This year, I fell to about $30k-$35k, which is reasonably poor (and very disruptive).  One should also not forget the student loan tax, to the tune of about $4800 a year, depending on various factors, but which also impacts my effort to rejoin the middle class.

Quiet now, Grumbler has defined you, what do You know of your own life ?

edit:
sorry, I was being ungenerous, I should have said he was being his usual tool of a self, slipping in an insult at the end.

I wonder what turned him into such a wanker, other than tugging too hard on his own dick. 

[Jacob]

BAM! Outta nowhere, it's mongers!

[grumbler]

1)I was referring to South Carolina, not the U.S., which is why I said South Carolina, not the U.S. (that said, it is apparently $44.5k for 2012)

"Middle class" isn't defined by state, and SC's median household income and expenses aren't notably off the national average.  Your argument that "a household of two people making $42k a year (God forbid with kids) are not middle class" is mere argument by assertion.  It is easily refuted by noting your own observation that the median ("middle") household income is only $2500 more than "not middle" $42k.  That's an absurd conclusion; it means that there is only a handful of middle class families in SC:  those making $42,001 to $46,999 per year.

2)"median wage" is not the same thing as "median household income."

Duh!  That's why I used two measures, as you did! 

[grumbler]

BAM! Outta nowhere, it's mongers!

He rarely passes up the chance to engage in the ad hom argument, does he?

[Ideologue]

I do not accept your assertion that "median" means "middle class."  Middle class is a term of art, g.  It involves a certain lifestyle, and just because the dollar value at the mathematical middle of the income spectrum is incapable of purchasing that lifestyle, does not mean that you can redefine it to mean "cohabiting with someone that also makes $23,000 a year."

[grumbler]

I do not accept your assertion that "median" means "middle class."  Middle class is a term of art, g.  It involves a certain lifestyle, and just because the dollar value at the mathematical middle of the income spectrum is incapable of purchasing that lifestyle, does not mean that you can redefine it to mean "cohabiting with someone that also makes $23,000 a year."

So the median class isn't the middle class, because you have redefined middle class to mean something other than the class in the middle?  Okay.  It makes as much sense as most of the gibberish you spout, except that I thought you were trying to actually say something in this case, whereas your usual gibberish sounds to me like you are deliberately being amusing.

No  sense continuing down the rathole of you just redefining things to avoid being wrong.  I'm done.

[Ideologue]

I use the term "middle class" because the term "bourgeoisie" fell out of fashion in this country by around 1919.  I know it's hard for you to catch up some times, but it has been almost a century.

Be done if you want, I have little interest in a semantic argument, but if you think you're bourgeois at $23,000 a year and splitting the fucking rent with the dishwasher at your restaurant, your approach is entirely indefensible.

[Admiral Yi]

I'm done.

Your fans lament.

Ide, there's no way median salary is not in the middle class.  We're not the UK, where middle class is defined by occupation.  If you earn an income smack dab in the middle then by definition you're in the middle class.

[Ideologue]

Seriously, let's apply this logic to the actual world of events:

Is the middle class threatened?

Premise 1:  The middle class is defined as 25th-75th percentiles of income.
Premise 2:  In the set of numbers we have, there are numerous entries in between the 25th-75th percentile.
Conclusion:  The middle class is fine!

[Admiral Yi]

Fair enough. 

Have you proposed an alternative defintion of middle class?

[Ideologue]

I'm done.

Your fans lament.

Ide, there's no way median salary is not in the middle class.  We're not the UK, where middle class is defined by occupation.  If you earn an income smack dab in the middle then by definition you're in the middle class.

I think that's really, really wrong.

Being middle class involves certain prerequisites.  Outside of silly places like NYC or SF, one of those is home ownership, or at least ability to own a home.  Another is ability to support a spouse and children if need be.

If you have redefined middle class to mean something less than that, then what you have done is simply declared that working poor people are middle class.  And I don't blame you, really, because that's what American politicians--not just yours--have been doing for decades now.

If a pure mathematical definition is accepted, basically anyone who's employed is middle class.  Fine, you can be right, but then you have to also accept that being "middle class" then is practically meaningless.

[Ideologue]

Fair enough. 

Have you proposed an alternative defintion of middle class?

As noted above, ability to own a modest home, ability to own two used cars, ability to support a normal nuclear family on one income (support defined as feed and clothe), ability to support a modest hobby, and an expectation that you will retain those abilities for the foreseeable future.

[Sheilbh]

I'm with Ide, class is mainly about lifestyle/quality of life.