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Bocky ,

No they aren’t. Clickbait

orcrist ,

What a joke of a headline. That’s not what making ends meet means. They are wealthy, by definition they can afford to make ends meet.

tombruzzo ,

If they’re struggling to male ends meet then they aren’t wealthy, are they?

Time to move the goalposts along for what’s defined as ‘wealthy’

TokenBoomer ,

See, they’re just like us.

MyOpinion ,

Income needed to be considered middle class in each state from Zippia report.

Hawaii $122,695 California $111,206 Massachusetts $85,567 Colorado $81,602 Washington $81,203 New York $75,403 Oregon $74,865 New Jersey $74,485 Maryland $71,844 Utah $71,034 Nevada $70,752 Virginia $67,197 Alaska $63,873 Connecticut $63,375 New Hampshire $62,890 Rhode Island $62,691 Arizona $61,699 Delaware $60,015 Montana $59,496 Minnesota $58,903 Idaho $58,866 Florida $58,833 Texas $55,605 Vermont $55,371 Wyoming $54,849 Georgia $54,213 Illinois $53,961 North Dakota $52,935 Maine $51,608 Pennsylvania $51,346 North Carolina $51,144 Tennessee $50,629 Wisconsin $50,062 Louisiana $49,587 South Carolina $49,110 New Mexico $48,602 South Dakota $48,258 Michigan $47,044 Nebraska $46,906 Missouri $46,649 Kansas $46,485 Alabama $45,559 Oklahoma $44,008 Iowa $43,997 Ohio $43,949 Kentucky $43,747 Indiana $43,310 Mississippi $41,839 West Virginia $41,649 Arkansas $40,928

stoneparchment ,
@stoneparchment@possumpat.io avatar

Is this household or individual income? Either way, whack

jubilationtcornpone ,

What kind of bullshit numbers are these? I live Arkansas. If you make $40,928 and live here, you are poor. Not even close to “middle class.”

OsaErisXero ,

The parts of the state(s) where nobody lives are driving down the number. For Missouri that number is accurate if you live 3 hours from any city with more than one zip code.

card797 ,

In Louisiana I make twice that amount. I’m barely middle class.

Telodzrum ,

That’s on you. Probably time to look into your spending.

Axeman666 ,

That’s bullshit. Look up what rent costs in southern and mid coast Maine and then tell me $51,000 would come even close to paying your bills. It’s not just rent here either, everything is more expensive. You might be able to live semi comfortably if you live up north, but all the decent jobs are in and around Portland.

ShepherdPie ,

It’s just an average. Same reason why $111k won’t get you a house in San Fran, LA, or San Diego even though that’s the average middle class salary for CA. There are lots of rural areas that bring that average down.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

Two observations:

  1. As others pointed out, there are an awful lot of people who live in places where $100-150k is not close to wealthy. A small number of large, expensive cities has a giant percentage of the population.
  2. How is anyone surprised that when inflation stays up for a while, people find it hard to maintain their standard of living. When you compare the person making $150k to the person making $100k, it doesn’t mean that they’re pocketing $50k every year, it means that they’re likely renting a more expensive place or paying on a more expensive car. They’re likely both just living within their means and, of you make everything in life cost more, both are going to have a hard time paying their bills. It’s not until you get to people who are making more than they can spend that that changes.
TipRing ,

I’m in the income bracket described here (certainly not “wealthy”) and while I wouldn’t say i am struggling, I have had to cut down on some extraneous spending. Nothing like what most people are facing though.

fishpen0 , (edited )

Wait until that first surprise medical event. In that bracket. Employed full time w/health “insurance”. Eating instant ramen and had to get roommates. Lifestyle medication woo

They can’t make you pay medical debt. But the pharmacy doesn’t refill your meds without payment up front. And you make too much for financial assistance and the fact your employer provides insurance actually eliminates counter discounts (uninsured discounts) and other benefits.

Plus people on the internet will accuse you of being bad at money because “nobody making over $100k is poor”

TipRing ,

Sorry, I absolutely did not mean to minimize the struggles of anyone else. So much of our situations are dependent on factors that just can’t broadly apply across such a broadly defined demographic.

fpslem ,

A frustratingly empty article. Why are they struggling to “make ends meet”? What ends? If it’s housing, this is a housing story. If it’s high auto loan debt, that’s a mother matter. If it’s not housing and it’s accrued consumer debt, that’s a different matter.

They never say, so there isn’t much to conclude from this piece.

Blackbeard ,
@Blackbeard@lemmy.world avatar

They’re extrapolating trends from just over ONE year of data. The survey was started in 2023, which means statements like this ring very hollow:

Second, the year-over-year change in worry for this population is large and significant. In April 2023, 20.7 percent of those who could currently pay all of their bills were worried about the next six months; one year later, 26.2 percent reported worries, with nearly every demographic group showing large and significant increases as well. We did not observe such a year-over-year increase in our previous report (comparing January 2023 with January 2024).

And from that we get Matt Egan’s overarching conclusion that “wealthy Americans are struggling to make ends meet”, which conflicts with the findings that only 6.9% of people earning more than $150k/yr are reporting that they can’t currently make ends meet (6% of those making more than $100k/yr). Or, in other words, 93.1% of people earning more than $150k/yr can currently make ends meet. (someone tell Egan!) But the surveyors go on to claim that it’s a significant uptick from 3.4% a year ago, which is true (yay!). You know what it’s not a significant uptick from? The very next survey (i.e. July), which tallied a 6% rate of not being able to make ends meet. That number then fell to 3.0% in October before jumping again in January, then again in April.

Those numbers go up significantly when forecasting out 0-6 months, and then 7-12 months. The numbers for high earners go up to 32.5% and 33%, respectively. You know what’s happening in just under 6 months? A pretty significant election! And to what do these high earners attribute their inability to make ends meet? Job insecurity? Medical expenses? Global instability? Inflation?

Who the fuck knows?! The survey is decidedly silent on that front. But that didn’t stop Matt Egan from scrapping together the most fear-inducing, clickbait headline he could muster for our next dose of doom-fuel.

sunzu ,

Why do we still take fake news "surveys" at face value?

Blackbeard ,
@Blackbeard@lemmy.world avatar

Regurgitation pieces require no formal journalistic training, can be produced with almost no research time, can be cranked out en masse, and can be subjectively framed to grab eyeballs because there’s no entity able to claim libel if it’s misrepresented. It’s yellow journalism, plain and simple, and gullible rubes lap that shit up without a second’s hesitation because it tells them something saucy that makes them feel vindicated.

dan1101 ,

Yeah people tend to spend what they make. Larger incomes are spent on bigger houses and nicer cars. But larger incomes have more wiggle room to cut back and afford the basics if they have to.

SatansMaggotyCumFart ,

The article is calling people who make between $100k to $150k a year wealthy.

It’s barely middle class for most places now.

sunzu ,

Most major metros*

SatansMaggotyCumFart ,

Most places is what I meant.

sunzu ,

median household US income is under 80K.

even most major metros are still under 100k.

SatansMaggotyCumFart ,

Do you think making $100k to $150k yearly makes you wealthy?

sunzu ,

it puts you into about 60-80% of the american households.

middle class by default would be 40-60%

"It's barely middle class for most places now." is hyperbolic

SatansMaggotyCumFart ,

What’s the definition of middle class in the US?

sunzu ,

whatever a person thinks it is haha

however, if we rely on something about more concrete than feelz like stats, it would be the middle of the population

SatansMaggotyCumFart ,

If you relied on stats you’d see it’s $50-$150k a year so what I’m saying isn’t even hyperbole.

sunzu ,

between $100k to $150k a year wealthy.

It's barely middle class for most places now.

This was the original statement....

50-100k covers about 38% to 63%

this is the middle.

100-150k: 63%-79%

See Distribution of household income in 2022 according to US Census data

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States

Expanding lower bound to 50k does indeed appear to cover the "middle class" but income above 100k is hardly "barely middle class" from statistical point of view.

SatansMaggotyCumFart ,

The definition of middle class in the US is $50k - $150k based on the last census.

Hence why I said and continue to repeat that $100k - $150k is not wealthy but barely middle class.

I’m not sure what or why you are arguing here.

Xaphanos ,

That assumes a normal distribution. Wealth/income is not. An excellent resource is: Social Stratification in the United States: The American Profile Poster of Who Owns What, Who Makes How Much, and Who Works Where a.co/d/09LVTyYi

sunzu ,

"middle class" then has no meaning...

there are wage slaves and owners. i don't need a book to see that, i live it.

CaptainSpaceman ,

100% accurate

orcrist ,

I don’t think your definition of middle class is what most people use when they talk about it.

This is really obvious if you think about people remarking on the death of the middle class. They’re not saying that the mean or the median doesn’t exist. They are saying that families like the Simpsons are much less common than they used to be.

sunzu ,

They are saying that families like the Simpsons are much less common than they used to be

The fact that you are using a reference to corporate media to make your point gave me a chuckle lol

This shit is weaved so deep into social fabric, we are fucked.

givesomefucks ,

Yeah, but like, isn’t that where the majority of people live?

So when talking about “most places” it makes sense for it to be “places most likely for people to live”. If it was literally “most places” America is pretty fucking empty.

I googled it, the average price for an acre in Kansas is like 3.5k.

In “most places” it’s cheap as hell. But no one lives there so why talk about it?

sunzu ,

100k in Phoenix or Atlanta =/= 100k NYC or SF

givesomefucks ,

And “flyover” states 100k a year is like a millionaire…

So if going by “most places” you’d be using like 25k or even lower.

I get what you’re saying semantically, it’s just that if we’re being that semantic it’s meaningless, so clearly the other interpretation is what was meant.

Like, when someone uses “literally” you can tell what was intended.

You didn’t notice the forrest because all the trees were in the way homie.

sunzu ,

my point is that the term "middle class" is corpo propaganda...

Pacattack57 ,

That’s the talking point and semantics the rich want us to believe. That there’s plenty of places to live that are cheap.

They don’t tell the real truth that the majority of the US is desolate country and wilderness that no one wants to live or work.

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