Class Status

You didn't know Stoob refers to himself in the third person now?

Anyway, I'd consider $50K to be lower middle class as well. $25K just doesn't go as far as it once did.

 

How can you be vp of a New York bank company and only make $50k?

That's gotta be a six figure job.

 

I'm rich, bitch.

 

He works for a small, local chain of banks.

 

Plus, JR, banks now throw around "branch VP" titles to mid-level managers in community branches

 

Gotcha.

I worked at a small place once with six employees.

There was the President and the other five of us were VP's.

It was a little like Glengarry Glenn Ross now that I think back on it.

 

That's been my motto for years.

Boots, $50 K is not considered middle class. 100K is and anything over is gravy in my neck of the woods.

 

$25K is not poverty level, but it's damn poor. Basically, you're living like a frat boy. I could barely make ends meet on that salary, and that was living in a very cheap area of Georgia, three years ago.

$50K is still reasonably low-middle class, in all but the most expensive areas of the country (NYC, D.C., Bay Area, SoCal). But I would consider $75-100K to be middle-middle class these days. It's so expensive to live these days.

 

And it depends on your family status. I'm supporting me, myself and I; no kids, no family.

 

I think to really have this discussion, you have to discuss total household income.
If one person makes $30,000, that is different than if they have a spouse who also makes $30,000.
I'd say a household income of less than $50,000 is poor, but it wouldn't be bad for a single person.

 

I think $75K combined family income is just about the middle-class median line.

$100K is upper-middle class in all but the most affluent areas.

 

Class is about much more than income level. Let's say I'm a teacher, and thus have a professional degree-yet (and as some have pointed out, income level can depend on region) I'm making next to nothing. In my mind, my degrees and my profession should make me comfortably middle-class. Yet, lets say, a plumber, for instance lives just down the road. He makes a hell of a lot more money than I do. Now, you could call me pompous or bourgeois, or whatever, but in my mind, he doesn't have nearly the same education I have, or maybe even the same values. Those differences may be manifested in the lifestyles he and I aspire to. So I don't think income alone can't explain "class." As a category (and one of course that is always shifting) class could include factors like class consciousness, lifestyle, social status, income, etc. etc. So while income obviously puts restraints on how we live, I don't think it alone determines our "class" in society.

Damn-I sound preachy-sorry, just my two cents.