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Are $250k Earners Middle Class?

Is $250k a year middle class?

  • Total voters
    91
  • Poll closed .
Caturday said:
So someone working Manhattan hours has to slum it because they're considered rich? To have a $250K+ job in Manhattan, you're likely either a lawyer or in finance. You likely have significant debt from school. You've also been identified as talented and work 60+ hours/week. Commuting from Queens or Brooklyn isn't that easy. The cost of living in Queens or Brooklyn depends where you live in those boroughs. If you live on the East River, you aren't going to see a significant drop in prices so you'd have to move further from the city and deal with a shitty commute. Please tell an IB associates to add two hours/day onto his schedule and see what happens to the finance industry. It's really nice to tell people to make sacrifices when it's not your time or money.
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I'm not telling people what to do with time or money; I'm pointing out that there are options they're passing over.

Caturday said:
Tell me where someone working 100 hours/week is finding 2 hours/day to commute.
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Just one post ago it was 60+/week. These workweeks are inflating quickly.

bullets said:
a lot of people that make $250k+ in manhattan work 12-15 hours a day. spending another 1-2 hours a day commuting would suck.
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Sure, but I thought Caturday's argument is that $250k earners in NYC are middle class not because of a 99% definition but because the costs sucked in Manhattan. You'd be trading sucking for sucking and coming out even in terms of welfare but you'd be able to save for Fordham and the beach house.

Caturday said:
Out of curiosity why is there so much resentment towards the "rich?" Everyone that went to Went has a great shot at making serious bank.
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People resent the 1% because the 99%'s productivity has risen a lot since the 1970s, but real wages have been stagnant. The 1% has captured all gains.

Is this a serious question?

Caturday said:
Ha, so you say there are lots of welfare reducing things Wall Street does and I'll counter that the government is just as culpable through its inherent inefficiency[SUP]1[/SUP].

This idea that we should all act for the betterment of society is noble but complete horseshit[SUP]2[/SUP].

I don't think of anyone who thinks that the nebulous concept of "Wall Street" is to efficiently allocate capital, I believe that Wall Street's prompt is and always has been to provide efficient markets to allocate capital. There's a massive difference[SUP]3[/SUP].
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1. I thought you were an econ major? Government's problem is the deadweight loss of taxation, not some nebulous concept of inherent inefficiency. That's a silly claim because governments actually do provide certain services (many natural monopolies, public goods, health care) as well or better than markets do. Wage premiums don't capture all the positive externalities of college educations. Without government subsidies, we'd have a less-educated population than what we want. How is that inefficient?

If you're using a standard of "it's not perfect," "inherently inefficient" is meaningless because nothing is actually perfectly optimized. If you mean "worse than it would be without gummint," that's plainly incorrect. What an odd claim.

2. I disagree entirely. That the interactions of private interests add up to the social interest is the basis for the most forceful moral case for capitalism. I don't think it's any kind of horseshit to expect a democratic government to correct anti-social outcomes (but not to the extent Numbers advocated in an argument w/ TR).

3. It's typical Caturday word soup, that's what it is. "Wall St," or better yet, the financial sector, is supposed to make it so that capital is efficiently allocated. Whether that is done by the banks themselves or their clients isn't really material. PE is "Wall St," and they are definitely actually allocating capital.
 
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Caturday said:
O shit some dudes on a Wake Forest message board don't like me.
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I'm not sure you're understanding my point. Given your location, occupation, and alleged income, you're actually proving my point.
 
Liquid Karma said:
Anyone claiming they work 100 hours/week is a liar.
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yeah anyone who says they work that much 52 weeks a year is lying, but there are a lot of "wall street" employees who work 100+ hours for weeks at a time.
 
bullets said:
yeah anyone who says they work that much 52 weeks a year is lying, but there are a lot of "wall street" employees who work 100+ hours for weeks at a time.
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I did it for about 10 weeks straight during a trial a couple of years ago. No way I could have handled it for a year.
 
So what is the argument here again? That because the COL is high in NYC and people making $250K there have to live in 700 SF instead of 5000 like in Greensboro, that means $250K is middle class? WTF? The reason NYC is so expensive is BECAUSE IT'S WHERE EVERYONE WANTS TO BE. Of course you'll pay stupid money for a tiny apartment in Manhattan, because by doing so you get access to thousands of cultural and social amenities and advantages that aren't remotely available in a smaller city. $250K is well into the top 5% of earners and it isn't middle class by any means. Come on people.
 
Before I respond to all this nonsense I'd like to ask...most of you went to Wake, why didn't you manage to make bank? The LOWF mentality is silly, Wake is elite and you can make a ton of money from it. Hell, my GPA was garbage and I had a six figure offer out of school.
 
Caturday said:
Before I respond to all this nonsense I'd like to ask...most of you went to Wake, why didn't you manage to make bank? The LOWF mentality is silly, Wake is elite and you can make a ton of money from it. Hell, my GPA was garbage and I had a six figure offer out of school.
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Talk about red herrings. This thread has nothing to do with this straw man you bring up constantly, which is really my only concern with your posting style. By all means, do you, make $, complain about taxes, and make fun of those not "making bank." I won't begrudge you those impulses.

But not everyone has the capacity to or (in many Wake grads' cases) desire to work in finance or law or medicine.

This thread is about whether or not a $20,000 a month+ pre-tax salary is middle class. It's not about how hard people work or where they live.

I'm stoked you were given another opportunity to bolster your self-worth with your salary, and posting about it, but others might not determine theirs that way. There is no LOWF mentality in not taking a 6 figure job out of Wake, and to suggest that's even close to average is ridiculous.

And yeah, you deflected when DF07 and Strickland brought up your classism. You suggest that people working high wage/high hour jobs are working harder than multi-shift workers making minimum wage trying to support families, and it's either preposterously naive or willfully ignorant.
 
Caturday said:
Before I respond to all this nonsense I'd like to ask...most of you went to Wake, why didn't you manage to make bank? The LOWF mentality is silly, Wake is elite and you can make a ton of money from it. Hell, my GPA was garbage and I had a six figure offer out of school.
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Sometimes I can't decide if you are emulating stereotypes, projecting them to be a troll, or just are the stereotypical I got mine, woe is me I work soo hard, and fuck the plebeians.
 
There sure is a lot of income envy on this board. Just because you have not been as financially successful as your peer group does not mean that you are a miserable failure in life.

You may not be able to help others by paying huge amounts in taxes or making meaningful charitable contributions. But you can help out by flapping your fucking lips about the people who are forced to pay the freight for you shithead disappointments.
 
As a matter of statistics, they are not "middle class." However, in most circumstances, they will not be "rich" enough for it to make sense to send two kids to Wake Forest.
 
AMCDeac said:
As a matter of statistics, they are not "middle class." However, in most circumstances, they will not be "rich" enough for it to make sense to send two kids to Wake Forest.
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And yet many so situated parents do.
 
I guess you could call it income envy.

I work 3 jobs and don't make 50k/year. Do I wish I made more? Of course. Suggesting I don't pay my tax load is ridiculous. As a percentage of my discretionary spending, I'd venture to guess I spend more on taxes and charity than a 250k earner.

Is it laziness on my part? I work between 50-60 hrs a week. I also have perfect scores on my SAT, GRE, GMAT. LSAT, and other admission tests. But I'm burdened with student loans and helping my family out with $. I tell you this story because I'm not at all unique. I'm in fact a helluva lot closer to average than Caturday or any of his top decile earning colleagues.

I just got hit with a $250 tax from my township for living in the school district. I don't have school aged kids (or kids at all for that matter) but I'm not on here complaining about my tax load even though I can't afford to pay that+ rent this month. I can't put $ aside for my future kids' education or my own retirement. Hence why I have sensitivity towards top earners complaining about how hard they work and how they deserve to keep their money. We can't be a society of private equity bankers.

As I consider entering the teaching profession, I worry about the financial stability of my future, yes, but I also will promise to never become an insufferable rich prick whose biggest problem in their life is a tax cut expiring.

Fuck you DreamOn. Caturday, you're better than this repeated straw man fallacy.
 
Jesus Tapdancing Christ. What kind of trust fund asshole believes that $250k--A YEAR--isn't a lot of money? Even in NYC or SF you can live well on $250k a year. Oh poor Caroline and Phineas won't be able to attend Williams!!! Well, fuck you asshole; you make your choices about where to live. If that makes you ONLY upper middle class, so be it. No one promised you that 250k a year would make you rich under all circumstances and in all metropolitan areas.
 
One thing that's probably lost in this is that Caturday and I agree that guys pulling down $250k in NY (and everywhere else in the US, IMO) are middle class. But it seems we've used very different methods to arrive at that conclusion.
 
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