Okay, when is someone making 250,000 not in the middle class or wealthy? I have a tough time imagining when that isn’t the case.
Now, I do hear about being rich an making bad financial decisions, or deciding that they need to pay for private schools for their kids, and have 2 vacations a year and the like and make car payments, and than complain about how little money they have left over. Sorry, spending money like water doesn’t mean you are middle class.
The poverty line in San Francisco is $117,000. If you take middle class to equal up to 200% above that line, then yes, that $250K family is roughly still in the middle class. On the high side, though.
Nesrie’s point is valid though, the cost of housing and other costs of living in places like San Francisco are high enough that even at $250K/year you will find many families living paycheck to paycheck.
This whole question is moot for the time being b/c nobody is suggesting raising taxes on people making less than $250K/year right now. In fact, most of the proposals being discussed in the context of the 2020 campaign start way higher than that.
Context matters. Our current context is that in the US there’s are some small tax steps above $250K (at $400 and 550K IIRC) and,… that’s it. Our highest marginal rates cap out in the mid 6 figures and we have no ascending marginal rates that go up for 7, 8, 9, etc. figures. That’s where the action is in terms of policy debates right now IMO.
We already have taxes that go up progressively up to the mid 6 figures. What we need is to “finish the staircase” by adding brackets further up.
And student debt. Heck both the parents and the kids might be paying down large amounts of student debt at the same time even.
And this isn’t about them being irresponsible. They did what they were told to do. They went to college, and not everyone can get a free ride. The middle class will often have to pay.
I Live in Loudoun County which is usually the first or second richest county in the US year after year. The median income is 117,000 a year. Someone with a family income of 250,000 would be able to live quite comfortably here… In fact it’s probably what most of my coworkers are making since most couples in this area work.
My wife doesn’t work so even though I earn a good salary (above the median income) we are not swimming in money. However my coworkers do things like talk about buying a Tesla model three and going to Europe every year on vacation.
Cost-of-living and housing costs are higher than the average here but once you get above 200,000 I suspect that doesn’t matter a whole lot to you.
If a person with a billion dollars buys an item worth a billion dollars, they’re penniless but are they rich or poor? The words just don’t seem adequate.
They’re up against the wall if they complain about lack of money!
That’s the thing about being rich. When you are working class or poor, if you have debt, it can be back breaking. If you are rich, debt can be an asset. You can use debt and leverage your wealth to buy assets to increase your wealth. For them a recession is an opportunity to consolidate and gain assets at lower costs.
I’m just not buying that anyone making $250k/yr could possibly not be at least middle class. Let’s say they have $200k after taxes - where does all that money go to cause them to be below middle class? That’s a LOT of money, even with high rent, student loans, high grocery/utility bills, etc.
Does the answer to this matter?
If you’d like to, feel free to ignore my post. But I don’t see any reason to shit on it.
You could try reading them better.
I don’t know if you guys have a 600 to 1000 a month student debt payment and it makes no difference to you, okay then.
I’m sorry; EDIT - I really don’t want my financial situation out there. WTH was that about?!?
Are you really asking or do the extra question marks mean something else?
If you’re starting out at in your mid to late 20s with triple digit student loan debt, what you make and what you can do with it changes. There are entire articles about the amount of debt someone has when they leave college and it’s not just student debt either, stack on credit cards (may or may not be responsible spending there).
I already had this conversation. If you want to misrepresent it, fine. Go ahead and pretend like someone making triple digits and has no debts is on the same level with someone making the same amount and significant debt when that debt is not just some rich person spending it like water. It’s actually professional debt, throw in a master’s degree or a phd, it can actually get way higher than that.
There are articles, not made by me, talking about home buying or lack of, due to this kind of debt.
ediedt: to remove the information you posted that you don’t want out there. feel free to go after me though, clearly i deserve it.
I don’t understand how what you are saying is related to what Dan said.
No, I’m getting really pissed off right now. If you think everything I post is somehow connected to whatever you’ve said, fine. But guess what; it’s not. Where the hell have I said ANYTHING contrary to what you said. Where? And please remove my goddamn financials from your post.
Maybe calm the fuck down. Look again. Are you seriously attacking me because you posted your information and it was on my post for like 10 seconds?
I’m sorry - it’s been a rough day. But no, I’m attacking you because it seems you’ve blatantly misrepresented what I’ve said on a forum where I care about how my character is perceived.
I think you have misunderstood what Dan was saying, because your response to him isn’t really related to what he posted.
Please remove my goddamn financials from your post… yeah. You act like I put it there.
Yes, hence the apology.