Middle Class Income Debate

That data is far too granular. It stops at middle class as though $200k is something impressive in this day and age.

The article says top 20 percent consists of the households making $112,000 or more.Many of those families live in places like New York or California where $112,000 is not much.The families I know in New York City making around $2-300,000 live paycheck to paycheck in tiny, old rented apartments. Both parents work until 6-8 PM, they barely see their kids except in weekends. They spent the first decade or so after college paying off student debt and now they have five figure credit card debt.

A household would need to earn an annual income of around $200k to be in the top 10%. Are you saying most people here earn that amount of money?

I think you need to elaborate on what you mean by "not that much these days." According to a bit of Googling, 100k in NYC is about 48k where I live. 48k family income around here for a family with 2 adults and 2 children is far from rich, but it's fairly reasonable middle class and it's certainly doable with a modicum of responsible finance-handling.

A family income of $300k is upper class, by the way. No one likes to call themselves rich, but $300k is at least in the top 10%, which is decidedly not middle.

They were talking about $300k from a two-income household. Not that it makes you middle class, but that $100k-$150k bracket is fairly large.

I don't know about America, but keep in mind that having an income which is a large number doesn't necessarily mean you have tonnes of wealth (in most general sense of the word), due to cost of living. In my country, you could be in the top 5% of earners and still not be automatically set or life or anything like that, because tax and housing is so bloody expensive it's ridiculous. Even on $200k+ you're still stuck at that job for a decade or more to afford a low-to-mid tier

$150k is about double the US median houshold income. By most definitions, exceeding that number makes you upper class. Of course there are areas that need local adjustments, but for most of the country, $100k-150k is a comfortable upper-middle class income.

Well just imagine how poor you would feel with just the median household income of 50k (2011 US Census) or worse and you were the bottom 20% making What's your point?Sounds like you're basically saying, I'm lucky to be making this much. Of course, I know that. Yes, I'm extremely fortunate, compared to someone making $25K or less.I'm also lucky compared to a paraplegic or a quadriplegic person, or someone dying of cancer. So what?My point is

middle class is something like $40K family income...so you are more than double that.