Are you middle-class?

[caroljane]

No. No. And No.

http://www.census.go...les/12s0692.xls

Once you goto the Statistical Abstract of the United States, you can mire yourself in data.

First, regardless of what the numbers are, there must be a "middle class." In a nation where the mode earn $2 a day, a "middle class" must exist by simple arithmetic.

Therefore, a better measure comes from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a capitalist-globalist think tank. They publish a Quality of Life Survey (here).That survey is interactive. You can set the slides for what you consider important.

Also, the numbers from the Census Bureau hide a lot. What matters is not "most people" but you. Most people in America think that they are middle class, just as most people think that they are above average in intelligence and looks. It is not true.

Realize that the recent contraction of the economy put millions out of traditional employment, leaving millions more - and bringing in more- in government jobs that really do pay above average wages. The Austin-American Statesman ran an article this Sunday about the large number of self-employed people here. The non-statistical statement is that "most" of them now earn less as consultants with their own company brand name for their own labor, than they did when they had "real jobs." The numbers are up 9% over last year with some tens of thousands of persons and about 15% of the workforce here being "self-employed." I am sure that they consider themselves "middle class."

In truth, they are in the working poor. If you look at the Census numbers closely (again here as an XLS, but you can click "Back" and select PDF), the cut-off is $100,000 per year. Realize that in 2001, as a technical writer, I was paid $40 per hour. Now, after 10 years of inflation, I earn $30 per hour... and I am happy for it... but that $100K does not buy what it used to. We are all poorer. (My pay as a security guard did go from $7.50 per hour to $12 per hour, so the bottom-most poor are better off... or maybe it just war profits to me.) But there are Dual-Income Professionals who earn $250,000 and above, especially in the suburbs around Washington DC where they look like "private sector employees" because they work for lobbyists and think tanks. But also, consider that on the OrgTheory blogsite, Katherine Chen recently wrote about major departments at Big Name Schools that arrange a second job for a spouse to get the researcher they want. The numbers are large enough to write about. So, there are many "quarter-millionaires" who are the true "middle class" objectively, but who are a numerical minority, less than a quintile. That last quintile is a skew to the right, and those lower four are pushed to the left.

We have no middle class - or a very small one. What we have a huge population of working poor who think of themselves as middle class for cultural reasons. This weekend, I saw an objectively wealthy person loading his own U-Haul and carting up a 60-inch screen. I could have seen the same thing here in my objectively poor Mexican neighborhood. Middle class is cultural.

And it is good.

I fully endorse Dierdre McCloskey's idea of our bourgeois society. She says that our paradigm is neither Achilles nor St. Francis but Benjamin Franklin. We need bourgeois virtues because we are a middle class society of shopkeepers and clerks.

Politicians talks about the middle class because that is what people want to hear. If you told people that you want to help them get out of poverty by reducing the government, they would not understand the words.

MEM, this excellent post reflects almost entirely my views on this subject. One thing struck me, although it is not about class in the way I was thinking of it.

You earned $40 per hour for the same job for which you now earn #30/hr. You are obviously more experienced, skilled and qualified now than you were then; it is not about you but about the surrounding economy.

I earn $40/hr for the same job that paid $26,/hr when I started doing it The timeframes are roughly the same.And I have not upgraded my qualifications in any significant way, as you have, in the intervening time. Obviously I have more experience, and I think I have more skill. But I am doing the same job and I am the same worker.

The difference is of course the union, which is based on the individual worker and what he can be realistically acknowledged to be worth in money to the employer. That is all it is. "Respect and dignity" of course, are the emotive motors of union drives and startups, but it is always about money. What am I worth?

Instead of waiting for the tax cuts to trickle down, as workers have been doing for the past thirty years, maybe they should remember Ayn Rand, who overcame her own great moral repugnance against social security and took what she deserved.

[Selene]

Not quite an proper comparison methinks.

Social Security has been paid into by the worker.

A union wage has to do with paying each one of the clogs in the machine the same hourly rate regardless of competency. A worker who excels receives "x" amount of dollars per hour; a mediocre worker receives the same "x."

Whereas, as a free agent, you are subject to being paid what you are worth.

Therefore, I do not think the comparison is correct.

[caroljane]

Not quite an proper comparison methinks.

Social Security has been paid into by the worker.

A union wage has to do with paying each one of the clogs in the machine the same hourly rate regardless of competency. A worker who excels receives "x" amount of dollars per hour; a mediocre worker receives the same "x."

Whereas, as a free agent, you are subject to being paid what you are worth.

Therefore, I do not think the comparison is correct.

In each case, someone else decides what you are worth. Industry standards, personal qualifications and record, what the market will bear.

I maintain the validity of my comparison.

[Selene]

So an individual craftsman cannot set his price for his labor or art?

[caroljane]

So an individual craftsman cannot set his price for his labor or art?

Of course he can. And try to obtain it, as best he can.

[MrBenjamatic]

Soooo many people come to the conclusion that, somehow, the market sets the price of your work and not you. My parents claim that my work was worth zero dollars because no one bought them (and those who offered to I didn't sell to them as the pieces they wanted were too precious to me). That was my parents justification for being able to destroy my work without paying for it. I discussed that with a man who had no self-esteem (for philosophical purposes) and he said that my parents didn't owe me anything as he and my parents claim that I have no right to set the price of my work. By his and my parent's principle, you can walk into any store and destroy their products for free because you value them at being zero dollars. I told that man and my parents that and they claimed it was different as the store was probably established. Many need to be reminded of that old capitalist phrase: If you break it, you buy it.

[BaalChatzaf]

Soooo many people come to the conclusion that, somehow, the market sets the price of your work and not you.

You get to set your asking price. Someone else sets the bidding price.

The interaction between the two is what "the market" is.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[MrBenjamatic]

Soooo many people come to the conclusion that, somehow, the market sets the price of your work and not you.

You get to set your asking price. Someone else sets the bidding price.

The interaction between the two is what "the market" is.

Ba'al Chatzaf

The only instance which comes to mind when you say that is auctioning. I also think of impoverished Mexico (Tijuana) where the asking price is not absolute. You can't walk into Brooks Brothers and bid a lesser price than what they asked and expect them to take part. This goes for most stores.

[BaalChatzaf]

In preparation for the great Election Party Knees-Up and karaoke here on OL in Novemb er, I have been reading more political stuff than usual.

I know that middle class is an economic term although it has social connotations, and its meaning probably depends a lot on location and personal circumstances.

?But I am interested, do you consider that you or your family are middle-class? Do you think of mainstream America as middle-class?

All the politicians agree that the middle class is the real America and must be maintained...is this reasonable?

The Middle Class is where most of the Independent Voters live.

Which makes sense. Middle Class folk have made their own way in the world. They have not inherited wealth and pelf to give them a leg up.

Ba'al Chatzaf