If that's middle class, what's lower class, Mittens?

[Scipio]

Yeah the reality is this, from those US census survey for 2007 (so not so out of date given the recession) US family incomes are:

over $250k  - 2.5 %
150k-250k  - 7.9 %
100k-150k - 15.3%

and from the bottom up:
below $17.5 - 10.1 %
17.5k-27.5k - 9.6 %
27.5k-37.5k - 9.5 %
37.5k-47.5k - 9.2 %
and fairly evenly distributed up to 100k


So America has a lot of rich families, but proportionately an awful lot more poor people.

Facts have no place here.

[katmai]

Scips rus side is coming out.

[MadImmortalMan]

Rich = You don't have to work.

[Jacob]

Rich = You don't have to work.

+ you don't worry about the money you spend.

Getting disability payments, for example, does not make you rich.

[crazy canuck]

Rich = You don't have to work.

I dont know about that.  I grew up poor and now, at the risk of sounding like Marti, I make a lot of money relative to the average Canadian.  I consider myself rich in the sense that I am in the top 1% of income earners.  I still need to work but I never really worry much about money or spending it and I think that also makes me rich.  I know middle class families who do worry about whether they should buy this or that and I lived in a poor family who just dreamed about one day spending money on this or that.

That is a long way of saying, I think being rich is not having to worry about money.  Not having to work is the idle rich.

[katmai]

I have to side with the taller than avg Canuck on this.

[garbon]

Garbon needs to just stop.

Stop what? Pretty sure we had a discussion here before that $250k doesn't make a family upperclass.

[katmai]

It sure as shit ain't middle class.

[Ed Anger]

I'm upper middle class! 

[garbon]

It sure as shit ain't middle class.

Pretty sure it is what Ed just said - upper middle class.

[katmai]

Upper upper middle class maybe.

Ed is nuveau riche putting on airs.

[Ed Anger]

Upper upper middle class maybe.

Ed is nuveau riche putting on airs.

I'm reading this while holding a snifter of fine aged Norman Calvados.

[dps]

It sure as shit ain't middle class.

Pretty sure it is what Ed just said - upper middle class.

Being rich isn't so much about income as it's about net worth.  There are people who make $30,000 a year at their job but have a $20 million dollar trust fund--they're rich.  There are people who make $250,000 a year but have 6 kids and a stay-at-home spouse and live paycheck-to-paycheck--they're not rich.

[CountDeMoney]

It sure as shit ain't middle class.

[Caliga]

To me, any household with an income over $150k is on the wealthier end of things.

Anyway, how do you know how much your brother's household brings in?  I have no idea what my brother makes as that's something I'd never ask him (nor tell him if he asked).