151–160 of 180 posts
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Why would it be unsurprising? The upper class income range went up , so it's actually even more surprising that of the 3% that went from the middle to the upper class they had a higher bar to reach.
It went down: $135K in 2000 => $124K in 2014.
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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?
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So let's ask the question, then. What makes progressive social policies (ignoring loaded issues like reproductive options and gun control) so distasteful to some of those who would most benefit? I'll provide a starting hypothesis for discussion's sake: maybe urban disdain for the suburban and rural lifestyles (exemplified by complaints about "subsidizing" rural areas) turns people off before they hear the good ideas?…
Is it really that hard to figure out for some issues? Take gun control. Violent gun crimes are nearly non-existent in rural settings. Plus, gun plays an important role for rural folks including: hunting, pest control on farms, self-defense when the police are 30 minutes away, etc. Is it that surprising that rural folks say "Hey, that sucks you have a lot of gun crime, but why do I have to give something up that has v…
This cannot be the basis of a rational policy, because it's false. Gun violence is much higher outside of cities. Please go to this site and set the stats to "Intent of injury: Violence-related" and "Mechanism of Injury: Firearm".
https://wisqars.cdc.gov:8443/cdcMapFramework/mapModuleInterf...
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> 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?
Books I read a decade ago in political science classes and couldn't remember who did the studies or proposed the theories. http://www.brill.com/middle-class-and-democracy-socio-histor... looks like it might discuss the topic, but I don't know what perspective it takes
This means a lower probability, all other things being equal, that a majority-supported position will be extremely unwelcome by a large minority, which is probably a good thing for a democratic state.
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> $125,000 is "upper class", you say, regardless of location? If you click through to the source report, the locality-based breakdowns are, in fact, based on income criteria adjusted from the national definition using metro-area-specific cost of living.
Thank you - missed that. The $125,000 line still doesn't make sense though, even in flyover country (where I live). That's barely enough to buy a 2nd/3rd tier home in a strong school district where I live. Would think that easy access to good schools and good housing are table-stakes for being "upper class".
Let's be a little more conservative. Suppose you spend 25% of your post-tax income on housing. A 125k income supports a $1750/month payment, which works out to a ~370k house. That gets you a median house in all but 3 states: Hawaii (556k), DC (550k), and California (462k) - the next state up is Massachusetts (343k). You could also buy the median house in all but 16% of zip codes.
I couldn't find that much data on school districts, but just as a point of comparison, 370k is enough to buy the median single family home in 7 of the top 10 school districts in Michigan[2]:
1. 350k, Bloomfield Hills Schools
2. 411k, Birmingham Public Schools
3. 219k, Okemos Public Schools
4. 429k, Novi Community Schools
5. 343k, Ann Arbor Public Schools
6. 276k, Saline Area Schools
7. 370k, Troy School District
8. 285k, Grosse Pointe Public Schools
9. 335k, East Grand Rapids Public Schools
10. 429k, Northville Public Schools
Also, anecdotally, I grew up in Michigan and a 400k home was solidly upper-middle class even in nice areas like Ann Arbor and Bloomfield Hills. In Ann Arbor, a 600k home would be either a mansion or a family home in an extremely desirable area.
[1] http://www.zillow.com/research/data/ [2] https://k12.niche.com/rankings/public-school-districts/best-...
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Calling a CFO at a Fortune 500 company 'working class' because they work for someone else is going to raise eyebrows. You can argue about educational capital, but learning to be a truck driver and maintaining a clean record is capital in the same way as being an MD is capital, but the scale is vastly different. The wider problem with this standpoint in the modern US is a 'working class' truck driver over their lifeti…
> Calling a CFO at a Fortune 500 company 'working class' because they work for someone else is going to raise eyebrows. Most C-levels at Fortune 500 companies have substantial capital stores which are an important part of their overall support (even if they are not being drawn down regularly, but instead being grown for retirement or planned future use, or as inheritance) and are, in terms of the traditional capitali…
This is due to income, not job function. AKA NFL coach vs. high school football coach.
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> Calling a CFO at a Fortune 500 company 'working class' because they work for someone else is going to raise eyebrows. Most C-levels at Fortune 500 companies have substantial capital stores which are an important part of their overall support (even if they are not being drawn down regularly, but instead being grown for retirement or planned future use, or as inheritance) and are, in terms of the traditional capitali…
> have substantial capital stores... some living paycheck-to-paycheck This is due to income, not job function. AKA NFL coach vs. high school football coach.
Its due to past circumstance, including past income, past life choices, inheritance, and a number of other factors. Its not a function of either present income or present job function, though its loosely correlated with both (and, of course, having any job function indicates that you are to some extent dependent on renting out your labor; really, the classes aren't crisp categories, they are ranges on a continuum.)
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Do you think this is intended to summarize the shift in median income (generally downward since 1997)? If so, why not just discuss that? If not, the effects of that shift are surely confounding whatever it is they ARE trying to summarize (some nebulous quantity called "the middle class").
> Do you think this is intended to summarize the shift in median income (generally downward since 1997)? No, its intended to discuss the move of the income distribution to be less-tightly clustered around the median with more at the extremes (the particular release the NYT article is about talks about the by-metro-area effects of this, but the broader trend is succinctly illustrated in this graphic [0] from the Decem…
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So let's ask the question, then. What makes progressive social policies (ignoring loaded issues like reproductive options and gun control) so distasteful to some of those who would most benefit? I'll provide a starting hypothesis for discussion's sake: maybe urban disdain for the suburban and rural lifestyles (exemplified by complaints about "subsidizing" rural areas) turns people off before they hear the good ideas?…
> What makes progressive social policies (ignoring loaded issues like reproductive options and gun control) so distasteful to some of those who would most benefit? I'm not going to claim to answer for anybody but myself -- in large part because (a) I'm an urbanite too and (b) my politics can be least inaccurately described as "anarchist" -- but to me, this question really comes down to one point: respect/maturity. Mu…
At least for me, the question is not, "How can I show these 'little people' how to live better," it's, "What resources would I need to get back to where I am now if I found myself in situation X?" I don't see how that is condescending.
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So let's ask the question, then. What makes progressive social policies (ignoring loaded issues like reproductive options and gun control) so distasteful to some of those who would most benefit? I'll provide a starting hypothesis for discussion's sake: maybe urban disdain for the suburban and rural lifestyles (exemplified by complaints about "subsidizing" rural areas) turns people off before they hear the good ideas?…
>What makes progressive social policies (ignoring loaded issues like reproductive options and gun control) so distasteful to some of those who would most benefit? The unsupported assumption here is that those policies would be beneficial.
What factors (emotional, moral, intellectual, cultural, derived from propaganda, whatever) feed into a decision to support or not to support UBI, as an example?