It’s interesting to tie upper middle class which may be more of a lifestyle and ability to have nicer things, to income. There are people in Atherton CA who paid 10k for their now 12 million dollar home, and live on 1500 social security per month. What class are they, besides the old class or the lucky kid inherited it all class? Then what are the new people buying in Atherton the 12 million home across the street? It seems all out of whack. Maybe it’s better to forget about classes. What class am I making $31200 per year, or $15/hr? Low class? That ain’t right.
Upper Middle Class Income in your area?
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Wife and I make $150-200k combined and have never purchased a new car. I would say that’s not Upper anything. This is Southern California and we have a home which eats up most of our $$. Around here I would say $300k+ is upper middle? Upper would have to be $1mil plus.
I have no Jay Oh Bee, no paycheck just investments. That must mean I have no class.
Below 500k is likely before post dot com boom QE during GWB time, like 2001. Back then I remember salary was likely 5 digits for most people and interest rate was like 12%.
You see that "retired" class skew everything in every location, but that's typically not what people refer to. Yes you will always see some people on low income program like food stamps and section 8, affordable utility and internet plan who park their money in a business or with their kids' account that never withdraw profit for spending taking advantage of the programs, yet drive nice cars or go on vacations all the time. This always happen in all society in all nations, but that's expected and you cannot avoid it.
You also have those who barely make it in a high cost of living area who your relatives from far away call you rich and hypocrites, should pay for all the taxes to subsidize them, or should be on the rich relatives' side as automatic assumption to prove that tax and gov ruin everything and the gov should really withdraw all program and everything must be paid for by the users (which will driven their cost up even further). These corner cases are always there, not avoidable.
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Wealth can be defined not by how much money you make but by how much money you spend.
I agree that where you live will have big influence on what class you may be in. Also, how you choose to prioritize your earning spending will influence how much you will have at the end of your earning power (ie. towards your retirement). My wife and I decided awhile back that we may not enjoy luxurious lifestyle (buy what we need vs want, buying used cars vs new, etc), but be debt free (other than mortgage), save for retirement, pay for kids to university tuition so they can start their career debt-free as well. Our retirement plan with our modest income have been met according to my financial planner's projection with 14 years to go before retirement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealthy_Barber
The first book I read after started working 30 years ago and I may not agree with everything, it's core foundation of how to be wealthy is sound.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealthy_Barber
The first book I read after started working 30 years ago and I may not agree with everything, it's core foundation of how to be wealthy is sound.
Defining middle class in general, let alone upper, is the issue...it means nothing like what it used to mean decades ago. It seems now that to be considered "middle class" you are still entitled to a new vehicle every 3 years, an $800 phone for everyone in the family, and a 75" TV in every room of the house. Middle class for my parents' generation meant a family vehicle that was reliable and going on family road trips for vacation, not 1st class to Cancun. I'm 31 and it's insane the lifestyle my generation thinks they have earned and deserve in relation to their income.
To be fair, it is called inflation, and the "cost" of a lot of things aren't what they used to be relative to each other. Yes a $800 phone sounds crazy but consider electricity cost $200 a month and water + trash cost $100, or mortgage cost $3k, it really isn't the same as what it used to be (when buying something was expensive but water and gas were cheap). These days the expensive things are to send your kids to college or your kids being able to work their way to support college life on their own without student loans. A new Mitsubishi Mirage every 3 year is also probably cheaper than buying a 70k SUV / pickup truck every 10 years, after including insurance and gas, so it really is hard to tell what is what.
I knew a janitor living out of his Escalade because he was working 2 full time jobs during weekdays and sleep between shifts, Escalade is cheaper than rent, so I am not sure what can you make of this. He goes back home during weekends to his family 3 hours away.
JHZR2
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If I search the official metric for median salary in such areas I consider to be umc-ish around me, it points towards a family median on the order of $160-ish k. I’d probably argue that’s $50k-100k too low, granted it’s median and probably includes lots of folks who put a lot of personal expenses as business write offs and whatnot. These are the folks with $500k-$1M homes with $12-25k/yr property taxes, often a second beach house or more than that, nice cars, etc.
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OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
As many others have noted, it's highly area dependent. The median household income here locally is $58,127 while our local Liberal MP makes ~$270,000 and was recently caught on an open mic blabbing about it, which went over like a lead balloon.
Middle is probably ~$100K here, so upper middle is probably around or over $200K.
Middle is probably ~$100K here, so upper middle is probably around or over $200K.
Median household income in my town is around $125K.
I'd say double that for upper middle.
I'd say double that for upper middle.
I agree with others, the definition is just too broad, as well as location (even within the same city).
Family size also plays a big part in it as well. Single, married (and single income or dual), kids (and how many), extended family living with you (and do they have income) all play a huge role in what would be considered "upper middle class".
Family size also plays a big part in it as well. Single, married (and single income or dual), kids (and how many), extended family living with you (and do they have income) all play a huge role in what would be considered "upper middle class".
California is a bit skewed due to property tax locked in with Prop 13 and massive home price increase. The neighborhood can be mixed with long timers who just refi for $ to spend but not the income, vs the new residences with massive paychecks but all spent on housing.
Family size are typically considered in most affordable program like utility and internet, typically it is almost impossible to enter these program with a small family due to the way lower income level to be qualified.
Sounds about right. Apple is building a huge expansion of their campus here, Oracle is moving their HQ here, new Tesla plant, and others I'm sure, I only keep track of the huge announcements. I tell everyone Austin stinks and don't move here. I was only kidding when I said it years ago, now, I'm really not kidding. This place is now a playground for rich liberals who can afford a house in town. The infrastructure hasn't kept up by a longshot, and that makes commuting stink for anyone who can't afford to live in town. The huge move to remote work with the pandemic helped though, but for how long?
I guess on the flip side the house I bought in the suburbs in 2018 is a good savings plan.
If I were just throwing out a range for "Upper Middle Class", I'd say at least $250k per household.
4 times the median household income for the area
Yes but in your parents generation, airlines had seat pitch that was reasonable. Just about every airline other than Southwest has taken out seat pitch in the last 20 years, in addition to other ways that service was cheapened. I really need an exit row at least, but now every inch of space that is better than "horrible" costs more.
signed,
6'7" guy.
Just "a bit" skewed? I would say it's way out of whack. (have relatives in the Bay area that could not afford their homes if they had to repurchase them)
You may find this useful to determine median income in your area.
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/il/il2021/select_Geography.odn
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/il/il2021/select_Geography.odn
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