White House defines "middle class"

[firecat]

This is a perennial topic on the Innertubez and I am happy to see someone in the current US Presidential administration offering a definition:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog_post/smc_your_comments/

I think it’s important for us to use a broad definition of "middle class" that encompasses the various levels of middle class. The Census Bureau tells us that the median household income—the income of the household smack in the middle of the income scale—is about $50,000, so that’s certainly got to be considered a middle-class income. But a more comprehensive definition must go a lot further. My boss, the Vice President, often describes the "middle class" as any family that can’t afford to miss more than two or three paychecks without financial difficulty. Given job market turmoil, that’s an awfully timely way to think about the question. It used to be that the middle class was able to achieve the American dream of owning a decent home in a safe neighborhood with a good public school, having access to affordable health care, saving for college and retirement, and enjoying the occasional meal out, movie, and vacation. The problem is that many middle class families are no longer able to achieve this dream. The task force will focus on making the American dream accessible again to the middle class.
—Jared Bernstein, and I am the Executive Director of the task force and Chief Economist and Economic Policy Advisor to the Vice President

I like this definition because it gets at the concept from two different positions, one of which includes capital (savings). Definitions that include only yearly income mislabel some people, in my opinion.

It's incomplete because it doesn't define financial difficulty. If it's true that there is a class of people who have very little savings but a pretty luxurious lifestyle, for them financial difficulty might mean "Can't make the payment on the leased Jaguar," and that's a different sort of financial difficulty than some people face.

Then again it's probably smart that the definition doesn't get into specifics on that, because "what standard of living is reasonable to expect" is a divisive topic.

Comments

[abostick59.livejournal.com]

I'm having trouble with the idea that one's social class is defined alone by one's relationship to money. Is a factory worker who left school after tenth grade but who has been saving assiduously for retirement "middle class"? Really? Are you sure?

[stefanie-bean.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. There are other issues of class beyond money. Someone working in a white-collar "administrative" job might earn 50% less than someone doing a blue-collar job. But most people would probably consider the administrative worker "middle class" while the higher-earning blue-collar person would be considered "working class" or even "lower class."

[firecat]

I kinda think Bernstein is trying to define economic class more than social class, and I can see an argument for the factory worker counting as middle class in an economic sense. Of course social class is a lot more complex than that, and I actually hope the government is not trying to define social class.

[abostick59.livejournal.com]

I don't understand the concept of "economic class."

Is the powerful CEO's ne'er-do-well kid brother who was cut out of the trust fun because the parents had had quite enough and has been living hand-to-mouth ever since is of a different "economic class" than the CEO, even though the ne'er-do-well can flawlessly negotiate the social intricacies of dining at the country club?

In the TV show The Wire, Stringer Bell and Avon Barksdale are together making piles of money selling drugs -- enough that their partnership is buying up lots of Baltimore real estate. They deal with this in very different ways: Stringer is very explicitly trying to get out of the ghetto (attending college, managing a legitimate storefront business), while Avon is staying close to his roots. Would you say that they are the same economic class because their wealth is shared?

[firecat]

You're asking a lot of interesting questions and I get the impression there is an opinion behind them although you're not stating the opinion.

I think part of the opinion might be that someone who has grown up in the upper class has options that will allow them to get money even if they don't have money right at the moment.

And another part might be that how you choose to spend and manage your money says something about what class you belong to.

I agree with that.

I don't know whether you're addressing the issue of what the government's definition of middle class is, and if you believe the government should have a different definition than what's quoted in my original post.

It's clear that Bernstein has a particular notion of class in mind when he says

the American dream of owning a decent home in a safe neighborhood with a good public school, having access to affordable health care, saving for college and retirement, and enjoying the occasional meal out, movie, and vacation.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

There was a time when a factory worker who is assiduously saving for retirement was likely to be middle-class, with union scale wages and a decent pension on top of the retirement savings.

[abostick59.livejournal.com]

Yabbut what beer did he drink? Which fork did he use first? What movies did he like to watch? What books did he read? When he wore a tuxedo, did he hand-tie his bow tie or use a clip-on?

When presented with the shibboleths of class, how did he react?