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  1. Defining a middle class based on individual income alone can be deceiving. Other factors play important roles, especially in America:
    –household size and combined incomes
    –wealth…assets versus liabilities…debt and the ability to grow personal/household savings
    –consumption…including the amount of discretionary spending left after mandatory spending, (including taxes)
    –region…a larger scale than State boundaries which, as we’ve seen, provides a clearer picture of income/wealth distribution…especially when considering➘
    –poverty…Any discussion on middle class perception must include measuring poverty in both absolute terms, (like here), and relative terms which includes income/wealth inequality metrics, (like the Gini coefficient and Theil Index). It’s not just money that defines middle class or poverty. It’s what that money can buy…or not buy. What Americans like to call affordability.

    Relative poverty reflects better the cost of social inclusion and equality of opportunity in a specific time and space.
    …
    Once economic development has progressed beyond a certain minimum level, the rub of the poverty problem – from the point of view of both the poor individual and of the societies in which they live – is not so much the effects of poverty in any absolute form but the effects of the contrast, daily perceived, between the lives of the poor and the lives of those around them. For practical purposes, the problem of poverty in the industrialized nations today is a problem of relative poverty.
    UNICEF Research

    Defining middle class based on income alone is like measuring poverty only in absolutist terms. It’s not a complete picture.

    Reply

    1. Can you accept that I just like charts? No. Just kidding. I often post things like this that don’t tell the whole picture, but my hope is that it will at least get or keep the conversation going. But you’re right. Now leave me alone.

      Reply

      1. When you invite conversation, the reply might not always match your expectations.
        But…yeah…I can do that.

        Reply

        1. Oh, shut up. I was kidding. Don’t leave me alone or I shall travel to your home and say bad words to you.

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