Hellobee Boards

@Mrs Checkers: I just looked up the prices for our area from the U.S. Census...

median house worth: $677,100
median house income: $90,939

And our house is larger than 2000 sq. ft, but much less than $800k!

I consider middle class for my area to be somewhere in the range of $80-200k. We have high taxes, and homeowners have to pay a mello-roos tax on top of our normal property taxes.

@Mrs. High Heels: I guess median income has come down since 2010! Which makes sense. It also makes sense that house prices have come down too. Yours was MUCH less than 8? I'm surprised! I never thought we could afford a detached home in this area, but maybe we can!

@Mrs. High Heels: We're still under water. =( We need to wait a little bit more. But that's okay. Not expecting #2 yet :).

@Rainbow Sprinkles: I hear ya. But it's all relative to your cost of living. You literally cannot rent a 2 bedroom apt in Boston for less than 2k a month. So 50k would be hard to live on here (I know I did it not all that long ago!)

Where I live $25,000 to $50,000 would be middle to upper class.

@Rainbow Sprinkles: I actually edited it because I didn't want to sound snarky by posting about kind of being desensitized:)

But yes- everyone's perspective can be so different! I think age can be a factor too, after seeing the age thread today...Especially since I am so old, lol:) I remember that my ideas of where I would like to have my family financially were a lot different when I was in my early to mid 20s, even when I was toward my late 20s, than my ideas today! It was a lot lower back then, but as we got older, jobs got better and houses got bigger, etc..- As we grew, our financial needs and goals grew as well, and if you would have told me 10 years ago (I'm 32) that our financial needs and goals would be what they are, I would have thought that was insane. But we've grown over the years!

@PrincessBaby: very good point!!! If my DH made what my dad makes right now we'd be more comfortable for sure. But my dad had six kids at that income. Even though half are moved out, he had made some bad decisions so he's still not making a lot. Right now as a small family of three - it would seem like a nice amount of $$ but for my parents, you're right, their needs changed so it's totally different.

I hope that DH's raises can keep up with our evolving needs

Interesting thread. I don't know what constitutes middle class, and I don't think there is a sufficient definition to really capture it... but I do know to be in the "1%" you need to be making something over 300K... so I'm going to throw that out as a number... and Obama says the rich folks who he'll increase taxes on are above 250K... so there's another number.

I do have a friend who makes over the 1% mark, but with several kids and I don't think of them as particularly rich... so I think you have to take family size into account as well.

Love the masshole thread jack!! Too funny!

I'm in a much less $$ part of the state which is good, 'cause I'm po! It's all good though, I am used to being surrounded by people with far more money than I could ever dream of having, lol. Median household income in my county is $ 64,152. Median home $282,800. 32.9% hold bachelors degrees or higher.

@Mrs. Cowgirl: whoa that's crazy! Also crazy that according to that list Virginia counties are all near the top! I had no idea that Virginia was one of the wealthiest states in the US.

@Coco Bee: yep, it's a little ridiculous. I am almost certain all of our friends make more money than us, even those on one income. 56% of residents over 25 (in our county) have a college degree and many, if not most, also have masters degrees. Most of the jobs come from government contracting or IT, so there's really good job security...the hubs had I were talking recently about what a bubble this area is!

What's interesting is that I teach at a title I school in our county, so I see the other side of things from our student population.

@Coco Bee: it really is all because of northern virginia! the rest of virginia isn't so wealthy. here in southeastern virginia, it's much more in line with the rest of the country. and, central virginia is particularly affordable!

the median household income in my town is about $70k. it's a little higher than other areas of virginia due to the huge, huge military presence. but, if that's middle class, i can't imagine we'll ever be there. since i view my parents and in-laws as middle class, i definitely wouldn't begin to give us that same label. right now we're broke as a joke, but we get along just fine.

@krsmall: if we made $250k we would definitely be rich! i cannot even fathom having that much money. we make about 1/8th of that, and manage to pay our bills. if we made 8 times as much, i don't know what i would do with myself... ha!

@ladyfingers: I don't consider us to be upper middle class either, but I think that just goes to show how a lot of people have a lot less.

I also agree that it's hard to put a monetary figure on "middle class" -- it's not just about how many children you have but the cost of living vs salary where you live. For instance, my hometown of San Diego has a disproportionate level of salaries to cost of living (mainly housing cost). Companies in SD just don't pay as much as other places, yet rent and the (often) long commute to work makes it an expensive city to live. According to the Census Bureau, median household income is $63,069 and homes are $486,000. It's been written about how our housing economy is untraditional because people take in other means of income to purchase a home. That's one of the reasons why lenders were authorized to be so lax and one of the reasons for their demise! Though I don't know how it is now, after the bubble burst, that's how it was back then.

As for my own definition, I'd say if you're online now and reading this, chances are you're not struggling to eat. On the other extreme, no matter how much debt you have, if you own a yacht or neighbors with someone that owns one, you're likely not middle-class. If your family works for a living (doesn't matter what job) and you shop sales, can't just buy anything you want, and need to save for big expenses, then you're middle-class.

@krsmall: Wooh, if I had 250k I would be absolutely RICH. I'm talking cars paid in full, house paid off, expensive clothes, etc. Just from one year, so it def. varies by location!

@krsmall: Agree. upper 100's is comfortable here....