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More Americans are breaking into the upper middle class
21–30 of 94 posts
Re: More Americans are breaking into the upper middle class
#22The headline is a remarkably rosy spin on it when the subheading is "Research shows that ranks of higher earners have grown markedly over last 50 years, while lower rungs of middle class have shrunk". The article is behind a paywall but it makes it sound like inequality is increasing.
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Re: More Americans are breaking into the upper middle class
#23The headline is a remarkably rosy spin on it when the subheading is "Research shows that ranks of higher earners have grown markedly over last 50 years, while lower rungs of middle class have shrunk". The article is behind a paywall but it makes it sound like inequality is increasing.
That's the whole point. When people hear "the middle class is shrinking" they intuitively believe people are slipping down a rung and joining the ranks of the working poor. The data doesn't back that up. The middle class is shrinking, but more people are moving up a rung than falling down one. Which isn't to say that you're wrong about wealth inequality increasing. The share of wealth controlled by the ultra wealthy…
> more people are moving up a rung than falling down one.
How do you figure that? Do we have any data that backs that up?
Re: More Americans are breaking into the upper middle class
#24"For the first decade of his career, he lived in an apartment and worried about paying for vacations. Then, in his early 30s (...)" ... here is America, without paid vacation guaranteed by law since the government does not truly care about the middle or working class. It's amazing how serious media can write articles about economy, while the blatant obvious deficits slip right by their nose..
Mandating by law paid vacations, laid parental leave, etc... doesn't make those things materialize out of thin air.
Every company accounts for those things and takes a bite off the paychecks of their employees to cover those expenses.
In america a lot of companies offer those without being mandated and those that don't have to offer higher salaries to stay competitive. End result is that employees that want can user those higher salaries to pay for the vacations or take some time off. And those that don't get to keep the extra money, of course.
Re: More Americans are breaking into the upper middle class
#25[flagged]
Yeah that's something you fail to see until you visit the third world or a communist hellhole for the first time. And for mostly the same reason: the government is a dictatorship captured by a few individuals. The inequality in Geneva or New York is MASSIVE. It's a problem. But it's absolutely pitiful compared to inequality in New Delhi or Havana. Plus it's what you keep hearing from ex-Soviets: that apparatchiks and…
> The problem communism creates, ironically, is massive inequality.
There is no communism. It doesn't and never has existed. It's just an ideal that that corrupt and powerful leaders can espouse while truly being an oligarchy / authoritarianism. It's also great for capitalist oligarchs to point to as a bogey man.
The fact that everywhere it's been tried ends up as an oligarchy should make this obvious. Can you point to any real communism in the wild? Just like you can't point to a truly free market... They are just ideas, often touted / abused / blamed.
Re: More Americans are breaking into the upper middle class
#26Re: More Americans are breaking into the upper middle class
#27The headline is a remarkably rosy spin on it when the subheading is "Research shows that ranks of higher earners have grown markedly over last 50 years, while lower rungs of middle class have shrunk". The article is behind a paywall but it makes it sound like inequality is increasing.
My son graduates college next month. Although he has an ok job lined up, he and most of his cohorts are incredibly pessimistic about the future and I'm not sure I can say that I blame them.
Re: More Americans are breaking into the upper middle class
#28As someone that thinks of myself as a low-caste, middle class American it's interesting seeing all of these people listed in the article making less than me
Re: More Americans are breaking into the upper middle class
#29the thing that doesn't compute for me is that the definition of upper middle class here is 5-15x the federal poverty line, ok, but in 1970 the federal poverty line was like ~$3k (and ~$22k today) 10x in 1970 (~33k/year) in nyc you could buy a 2,000 sqft apt for like 2.75x your salary [1] today, that same apartment is like >10x - so while perhaps more people are earning "upper middle class" incomes, what that gets you has declined significantly.
[1]https://www.elikarealestate.com/blog/tracing-buying-real-est...
Re: More Americans are breaking into the upper middle class
#30Also, more Americans are living in poverty. But don’t look over there.
Doesn't look like it. What's your source? https://www.statista.com/statistics/200463/us-poverty-rate-s...
Poverty line is different from living paycheck-to-paycheck.
The growth is not dramatic, but steady over time:
https://institute.bankofamerica.com/content/dam/economic-ins...