Financially and socially I think most people base their perception of upper class of one or more of the following
- High income (top 10%, 230k household income)
- High networth (top 10%, 2M net worth)
- High spend (estimated top 10% 170k spend)
Do you consider yourself middle class or upper class and which of these categories do you check off?
byu/raphkun infinancialindependence
Posted by raphkun
32 Comments
I have no class.
1 and 2. Wealth should be the only indicator of class, not income.
I don’t consider myself to be upper class although 2 applies. However FIRE simply requires a lot of wealth. $2M buys you $80k (or less) in annualized spending I doubt anyone thinks $80k household spending for a two person household to be upper class. It is top 10% of wealth but not even close to top 10% of household income (or spending).
3 I don’t consider to mean anything beyond people spending money. Americans on average love debt. Save nothing, own nothing, endlessly borrow/rent/subscribe you can live large for a while. I know I had a negative networth until my mid 30s.
4. Drives a Dodge Stratus ✅
Upper middle class. 1 & 2, but not 3.
Middle class. Upper class isn’t money, it’s influence and power.
I hit one of the three categories. Most folks who hit this category have learned that real happiness is being content with less than they make and focusing on relationships over more stuff.
Anecdote: I don’t think about things this way. I know what my needs are and tend to them. I don’t care what percentage tiers I may or may not fall within. Only thing I know is that income inequality is accelerating and I’m not going to continue the rat race just to meet some arbitrary competitive number.
I mostly view “class” as a useful abstraction when discussing broad economics, policy, etc. and not a single household.
1 & 2 at this stage and been at this level for a year or two (though some of the net-worth is still pre-tax). For 3 – not yet though we’ve added some items to the budget this year that are getting us up there.
I’d consider us upper-middle class at this stage but it’s getting tougher each year to not consider ourselves ‘rich’.
To me, you are financially independent or not. That is far more important than arbitrary definitions of class.
$3M net worth, $50k/year spend. What does that make me?
Middle class. All three. I still live in a double wide mobile home, had a 23 year old car until repair was no longer economical, and am still far from being able to live my middle class life without a paycheck. While I live a modest life, California, insurance, medical spending, and adult children all add up to high spending.
Everyone seems to have their own definition. I like the levels created by Nick Maggiulli in his new book, The Wealth Ladder.
* Level 1 is defined as a net worth of less than $10,000
* Level 2 spans a net worth from $10,000 to $100,000, often associated with the working class
* Level 3, with a net worth between $100,000 and $1 million, is considered the middle class and is the most populous segment, encompassing about 40% of U.S. households.
* Level 4 is characterized by a net worth of $1 million to $10 million, commonly referred to as the upper middle class.
* Level 5 covers net worth from $10 million to $100 million, representing the upper class.
* Level 6 is for individuals with a net worth exceeding $100 million, classified as the superrich.
I’m British, so will never be upper class (you need to be born into the aristocracy for that)
Upper middle class. I’m retired but some years my portfolio generates cash in excess of category 1, I check off category 2 and I try not to check off category 3 but some years I do.
I think class is more than just money. I consider myself upper middle, house hold income is right around $200k, but it’s we’re DINKs
As long as I’m not FI yet, I consider myself Working class.
Middle class. Used to be 1. Now I’m 2.
Avoiding 3.
2
Just live my life, doesn’t matter what class other people consider me
$230k household income and $2M net worth is nowhere near “upper class”. I might qualify it as “upper middle class” but you still very much have a middle class lifestyle, live in a middle class neighborhood, have typical middle class chores, and have typical middle class problems. Your home, cars, vacations, etc. are marginally nicer, but you aren’t anywhere close to being elevated to the next level of “upper class” society. I wouldn’t expect to see that start to kick in until you hit beyond at least two standard deviations from the norm.
I would personally consider myself middle but I honestly don’t know how you distinguish. I hit point 1 but not 2 or 3. Having $2m at 34 seems kind of steep in my opinion.
I’ve been very fortunate in my life and career but I’m not to the point where I’m comfortable buying high end homes or cars. Still monitoring my savings rates and starting a family is going to rock every financial plan I made in my 20s.
All 3 of above but i definitely don’t feel upper class
I consider myself upper middle class and all three of those categories are true for us. I want to bring the spending down, but every year there is yet another reason we are spending too much.
We’re 1&2, but don’t feel it.
When my wife and I started our lives together, we had to save spare change for a single medium pizza at the end of each week. A single thing breaking in either of our shitty cars was a huge financial blow. Someone actually left a food donation box at our apartment door once. We considered ourselves low class but educated.
35 years later, we tick all 3 of your categories. It’s been a LOT of hard work. We still only consider ourselves middle class. We live in a modest house, drive modest cars, and live well.
Than I look at a few other things. We traveled abroad, and vacation pretty much 2-3 times a year. Our kids went to private college and we help, but they still have student loans. We have hobbies we probably spend a few $1000 a year on easily. Belong to a few private clubs. Our house is paid for, and we will most likely retire early. An emergency costing a few thousand dollars wouldn’t make us even bat an eye now. I think we still consider ourselves middle class and not upper. We are probably sitting right on that line just before it becomes upper middle.
We know rich people. Not 1%ers, but much MUCH wealthier than us. I think the bell curve of middle class is deformed.
So if I don’t have 1 or 2, but I take loans out for 3, I’m upper class? Yay!!!
If you have “income”, you are probably upper-middle class at most. A name for that in recent decades is the Meritocracy. That’s going to be your top 10% up until the top 0.1%. These are the people who probably had affluent parents, went to good schools in high paying career fields, got good job placements, started or inherited successful small businesses, etc. These people still worked for their money, even if they had advantages from the start.
Upper Class is going to be your top 0.1%. These people mostly inherited wealth and/or had a very solid headstart like the Meritocracy folks above, and then continued to build it. Generally, most of their revenue is wealth from investments, land holdings, and owning companies. They don’t earn “income”, they own capital. These are the Capitalists in other nomenclature, and in ages past they would have been Aristocracy or very successful Merchant Householders.
Something to keep in mind in these discussions:
1 million seconds = 11.6 days
1 billion seconds = 31.7 years
1 trillion seconds = 31,700 years
There are massive differences between a person who owns in the range of $1m to $20m, even if they earn a pretty high wage, and a person who owns $100m to $1bil in investments. And then going up in the multi-, deca-, and mega-billions is a wider gulf still.
Upper-middle class is “rich” by the standards of the vast majority of people. But the true upper class, the truly wealthy, have power; the money they have is just part of it.
I think of it more as a security state than a number. The dollar amount labels seem meaningless. You see professional athletes and entertainers with ridiculous incomes drowning in debt because they don’t seem to understand finances and just blindly trust someone to make it all work for them. They’ve got all the things, but zero security. One bad illness or accident sends them over a financial cliff.
Upper- Own everything they have, Owe no one $$, and can buy anything they want. This is ideal security not necessarily high profile living.
Middle- Own most of what they have, Owe someone $$$ (generally a mortgage), and have to plan for purchases to not add debt. This is stable. A major accident or illness will rock them, but they can recover.
Lower-Owe on most of what they have, and it’s a struggle to not add debt. This is tentative or fragile security. The storms are major challenges.
We qualify for 1 and 2, but I consider myself working class.
Upper middle. Middle class lifestyle. Upper class income and net worth.
The classical definition is:
– working class/lower class: employee, reliant on a wage from an employer
– middle class: business owner, reliant on working class to give you wealth
– upper class: landowner, reliant on working class, working your land to give you wealth
Now in own modern day this stuff has kind of gone out the window and “class” means a lot less.
Personally, I don’t attribute “class” to either a specific dollar amount nor a specific income. This definition is pointless because it underscores what the point of wealth truly is.
In my opinion:
– lower class: lives paycheck to paycheck
– middle class: lives decade to decade
– upper class: lives generation to generation
Basically, if you stopped earning a wage, how long could you go before you had to start working again. For the vast, vast majority, it’s one to two paychecks. That’s it. For the upper class, it’s at least one generation. That is, your current assets will last your lifetime and possibly your descendants as well. Anything in between is where it gets murky and a good definition is the middle class.
Now since I didn’t attribute this to a specific dollar amount, this could vary for everyone. Personally, I could last a few years at least (possibly tapping my retirement accounts, real estate, etc). But I don’t live in a very high cost of living area.