What is Middle Class?

It's very subjective. It's all about cost of living, marital status, lots of things. There are probably a lot of people who make two-hundred thousand plus and could be considered poor. What is poor anyway?

I think you have to have some subsets of the broad sweeping term middle class. You have the people who make lots of money, but spend without any regard for the future, and therefore are broke most of the time. There are the people who might make less than what we could consider middle income, but are frugal with their cash, live comfortably (by their definition) and still have cash put away.

So if you're single and make 85K, what are you? You most certainly are not wealthy.

Guess it depends on where you live, personally I'd be pretty happy making 85k if I were single.

This is a great discussion issue because it goes straight to the heart of some serious tax issues.

There are so many variables that I think it almost impossible to make a definition.

I don't know that the term 'middle class' can be defined accurately, but I would venture to say that natural psyche of Americans would generally lead them to believe that the upper class consists of anyone making more than they do.

Great question, btw Saden. I have often thought about this myself.

In my experience, the majority of Americans seem to live paycheck to paycheck, whether they are making $15,000 per year or $150,000 per year. People's "needs" tend to increase as fast as their incomes.You mean people's wants increase as there pay checks increase. If your making 70 to 150 grand a year and living pay check to pay check then your over spending. Its not that people plan to fail its that they fail to plan.

As cpayne noted, if I were single and making 85K here in SW Virginia, I would be living like a king easily. Now if I were stupid enough to buy a 50K+ car and a 500K home and eat out at high dollar restaurants everynight then I would probably have very little spending cash (savings) thus I may think that I'm not doing so well.

It's all boils down to how you decide to spend your money and where you live.

To go allong with this how long could you last without a pay check? I think I cloud go about 1 1/2 yrs maybe a little longer.

To go allong with this how long could you last without a pay check? I think I cloud go about 1 1/2 yrs maybe a little longer.

I'd last about one hour. After that, I'd have to visit old men in train station bathrooms.

To go allong with this how long could you last without a pay check? I think I cloud go about 1 1/2 yrs maybe a little longer.

Honestly, not that long, but probably longer than most my age. 9 months, maybe. But I'd get a big tax refund the following year thanks to the downtime!

I'd last about one hour. After that, I'd have to visit old men in train station bathrooms.

Ewww, I just got a mental image from the movie The Basketball Diaries and now I want to puke.

I think middle class probably has more to do with how much you spend, either for wants or needs, than how much you make (although the two usually go hand in hand).