{"id":381179,"date":"2018-10-16T11:01:49","date_gmt":"2018-10-16T10:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/how-many-households-qualify-as-middle-class\/"},"modified":"2018-10-16T11:01:49","modified_gmt":"2018-10-16T10:01:49","slug":"how-many-households-qualify-as-middle-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/how-many-households-qualify-as-middle-class\/","title":{"rendered":"How Many Households Qualify as Middle Class?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

By the standards of previous generations, the middle class has been stripmined of income, assets and purchasing power.<\/i><\/p>\n

What does it take to be middle class nowadays?<\/b>\u00a0Defining the middle class is a parlor game, with most of the punditry referring to income brackets as the defining factor.<\/p>\n

People tend to self-report that they belong to the middle class based on income,\u00a0but income is not the key metric: 12 other factors are more telling measures of middle class membership than income.<\/b><\/p>\n

In\u00a0Why the Middle Class Is Doomed<\/a>\u00a0(April 17, 2012) I listed five\u00a0minimum threshold characteristics<\/i>\u00a0of membership in the middle class:<\/b><\/p>\n

1. Meaningful healthcare insurance (i.e. not phantom insurance with $5,000 deductibles, etc.) and life insurance.<\/p>\n

2. Significant equity (25%-50%) in a home or equivalent real estate<\/p>\n

3. Income\/expenses that enable the household to save at least 6% of its income
\n\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/span>
\nMoney and Work Unchained<\/a><\/span><\/span>
\nCharles Hugh Smith<\/span>
\nBest Price: <\/span>$14.48<\/span><\/span>
\nBuy New <\/span>$14.31<\/span><\/span>
\n(as of 04:00 EDT – Details<\/span>)<\/span><\/span>
\n<\/a><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Significant retirement funds: 401Ks, IRAs, etc.<\/p>\n

5. The ability to service all debt and expenses over the medium-term if one of the primary household wage-earners lose their job<\/p>\n

I then added a taken-for-granted sixth:<\/b><\/p>\n

6. Reliable vehicles for each wage-earner<\/p>\n

Author Chris Sullins suggested adding these additional thresholds:<\/b><\/p>\n

7. If a household requires government assistance to maintain the family lifestyle, their Middle Class status is in doubt.<\/p>\n

8. A percentage of non-paper, non-family home hard assets such as family heirlooms, precious metals, tools, etc. that can be transferred to the next generation, i.e. generational wealth.<\/p>\n

9. Ability to invest in offspring (education, extracurricular clubs\/training, etc.).<\/p>\n

10. Leisure time devoted to the…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By the standards of previous generations, the middle class has been stripmined of income, assets and purchasing power. What does it take to be middle class nowadays?\u00a0Defining the middle class is a parlor game, with most of the punditry referring to income brackets as the defining factor. People tend to self-report that they belong to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-381179","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}