Exactly. Nichlemm is winning this debate.

I can assure you that no one outside of this thread would refer to them as such.

I think income is a fairly poor measure of class status. Income level ranges for each class depends on country, region, and city. I think a better definition of upper middle class is:

-Nice house (or apartment in NYC) in a nice neighborhood
-One car per adult in the household (this doesn't apply in some cities where you don't need a car)
-Decent retirement savings which will ensure that each adult will be able to retire at 65 without any money worries
-Would be okay if a drastic event occurred (eg:losing a job, one spouse becomes very sick)
-Can pay for their kids school (atleast undergrad)
-Can afford to buy their kids a car when they get a license (again this doesn't apply in some cities)
-Kids do not contribute to household income (poorer families generally have their kids start working younger and have them contribute to family expenses)

A quick Google search suggests your overestimating by $74k
and it's $35k starring salary.

Why not?

You may need to get outside more.

b

this all seems very reasonable.

It seems that what we're learning in this thread is that people who have money have no ****ing idea how little money your average joe in this country actually makes

(in relative terms, of course. don't get me wrong, we're the richest country in the world)

With some of the highest inequality.

but hey, #1 in incarceration rates tho

b

I never realized how insecure people making 6 figures+ are until this thread. I guess it makes sense, high anxiety types are more likely to work tirelessly to combat their fears about not having enough. On the opposite spectrum you would have some poor liberal like "the Dude", who remains relatively chill even with nihilists threatening to cut off his Johnson. Could the conservative/liberal spectrum come down to something as simple as central nervous system sensitivity?

No, I'm not. I explained it in my next post. 70k base after 5 years. Sanitation workers, like most city workers, significantly increase this figure with overtime, night diff, etc.

Feel free to check www.seethroughny.net to confirm. Sometimes a "quick" google search doesn't tell the whole story.

Quite the contrary, unlike you and ADW I know exactly what I'm talking about on this particular topic. You are both misinformed and seem to have little interest in hearing the truth.

Fwiw, DSNY, FDNY, NYPD, and NY Corrections all make 100k+ after 5 years with minimal overtime. Supervisor's make significantly more. I come from a blue collar family in NYC and I'm not speculating on these figures. Yes, blue collar, lol.

Because no one refers to low level civil servants as "rich". It's kind of bizarre that this needs explaining. I'm no where near a Henry17 type, but many in this thread seem to have an astonishingly low threshold for what constitutes "rich" or even "upper middle class".

Really? I know many such families personally. No one, and I mean no one, would ever think of calling them rich. Least of all themselves.

Don't tell them how much MTA employees make.

Being in the top 1.2% of earners isn't enough?

I'm not sure of how much the night differential is - but working overtime is in a sense like working a 2nd job to earn more money, so I'd say the couple you are talking about that makes $200k combined, actually has 2 full-time and 2 part-time jobs. Obviously people in any city can get a 2nd job also, if they want to trade their time off for increased income.

If they each just had a single full-time job (no overtime) they'd make $140k before taxes, which is solidly middle class in an area where even the most modest homes are $350k+.

That's a reasonable response. FWIW night differential is usually 10% added to base, and a commensurate bump to overtime rate.

I hear what you are saying about the second job, though most would have a very hard time finding part time work that pays as well as a top pay city employee's (in the agencies I've referenced) OT rate. A fireman makes about ~$65/hour on OT, most of it to sleep or eat.

Also, many people working jobs where they are legitimately rich, or are on the fast track to becoming so, such as investment bankers, big firm law associates, resident physicians, etc. put in brutal hours. With regard to the blue collar jobs I've mentioned, I'm talking about 15-20 extra hours a month to arrive at my $100k+ numbers. 45 hour weeks with 5 weeks paid vacation, nothing crazy.

To be rich? No.

Like most in this thread I do agree that rich/UMC distinctions are more based on lifestyle than income. My idea of being "rich" has more to do with assets and financial freedom than wages.

A family in NYC making a combined $200-$250k lives a comfortably modest lifestyle out of necessity.

Whether they're rich or not is irrelevant, that's just semantic gibberish. The point is those 250k people need to paying much higher income taxes. Then this money needs to be redistributed to people like me. I will use this repatriated money to fund my lifestyle of getting high, playing videogames, and inseminating loose women.

The only people who think 200k is rich are the ones making significantly less than it.

So, 80%+ of the country?

Depending on your definition of "significantly".

I would think the top 4% of earners in America would be considered rich, but apparently not.

200k puts people in the top 5-7%. There was a recent study that calculated how much they would need to do basic things such as housing, 2 cars, expenses of 2 kids, and a few extras like a vacation every year. Nothing was extravagant at all. The number they came up with was 130k.

Most people with a college degree and a decent career path can make somewhat close to 100k. If you get 2 of those people married, they can obviously make 200k pretty easily. To even get to 130k all you need is 2 people with half-decent jobs. Honestly, a married couple that works as a bartender and a waiter in decently busy establishments can make this amount of money, much less 2 middle managers approaching 40 years old.

The real issue is that it is incredibly hard to crack into the actual "rich" group, the top 1-2%. In order to crack that group you have to have the ability to multiple your money somehow, whether that is through investments or purchasing real estate or something that will bring you significant return. If you actually did the calculations and figured out how much extra a couple who make 200k can save a month, it'll take many many months for them to have something that the normal person would consider rich. It's simply not as much as you may think it is.

The upgrades that a family who makes 100k and a family that makes 200k aren't significant enough to classify as rich. Usually 4 things are somewhat upgraded - house/cars/lifestyle/educational expenses. I think we can all agree upgrading from a 200k house to a 400k house is nice, but it's not rich. Upgrading from a Honda Civic to an Acura isn't significant. Upgrading from eating at Outback once a month to going to 100 dollar dinners 4 times a month and public school vs a private school costing 13k a year isn't significant either. I think we can all agree these are somewhat modest upgrades, and far from anything anyone would consider rich.

Rolexes, week long vacations to France, 100k cars, 800k houses are all out of reach for 200k couples. Sure, one or two of those might actually be pulled off, but to significant detriment in another category. For a family of 4 making 200k, all of those things are a luxury. I know many couples who make that income, and none of them do any of those activities or own any of those things.

This must have changed. I distinctly remember looking this up and it was top 7% at 200k.

It's pretty sad that 2 married college educated people with good jobs are considered "rich". It goes to show much of a difference there is between that top tier of the 1% and the rest.

I think it's sad that the top quarter can be breached by two folks with entry level jobs in some mid level metropolitan areas.

Right. Excluding children and olds, like 50% of people are in really bad shape.