This is, yet again, coming back to people's hilariously wrong preconceived notions of what a certain class of people live like, and what reality is. I prefer to look at reality rather than some subjective lifestyle that marketing and media has placed in our minds.

Of course it can be middle class. Probably 20% of the country is poor, another 20% lower middle class, 5% upper middle class and rich, and 55% middle class. So you're looking at the upper part of the middle class (not to be confused with the upper middle class) being able to achieve the American Dream.

Based on what? Ideas that you came up with in your own head?

My perception of what the words mean in terms of lifestyle, and the cost of that lifestyle.

What are your breakdowns?

Middle class should be centered around the 50th percentile. That's as objective as you can get. Whether you go 25 thru 75 or 20 through 80 or 30 through 70.

"But that means that your average middle class person is poor as ****"

Correct. Most of the middle class today is poor as ****.

I get that you've been sold this typical "middle-class" lifestyle that everyone should have, but this is 2014, not 1966. Do some research on income inequality and educate yourself on what's become of the middle class. You might learn something

Yo max and keeed, the fact you found a bar you can jump over doesn't mean that you get to ignore basically every statistic out there.

That's simply not how the words are used. When people talk about a country's development they will often talk about "the emergence of the middle class" or "the emerging middle class". That implies that the middle class didn't exist before a certain time. You can't go back to 14th century England and be all "20-80th percentiles are middle class. They are in the middle, QED!" The middle class didn't exist then. The middle class has always and everywhere been described as a lifestyle. That lifestyle might change, but it's never a matter of sort by income, become socioeconomic expert. People talk about the growing middle class of one society and fret about the shrinking middle class of another society. Your definitions make no sense in this context.

hurrrr durrrr I found the median income! That is middle of middle class!!@!

STATISTICS

Dude, why don't you go and research some income inequality and figure out that America once did have a thriving middle class whose lifestyle was sort of in line with what your perception thinks that it should be, but that's not the case anymore.

I'm tired of arguing actual facts against your perceptions and vague subjective lifestyle bull****. It has no basis in reality.

Be as obtuse as you want; it won't get you anywhere in this discussion

"Your definitions make no sense in this context"

LOL. My objective fact-based arguments have no basis in your subjective vaguely-defined lifestyle argument that is largely based on your own perceptions? Okay man. This is hilarious

Dude I think that Max and I both agree that the middle class was more robust in the 50s and 60s than it is today. That the "shrinking middle class" in America is a thing. You are the one with the definition of middle class that does not accommodate this concept.

At this point, you don't even know what you're actually saying

So in 30 years when only 4% of the population can achieve this middle-class-type lifestyle, will it still be middle-class?

You are destroying your own case. If being middle class or living the american dream is rare, income inequality and the vanishing middle class are very real problems that we should talk about. Just changing the definitions only serves to sweep the issue under the rug.

So your definition of middle class for a given society requires that it is centered around the median income. What if 60% of the people are below the poverty line?

GOALPOSTS ARE SHIFTING

It might appear to be so from your reference frame. Describe where our goalposts were before and where they are now.

Income inequality isn't based on this vague subjective lifestyle ****. It's based on real distribution percentages. We can objectively quantify that the middle class is poorer than ever. There is a certain cost of living associated with purchasing food and shelter and other things that have *roughly* constant costs where we can associate percentages of income spent on simply keeping ourselves alive, and another percentage spent on things for our own enjoyment. We can compare where the median person was at at certain historical points compared to the current time. Actual stats.

If 60% of the middle class is below the poverty line, my question is what do we define the poverty line as? And yes, if we can recognize that the middle class is at a certain level of horrific poorness, then that too says just as much as "well only 1 in 25 people can afford this thing that I happen to describe as middle class"

So you're just refusing to recognize that people very commonly talk about the "growing middle class" or the "shrinking middle class"?

And the poverty line is the poverty line. It has nothing to do with how many others make more than a threshold. It is defining a basket of necessities and figuring out how much that basket costs, then setting a threshold. That isn't my opinion, that's how it is calculated and talked about.

Sure.....when you want to talk about stats use phrases like "median person", the single SD class (people within 1 standard deviation of the median income) etc. There is an entire lexicon of terms you can create to describe exactly what you mean rather than re-appropriating fuzzy terms like middle class, which already exist in laymen language and mean something different from what you are trying to define them as.

The percentage of income spent on necessities by the vaguely defined "middle class" has decreased over the past 15 years.*

It's higher than the Greenspan boom years when low int rate mortgages were handed out like candy but still near historical lows.

Overall, it's probably fair to say the "middle class" (all 3 middle quintiles) today is actually better off than they were 15 years ago, even if only marginally.

*it's probably worth noting historically consumers seem willing to spend 30~40% of their income in rent. This has pretty much held steady for as long as US started collecting data about 100 years ago. There does seem to be a slight downward trend but it's not clear. Food and transportation as percentage of income have dropped precipitously even as oil prices rose. Healthcare is the only "necessity" that has risen consistently in the past 15 years.

Stop focusing on income, wealth is more relevant