More Americans are breaking into the upper middle class • Hacker News Board

Re: More Americans are breaking into the upper middle class

#51

Post by balderdash » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

alephnerd wrote: post #34

balderdash wrote: post #29

the 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…

> in 1970 (~33k/year) in nyc Comparing NYC in the 1970s to today isn't a "big apple to big apple" comparison. NYC in 1970s was on the verge of bankruptcy [0] and federal receivership, saw 1,000 industrial firms leave annually leading to 500K jobs lost from 1969-76 [1], and saw around 880K residents [2] leave for suburbs or other states. NYC didn't recover until the 2000s [3]. For your discussion, a better comparison…

yeah that was a pretty cheap time to buy in nyc for sure - but i don't think that anyone would argue that the the ratio of home price/income has stayed flat/decreased over the past five decades

Re: More Americans are breaking into the upper middle class

#52

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

PowerElectronix wrote: post #31

guzfip wrote: post #3

Great for these people, but will there be such opportunities for their children? I thought I did well for myself, finding myself among the middle class, the end is on the horizon.

The social elevator works well enough to expect that one's children will do well if you provide them with the tools they'll need (which are basically a good education and love and support).

[deleted]

Re: More Americans are breaking into the upper middle class

#53

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

Ajedi32 wrote: post #22

tdb7893 wrote: post #6

The 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.

[flagged]

No, inequality is bad because money buys political power. Using some made-up numbers:

Say a typical cost of living is $50,000 per year. If you make $100,000 per year after tax, you can spend that extra $50,000 per year on political efforts - Lobbying, propaganda, political campaigns, soft power, hard power, land-grabs, etc.

If you have a billion dollars, you make about 30 million per year in returns. Cost of living is a rounding error.

Every billionaire is capable of outspending 600 six-figure software engineers, while sitting on their ass all day every day, or networking, or playing tennis. I think they realize this.

Do you think it is dangerous for a civilization when someone can dedicate all their waking hours to amassing power through any means possible, while they have more financial power than 600 middle-class people?

Re: More Americans are breaking into the upper middle class

#54

Post by happytoexplain » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 4:51 PM UTC

MoltenMan wrote: post #48

amelius wrote: post #44

No kidding. If you allow a population to gamble online, with prediction markets, derivatives, etc. don't be surprised if you widen the wealth gap. More winners, but even more losers. But hey, you only ever hear about the winners, so it's great for the image. America is doing great!

The subtitle specifically says 'the lower rungs of middle class have shrunk'? This seems a little ridiculous to just say. As trendy as it is to hate on modern day life and talk about how awful it is, in material terms it's pretty clearly better than it's ever been.

>in material terms it's pretty clearly better than it's ever been.

On a time scale of centuries, sure. On a time scale of decades, absolutely not.

Re: More Americans are breaking into the upper middle class

#55

Post by pesus » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 4:51 PM UTC

mfro wrote: post #32

commandlinefan wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know a single young person who has entertained any hope of owning a decent house at any point in the next 20 years.

It's the norm now, depressingly. Prior to 2020, It seemed like it might be eventually possible for some of us if we make smart decisions in terms of careers, saving money, and everything else.

Post 2020, and now especially with the economy being propped up by AI that appears to be on the verge of killing (or at least significantly wounding) one of the last viable career paths that would allow for homeownership, I've accepted that it probably just won't happen. Same with having children. Somehow having both feels like a pipe dream.

It's also why I'm not shocked that a significant number of startups lately are just young people doing whatever they can to grab some wealth before things get even worse. Overall, there's an expectation that things will simply keep getting worse with little chance of turning around. It'll be interesting (in a morbid way) to see how this affects the kids currently growing up today.

Re: More Americans are breaking into the upper middle class

#56

Post by balderdash » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 4:54 PM UTC

ksymph wrote: post #42

balderdash wrote: post #29

the 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…

The poverty line, as established in the 60s, is simply 3x the minimum food budget. Food as a percentage of spending has decreased, while housing and other expenses have dramatically increased. If the poverty line were to be adjusted to reflect the share that food takes up of income today, from ~30% in 1963 to ~6% today, the threshold for a family of four would go from ~30k a year to ~150k. More in-depth explanation h…

that's really interesting thanks.

Re: More Americans are breaking into the upper middle class

#57

Post by tdb7893 » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 4:54 PM UTC

Ajedi32 wrote: post #22

tdb7893 wrote: post #6

The 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.

[flagged]

Inequality is inherently bad for dynamic market economies. Often the argument is that increasing inequality is fine if the economy is growing and the lower classes aren't losing income but inequality also slows growth as more of the investment goes to consumption for fewer and fewer people. So economically I agree that inequality is not zero sum but it seems like inequality lowers the total productivity of the economy in the long term (so it's net-negative sum).

This is in addition there are effects on the civics and reduction in welfare of people. Like many things in economics, inequality is a hard thing to do good experiments on but the data suggest that inequality itself has a host of effects that you're ignoring.

This article is a decent primer on the effect of inequality and what we know and don't know (and also some of the difficulties studying it): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_economic_inequality

Edit: there's a lot of literature on this. If you use Google scholar you can find tons of articles talking about the various effects of inequality (though as always with economics, the papers struggle to get good data). Modern economics definitely doesn't view it as an isolated and benign thing.

Re: More Americans are breaking into the upper middle class

#58

Post by flyingcircus3 » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 4:54 PM UTC

RedStarComrade wrote: post #5

blinded wrote: post #2

Anyone have a gift link?

https://archive.ph/2026.04.05-025428/https://www.wsj.com/eco...

Ive found lately that a few sites, including WSJ, archive.ph just hangs on the loading screen. The existence of your link should make it skip the loading, as in understand it. Is there a trick to this?

Re: More Americans are breaking into the upper middle class

#59

Post by amelius » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 4:55 PM UTC

MoltenMan wrote: post #48

amelius wrote: post #44

No kidding. If you allow a population to gamble online, with prediction markets, derivatives, etc. don't be surprised if you widen the wealth gap. More winners, but even more losers. But hey, you only ever hear about the winners, so it's great for the image. America is doing great!

The subtitle specifically says 'the lower rungs of middle class have shrunk'? This seems a little ridiculous to just say. As trendy as it is to hate on modern day life and talk about how awful it is, in material terms it's pretty clearly better than it's ever been.

> The subtitle specifically says 'the lower rungs of middle class have shrunk'?

Yes, perhaps because they are now in the class below that?

Re: More Americans are breaking into the upper middle class

#60

Post by commandlinefan » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 4:55 PM UTC

guzfip wrote: post #3

Great for these people, but will there be such opportunities for their children? I thought I did well for myself, finding myself among the middle class, the end is on the horizon.

I'm worried about my kids, but don't forget to worry about yourself, too! I've got just enough saved up for retirement by current retirement calculator standards (if I keep working and contributing until I'm 67), but inflation could easily end up negating all of it long before I can use any of it.