Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 180 posts

Re: Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking

#71

Post by sixtypoundhound »

qsymmachus wrote: post #61
sixtypoundhound wrote: post #55

Ugh - while I agree with the conclusion, the statistical definitions here don't have any connection with reality. $125,000 is "upper class", you say, regardless of location? Let's translate that into the real world, shall we? $125,000 Household Income.... Who makes it: - IT manager or Senior Dev with stay at home spouse - Mid-level Dev ($90K) married to a K-12 teacher ($40K) - Two junior software developers (co-habit…

> Sad to say, there are many areas of the country where living on $125,000 still definitely sucks. Only by truly decadent standards could an income of $125,000 be said to "definitely suck". $125k is 2.4x median income and puts you in the 97th percentile of all American workers.

Attempting to answer the question a different way...

I presented three fictional "couples" and their career choices that would easily get you to the $125,000 point in today's labor market. None of these pairing would be considered "highly compensated" or upper class. Middle class would be a more appropriate designation.

With regards to the "suck" factor - try running a household in SF, LA, or NYC (with kids and spouse) on that amount. I don't think owning my own home and having good schools is a particularly decadent expectation. Or having good access to health care and support services. Nor should I be expected to leverage myself to the eyeballs to buy a starter home.

Would think that the expectation of a professional earning that amount is that they are providing their kids with an environment where their kids can replicate their success.

Re: Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking

#72

Post by qsymmachus »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #32
nugget wrote: post #18

I used to think that science fiction's popular predictions of a dominant, out of touch urban ruling class casually oppressing subsistence level, serf-like rural populations was just a dystopian fantasy. But the older I get and the more I think about the future and human nature the more I think that may be the way we are headed.

The joke is that the rural people are oppressing themselves. "Urban elites" have long advocated for policies that would benefit the rural poor but the white rural poor are dead set against any policy that would also benefit black people. http://www.nber.org/papers/w17234 and http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-Amer... for more on that.

There's a grain of truth to this, but it's a frankly smug attitude. It's a bit of a hand wave ("because racism") that allows urban elites like you and me to avoid asking what it is about _us_ and our politics that many white working class people find so repulsive.

Re: Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking

#73

Post by astazangasta »

npalli wrote: post #63

I found the following graph from the same pew research pretty interesting. http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2016/05/ST_2016.05.12_m... Essentially, the middle class shrank from 55% of the population in 2000 to 51% of the population in 2014. However, the upper class absorbed 3% (3/4th) of the shrinking middle class growing from 17% to 20% of the population, while the lower class absorbed only 1% (1/4th) of the shr…

Take this with a grain of salt. The definition of "middle income" is flexible. For example, in the Pew analysis "middle income" is defined as between $45,115-$135,346 in 2013-2014 dollars for the year 2000, but as between $41,641-$124,924 for the year 2014.

Given this difference it's unsurprising the Pew analysis finds the upper class grew, but since the definition shifts we should be suspicious of the meaning of this statistic.

Re: Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking

#74

Post by ones_and_zeros »

mattmanser wrote: post #35
dragonwriter wrote: post #16

The article makes the extremely common media error (which is also present in the source research, or at least the press release from Pew announcing it -- the article uses "class" pretty exclusively, the Pew release uses "class" in the headline and much of the body, but also uses "income tier" in some places) of conflating income (which is simply a measure of the amount of money received per year) with class (which is…

Every time there's an article like this, this exact comment gets trotted out. Phrases can have two meanings, that you can determine by context.

You shouldn't be down voted. Context matters an incredible amount in the English language. Plus, the US doesn't really have classes the way the OP is concerned "middle class" will be interpreted. I'd be surprised if anyone misses the point of this analysis either way.

Re: Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking

#75

Post by aianus »

qsymmachus wrote: post #61
sixtypoundhound wrote: post #55

Ugh - while I agree with the conclusion, the statistical definitions here don't have any connection with reality. $125,000 is "upper class", you say, regardless of location? Let's translate that into the real world, shall we? $125,000 Household Income.... Who makes it: - IT manager or Senior Dev with stay at home spouse - Mid-level Dev ($90K) married to a K-12 teacher ($40K) - Two junior software developers (co-habit…

> Sad to say, there are many areas of the country where living on $125,000 still definitely sucks. Only by truly decadent standards could an income of $125,000 be said to "definitely suck". $125k is 2.4x median income and puts you in the 97th percentile of all American workers.

This is not accurate, $125k household income only puts you in the 84th percentile according to the 2014 census.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United..., link to actual census results in footer.

Re: Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking

#76

Post by mapt »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #32
nugget wrote: post #18

I used to think that science fiction's popular predictions of a dominant, out of touch urban ruling class casually oppressing subsistence level, serf-like rural populations was just a dystopian fantasy. But the older I get and the more I think about the future and human nature the more I think that may be the way we are headed.

The joke is that the rural people are oppressing themselves. "Urban elites" have long advocated for policies that would benefit the rural poor but the white rural poor are dead set against any policy that would also benefit black people. http://www.nber.org/papers/w17234 and http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-Amer... for more on that.

Another point towards this hypothesis, but on the wealthy end of the spectrum rather than the poor end: http://www.vox.com/2015/1/16/7545509/inequality-waste

The questions are, why are positional concerns so obscenely powerful here as opposed to elsewhere, and why are positional concerns so obscenely powerful now as opposed to earlier?†

†Note the latter is somewhat questionable, as we had a black underclass to systemically persecute for a long time, and this action is blamed for everything from our lack of a public healthcare system to the gaps in our educational policy favoring high-income areas to suburban roadbuilding to the prevalence of private neighborhood & household swimming pools.

Re: Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking

#77

Post by tostitos1979 »

pasquinelli wrote: post #62
stanmancan wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. We live in Canada. Our household income for a family of 3 is just over $125K and I certainly don't feel like we're "upper class". We can't even afford to buy a house where we live.

i think it's pretty typical for people to appraise their own relative income level lower than it actually is.

Housing is a good equalizer. The average detached home in Toronto is 1.2 million dollars. The middle class should be able to afford a home, I think. Therefore, the parent is correct in his/her observation. The inflation numbers we have are grossly inaccurate. If we take the price of housing into account as we adjust incomes, the cut off for the middle class is probably 250-300K.

Re: Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking

#78

Post by nitrogen »

ones_and_zeros wrote: post #74
mattmanser wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time there's an article like this, this exact comment gets trotted out. Phrases can have two meanings, that you can determine by context.

You shouldn't be down voted. Context matters an incredible amount in the English language. Plus, the US doesn't really have classes the way the OP is concerned "middle class" will be interpreted. I'd be surprised if anyone misses the point of this analysis either way.

I've never heard the class distinctions defined in terms of dependency rather than income before, so I appreciated the comment.

Re: Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking

#79

Post by qsymmachus »

aianus wrote: post #75
qsymmachus wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sad to say, there are many areas of the country where living on $125,000 still definitely sucks. Only by truly decadent standards could an income of $125,000 be said to "definitely suck". $125k is 2.4x median income and puts you in the 97th percentile of all American workers.

This is not accurate, $125k household income only puts you in the 84th percentile according to the 2014 census. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United... , link to actual census results in footer.

Thanks for the correction, my numbers must be older (or just wrong).

Re: Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking

#80

Post by partisan »

cauterized wrote: post #15
nxzero wrote: post #8

Anyone able to offer an explaination of why having a large middle class is viewed as positive? For example, say large population was happy, educated, healthy, etc. - why does it matter what the class distribution is?

Democracies tend to function better with a large middle class that's well educated and has economic clout than it does with a small, powerful moneyed elite and a huge underclass that's struggling just to survive and has no time or mental energy to spare paying attention to politics. Additionally, the discretionary spending of middle class households helps fuel the economy.

> Democracies tend to function better with a large middle class that's well educated and has economic clout than it does with a small, powerful moneyed elite and a huge underclass that's struggling just to survive and has no time or mental energy to spare paying attention to politics.

Sources?

Post reply on HN