Financial aid administrators, educators and public policy advocates often talk about middle, upper and lower income families, but strangely enough there is no official definition of these categories. Even the U.S. Census Bureau doesn’t have an official definition of middle income, although they tend to use the middle quintile, which is families with annual incomes between about $40,000 and $65,000. In some cases they’ve expanded it to include the fourth quintile, yielding a range of $40,000 to $95,000. Sometimes the range includes the second, middle and fourth quintiles, yielding an income band of $25,000 to $99,000. A lot depends on who is doing the asking and what point they are trying to make.
This was helpful to read after hearing this.
“Middle class is whatever will make me seem like I care most about it.”
I would also like to see addressed how many people a certain income is supposed to cover. I am single, no kids, making just over $40,000/yr (about $700/wk take-home) and though I am on the low end of middle class by that figure, I guess, clearly I am doing fine, especially since I’m the only one I have to support.
@BananaPeel Median household size in the U.S. is about 2.6, and median household income is about $50,000. If that helps.
A better context is that a household pulling in $200,000 a year would be well into the top 5%. The lowest 5% of households earn well under $10,000 year, so unless you consider a family earning, say, $8,500 a year to be “middle income” then a middle income category that went up to $200k is grossly dishonest.
Also, I really wouldn’t want to share a pizza with a guy who thinks the “middle” of something is 90% of it.
The problem these categories is that they never seem to take cost-of-living in account. Correct me if I’m wrong, but especially for college aid determination, a family that makes 50,000 is San Francisco or New York City is treated the same as a family that makes 50,000 in the rural south. Some places making $200,000/year is living in a mansion and enjoying obscure equestrian sports, and some places it is living in a small multi-family unit and feeling middle-class purchasing power.
@ElBlynx. Right, but you can move if you want to pay less. Those expensive places tend to be expensive because of high rents, which exist because lots of people want to live there, because those places are desirable and have good quality-of-life perks like public transit, walkable neighborhoods, museums, zeitgeisty names to drop, etc. That’s what you’re paying for by living in San Francisco vs. west Texas. Actually, that’s what you’re paying for living in San Francisco vs. west Oakland. Want to feel poor in New York? Great, welcome to Manhattan and/or (now) Brooklyn. Want to buy things other than rent? Welcome to Queens, Harlem, or the Bronx. Even in the most expensive city in America, you can have a huge spectrum of living expenses without going so far that you can’t commute to a job in the city center. Choices.