It's so hard to think about class in the United States

[firecat]

snippy posted about an interactive feature on CNN.com that attempts to determine whether you, a person residing in the US, can correctly identify whether you count as "middle-class."

Here is the gist of the comment I left over at snippy's post:

Income is not a great gauge of class by itself. Net worth matters a LOT.

Have you read The Millionaire Next Door? One of the main themes is that some professionals with high incomes believe that appearing wealthy is an important part of their professional reputation. So they have big houses, expensive cars and clothes, and are deep in debt. Some rich people think it's important to save money, so they have lots of assets but they don't live in fancy houses, drive beat-up cars, etc. (The book is rather simplistic in its judgements but I agree that those patterns exist.)

Those rich folks and professionals might have similar gross incomes. But are they the same class?

They are defining "middle class" where I live as a household income of $68,420—$107,815.

They're counting it as the middle fifth of income, which means they're assuming five classes. One wonders what the results would be like if they took the middle third of income (I suspect the results would be more boring, although I'm sure some people would define themselves as middle class when they aren't in the middle third of income).

Comments

[firecat]

Do you think your life would have turned out different if you'd been able to go to the blender school?

[marahmarie]

Yeah, I do, though I'm not sure for good or bad; maybe I would've hated it and quit, transferred back to regular public high school, or maybe it would've been the best thing for me. Catholic school might've given me more discipline and focus, two things I lack, along with less distraction, one thing I seemingly cannot avoid falling prey to. When I decide I'm determined enough to get something done I just go and do it, there's no problem, but 99% of the time, left to my own devices, nothing is that important. Which of course is sort of an unusual attitude to have. And one I don't like having, but there seems to be a divide between my inertia and my more kinetic focus that I cannot bridge myself most of the time.

Stricter/more focused/less distracted schooling might've made the difference back when I was still in my more formative time (and therefore, might've made me a more successful person now), but I would've missed out on a few good times and key people at non-blender school, and maybe some achievements I managed to pull off later on (like, becoming copy editor of my school paper along with storyboard layout person and opinion article writer was mind-blowing enough to everybody, believe me, since I was like, destined for exactly nothing but failure a few years before that) but maybe I could've done even more at blender school, or maybe I would've done exactly nothing at all. There's no way to know, really, without having been able to just go and get it done.

[firecat]

When I decide I'm determined enough to get something done I just go and do it, there's no problem, but 99% of the time, left to my own devices, nothing is that important.

Hey, give the shared brain back when you're done with it! :D

[marahmarie]

Ha, right? I get that from my mom...she was very focused, methodical, and deliberate, and got all the important things done every day, but was not ambitious enough most of the time to go over and beyond just taking care of those things. Which is exactly how I function (except I'm quicker and more impatient about getting through those things, overall).

It's when there's something else beyond those needs that I have to push for to get it done that my inertia sets in; then everything else in the world becomes more important and can most easily distract me (this is from my dad, who was like "Whoa, squirrel!" personified, he could not keep his mind on anything less than three things at once, and he never wanted to, and he was extremely ambitious and at least moderately successful at what he did, overall).

So you combine those two and you get me and people think I have like, ADD, because of all the combined traits but I don't. Though sometimes I think just treating myself like I do would not hurt, regardless. :)

[firecat]

Yeah, I am not diagnosed with ADD either, but there's a reason I have "attention machine in need of calibration" as part of my user name here.

I think in my case the lack of motivation is partly depression, because when I'm better medicated, the "nothing is that important" part is not so all-encompassing — I'm more likely to find projects I'm interested in.