Upper Middle Class Income in your area?
- Thread starter The Critic
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In my locale I believe upper middle class is around $200k if two earners. For reference an ugly basic home is around $450k.
Same for around here.
JTK
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I would say it's about 25-30% of what it is in your area. ~$120K/yr is doing well in Buffalo NY.
Starts at the median and goes up by some percentage.
I always assumed LMC was the point at which living within your means and making worthwhile contributions to saving/retirement accounts was starting to become possible.
MC is where the above becomes reality, and UMC is where it becomes comfortable.
Income - spending - investing. Everyone does it differently so I would fall back on the metric of a “reasonable person” should be able to do those things…. But it seems like my definition of “reasonable” is more out of line every day.
I live in a pretty solidly LMC/middle class neighborhood (for my area) where most families have a combined income somewhere in the range of $80-150k. What they do with that money varies by quite a lot.
I always assumed LMC was the point at which living within your means and making worthwhile contributions to saving/retirement accounts was starting to become possible.
MC is where the above becomes reality, and UMC is where it becomes comfortable.
Income - spending - investing. Everyone does it differently so I would fall back on the metric of a “reasonable person” should be able to do those things…. But it seems like my definition of “reasonable” is more out of line every day.
I live in a pretty solidly LMC/middle class neighborhood (for my area) where most families have a combined income somewhere in the range of $80-150k. What they do with that money varies by quite a lot.
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Well, there is a tech boom going on, so if your relatives are not in tech they would be losing out. Why would they want to be able to afford repurchase them if they already bought their home? That would means home prices were not appreciating and they would have been stuck holding the bag or buying for nothing?
Would you prefer neighborhood slowly depreciating from new and nice to low income and run down? or would you prefer your home appreciating and add to your retirement? There's always two sides to a coin. Would I love a 300k home? Sure, but I also love home appreciation that add to my retirement as well. It would suck if my 300k home would gradually depreciate into a 100k slum and nobody wants to buy it when I retire.
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People moving in as job market becomes bigger and your home prices appreciate: bad.
People moving out because they want to cash out the home price increase: bad.
I'm sure whatever California and tech industry do Texans would spin it as bad.
The only thing that isn't good is because you are not in, that's human nature, but that doesn't mean what isn't good for you isn't good.
Lots of great responses. As discussed, the definitions are variable and the figures are highly dependent on the size of the family. To an extent, it also depends on your financial goals.
MC around here is probably $250k/yr for a family of 3-4. UMC has to be at least $400K.
Average house is about $1M for a 2-2500 sq ft with 1.3%/yr in property tax.
MC around here is probably $250k/yr for a family of 3-4. UMC has to be at least $400K.
Average house is about $1M for a 2-2500 sq ft with 1.3%/yr in property tax.
You must be in a super rich area, it's well outside the range of this article.
https://www.considerable.com/money/economy/what-is-middle-class-in-every-state/
Upper middle class others have said between 106-373k, after that, you're rich.
https://money.usnews.com/money/pers...-i-fall-in-the-american-economic-class-system
You didn't mention whether you were single or not or what state you were in. So you could be either poor or lower middle class. I don't think they use low class as a particular class. Class warfare exists whether you think about it or not. Those up armored SUVs are part of the ongoing class warfare.
Even though I posted the same article earlier, it just goes to show that such articles aren't particularly useful because you'd need to get down to a much lower micro-economic level to get some idea. There are places in CA where you can comfortably live on $373K/year, and other places in CA where you're just barely making ends meet.
I would agree with this. Even houses here are creeping up fast! We bought ours at the very end foreclosure crisis, and it is worth triple what we paid for it…
Outside Detroit or Flint, everything is 100k+ now…….
That kind of depends whether you have a family or not. 373k should be fine for a single person no matter where your area is, but for a family of 4 with expensive taste, that's under 100k a person and so maybe not really rich. Those aren't that common anyway, I think over 360k makes you a 1%, even 10% is just at 125k for individuals. You need to go over 531k to be a 1% household.
OP asked for "household" so I assumed that meant family or more than one person, but I suppose one person households would also be included in this.
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The problem with people living in houses they otherwise could not afford if not for Prop 13 is that it distorts the marketplace. It's an artificial limitation on housing supply. I'm not saying the opposite is good either, i.e., people getting taxed out of their homes, but still, it is a distortion of the marketplace.
Well, everything is a distortion of market place, even as simple as zoning law or building a bridge / tunnel can be.
Prop 13 was originally promoted by people who got taxed out of their own homes, after it is passed 40 years later it swing to the opposite direction. Same for rent control and how it might have reduced redevelopment and market driven housing that move people further away from their jobs, and retirees not moving out of the job hubs.
If you want 100% no artificial limitation on housing this is what you got, and it ain't pretty:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City
Warren Buffett eats McD for breakfast and drink Coke......I am fully convinced the richest of the rich here buy $7.99 Chevron Supreme....
You're way off base in multiple ways here.
First off I was born and raised in Corvallis, Oregon and I would not consider myself a Texan by any stretch of the imagination. I was a member of S.N.O.B., e.g., Society of Native Oregonian Born, when that was still around. James Cloutier - Wikipedia
People moving in as the job market becomes bigger is not necessarily bad. But the rate of growth in the Austin area is unsustainable and threatens the general quality of life in this area, which was one of the things that brought companies here in the first place. I also oppose the state economic development people handing out tax abatements to encourage more growth. We have lots of growth, we don't need to give away tax money to have more of it.
I don't know how you infer that people cashing out is bad. When I lived on the east side of Austin from 2004-2016 in a neighborhood with homes built in the 60s, I encouraged people to do just that as housing values rose. And eventually I did so myself as well when my house had tripled in value.
Lastly, I work in the tech industry. It does not preclude me from bemoaning Apple building offices for 5000 more people here, or Oracle moving their HQ here. Oracle especially, has already built one monstrosity building right on the shores of Town Lake. What other beautiful parts of Austin will they degrade or destroy when they build their HQ building?
I hope I can clarify something I might have misrepresent when I said "The only thing that isn't good is because you are not in, that's human nature, but that doesn't mean what isn't good for you isn't good." The "You" was a general "people" instead of you the person I was writing about. We human tends to have a way of thinking what is good for "me" is good for "you" as we measure the world around us subjectively.
I too would probably be upset when I could have afford a 3 bedroom house and then suddenly FANG companies stock go to the moon and inflated everything beyond my affordability. That is natural, and that is exactly what happened. It doesn't mean it is bad and it doesn't mean it is their faults, it is just market economy.
My point about everything California and tech industry do Texans would find a way to bash it though, is true. I love Dallas and Austin, but I do not think it is perfect and I totally hate the toll roads system.
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