I tend to break "middle-class" from "upper-class" right around the $100,000 salary mark.
If you're making $100,000/year, you're very likely upper class in the U.S. Of course, this doesn't work well in big cities (where the cost of living raises the bar to upper class a bit,) but it's remarkably accurate for most places in the country.
it might be enough to make a 22 yr old in Mississippi upper class, but in no sense of the word is 100k upper class. Especially if you've got a family. I'd say upper class starts where you have enough money to live off the interest. Drs, lawyers, etc are upper middle. And industrial wage earners and most fresh college grads are lower middle. 100-200k earners would be middle middle. Aristocracy isn't really much of a thing. Yeah, there's plenty of "old money", but that falls into the upper class category. As stated in another comment, in the US, it's really the size of you bank account, not your name, or your accent, or where your from, or what school you went to, or what "estate" you live in that matters.
100-200k for households puts you in the top 10%. Individuals, maybe top 5%. How is that not upper class!?
I wish I was even low middle according to your scale...
For reference:
Income in 1999
Households..................................105,539,122 100.0
Less than $10,000............................10,067,027 9.5
$10,000 to $14,999............................6,657,228 6.3
$15,000 to $24,999...........................13,536,965 12.8
$25,000 to $34,999...........................13,519,242 12.8
$35,000 to $49,999...........................17,446,272 16.5
$50,000 to $74,999...........................20,540,604 19.5
$75,000 to $99,999...........................10,799,245 10.2
$100,000 to $149,999..........................8,147,826 7.7
$150,000 to $199,999..........................2,322,038 2.2
$200,000 or more............................. 2,502,675 2.4
Median family income (dollars)..................50,046
Per capita income (dollars).....................21,587
Median earnings (dollars):
Male full-time, year-round workers..............37,057
Female full-time, year-round workers............27,194
Unless you live in a city, I'd put lower-middle somewhere around 45k-90k per household. The kind of range where buying and maintaining one or two slightly used cars isn't a big deal, and the idea of choosing between rent and groceries is alien.
Middle-middle probably kicks in when buying a nice new car every few years isn't a big deal, and your kids all have college funds started.
Upper-middle kicks in when buying a nice german car every few years is assumed, and you plan on paying your kids college tuition without much thought.
I've been hearing a meme going around recently that says that the middle class literally no longer exists.
Pointing people who buy into this idea to >100k workers will get you excuses about college debt, sky-high rent in select US cities, or flat out denial (I cannot count the number of times that Reddit has told me that I do not exist... I should stop going there but reading what some people actually believe can be illuminating.) When they claim that 100k is actually not middle-class but instead the new lower class, then pointing out that it is more than twice the median income in the US will get you objections along the line of "middle class doesn't mean 'less poor than dirt poor'". When asked about people who make two or three times more than 100k, you'll typically get a response along the lines of "people who are self-employed cannot be middle-class, because middle-class is suppose to be something that regular factory workers can obtain."
The "middle class does not exist" idea is not well thought out, and is frequently self-contradictory, but I think there are a few things perpetuating the idea. One aspect is that many people do not want to admit that they are middle class because realizing that they have it pretty good would throw a wrench into their whole "class warfare" thing, which they want to hang onto for fashion reasons. Similarly, it is essential to them that other people are not middle class, and if they self-identify as such then they are necessarily deluding themselves.
That's a weird claim for people to make. $100K for an individual is pretty high compared to the rest of the country! Other commenters are suggesting that it is actually the upper bound for middle class.
I wonder if people are actually answering a different question: whether they personally feel middle class. Where you live will greatly affect this; there's a HUGE difference between $100K in SF vs Pittsburgh.
No, you are definitely not the upper class if you are making 100k. If you live somewhere like Bay Area or NYC you are not even upper-middle class. And usually to be considered upper class you have to have enough wealth to afford not to work at all.
Oh, you mean if you live in one of the two highest cost-of-living areas in the country? Give me a break. 100k puts you in the top 5%. If you choose to live somewhere with an astronomical cost of living, that's fine, you might not have much after rent, but you still have the ability to live there. Most of the country couldn't even afford to.
Well... they might not be able to afford to on the salary they make in most of the country. But they probably could if they made the higher salary that goes with the higher cost of living places.
Average Salary:
San Francisco, CA: $79,000
Austin, TX: $55,000
Iowa City, IA: $54,000
Average House Price:
San Francisco, CA: $637,100
Austin, TX: $200,500
Iowa City, IA: $169,700
(For house prices, I picked CA and a couple other random states and picked the city with the highest average house price for each state listed on http://www.zillow.com. Then found the average salary for each of those places on http://www.indeed.com. I didn't have time to list them all. This is by no means a complete, dead-solid picture... but you might get the idea.)
Also, I don't know if there is a better calculator out there now but I recall this one[1] being passed around back when it was a fairly new trend to hate on the 1%. Currently, $100K puts in at 81% on its scale... or "the top 19%" to use your scale. You would need to make $220K to be in the top 5%.
It's frustrating that the people making these calculators don't state how many working individuals makes up one household. One of the problems I'm seeing in these comments is that some of us are talking about individual income, and some household/family income.
Or for that matter, how many non-working individuals are in the household. A couple making $200K/yr is going to be far better off financially with 0 kids than with 3 kids.
Someone making 100k/year in wages likely couldn't afford to stop working for more than a few years unless they already spent decades saving money. That means they aren't upper class. Someone who is upper class could maintain a high standard of living indefinitely without ever working.
You should move to India then, with 30k salary you will be able to afford a couple of servants and a part-time cook. That will definitely feel like an upper-class living. Unfortunately, your 30k salary won't move with you to India.
I agree for most areas of the US. But for someone living with a family in NYC or the Bay Area, I think this would still be middle class. A lot of this comes down to housing and rent costs.
According to some data I forget where I read (does someone have the citation handy?) a family of 4 needs a household income of $76k/yr to support themselves in the SF Bay Area.
Assuming that that number is accurate, I do not at all feel guilty about calling my tech salary "middle class" when adjusted for cost of living.
In fact, a lot of people (at least in my family) consider 'middle class' to mean 'can afford a house'. By that measure, I'm lower class. I can barely afford rent aroun dhere.
Having lived in the area, I definitely agree. I think on the Peninsula it would be higher. Our federal system doesn't deal with these geographic disparities well, especially when it comes to things like federal taxes and college aid. $120k/year in a place like Mississippi really is wealthy though.
If you're making $100,000/year, you're very likely upper class in the U.S. Of course, this doesn't work well in big cities (where the cost of living raises the bar to upper class a bit,) but it's remarkably accurate for most places in the country.