Class isn't a function of income: if you exchange labor for money, you're working class. If your name is on a badge or a desk, you're working class. If your name is on a building and you make money primarily by investing capital and owning production, you're part of the bourgeoise.
There are only a few hundred billionaires in this country, and they didn't get that money by being paid a salary.
Of course there is a class difference between people at retirement age:
- Has enough wealth to pay for daily life with interest/dividends. Nearly all wealth sill be left to family+friends upon death. (Upper class)
- Has enough wealth to retire, drawing upon this wealth to survive. Must work late into life in order to leave a significant inheritance. (Middle class)
- Not enough wealth to survive without working or leave significant inheritance. Must rely on friends, family, or the state when unable to work in old age. (Lower class)
This entire thread is an example of why not to use frequently-misunderstood terms like "upper class". In most contexts "upper class" refers to social class like whether you come from aristocracy or multi-generational privilege, not necessarily economic status or wealth. The set of people who are A: upper class or B: wealthy overlap but are disjoint. There are upper class people who are not wealthy and there are wealthy people who are not upper class.
Is “yes” an unreasonable answer? They’re certainly not part of the stereotype, but neither is an IC tech worker, and I’d expect a retired person living off their investments would be pretty aligned with blue bloods on political and economic issues. Certainly they’d be opposed to any policy that’ll tank the value of their portfolio.
the people who started exchanging labor for money and today are billionaires, which "class" do they belong to?
What if you work and ALSO invest in another company?
What if you work 10 hours a day in your own company?
Once you amass capital, there's no need to apply any kind of effort? Capital is indestructible?
How many times should we try communism?
"There are only a few hundred billionaires in this country, and they didn't get that money by being paid a salary." A non trivial number of them actually did.
Source? I can't think of a single person with a net asset value in the billions that got there via cash every 2 weeks. It's always increases in equity value that get you there.
They got it as signup bonus + salary + bonuses. Eric Schmidt, Jamie Dimon, Lloyd blankfein, Sheryl Kara Sandberg, Roberto Goizueta,Steve Ballmer, Michael Eisner prob many others I do not remember Sundar Pichai will soon join that list
> Ballmer was offered a salary of $50,000 as well as 5-10% of the company.[17] When Microsoft was incorporated in 1981, Ballmer owned 8% of the company.
> While CEO of Microsoft in 2009, Ballmer earned a total compensation of $1,276,627, which included a base salary of $665,833, a cash bonus of $600,000, no stock or options, and other compensation of $10,794.
His billions came from the ~10% of the company he got when he started, not from his wages. This is closer to a co-founder than a typical employee.
Yeah, and that 421K number is across the entire US. 1%-er in California it’s over 500K. You can utilize Glassdoor to see that even looking at salaries at FAANG that is not an average experience. People in the top 10% bracket straight up believe they’re in the 1% when it suits their world view and they’re in the middle class when it suits a different component of their world view. It’s maddening.
That's the issue. Articles like this talk about the "1%", but they're trying to convince people that everyone in the 1% are Bill Gates or Jeff Besos.
If the top 1% is an household income of $475,116, and you have 2 working people, they each need to make $237,558
That's certainly a lot, but on the coasts, a college grad can get a $120k or more offer straight out of school. I've heard of much higher ones, but lets use this number.
So to be a 1%, you could simply have a couple where both techies that make twice as much as a new grad. That's not exactly far fetched, when you include equity at a public company.
Of course, these people likely spend 3-5k/month on housing, are paying 6 figure in student debt each, might be sending their toddlers to a day care or a private school and saving for said toddlers' college, and putting a bunch in equity to supplement their 401k and emergencies. Clearly way better off than most, but also probably having discussions as if they should eat out less often to save some money and if they really need 2 cars or not, because gas and maintenance is starting to add up.
So in a good (great even) place, but certainly not the same world as what comes to mind when people say "1 percenter". High income doesn't really mean upper class.
> So in a good (great even) place, but certainly not the same world as what comes to mind when people say "1 percenter".
Yes, it is.
> High income doesn't really mean upper class.
Yes it does. Making 10x the annual average family income makes you upper class. That’s what the words mean.
The cognitive dissonance you’re experiencing here is not that the rest of the world is confused about the obvious fact that the top 1% is way above average, it’s that you’re confused about where the average is.
"upper class" means whatever people use it to mean, hopefully something that's useful to the discussion at hand.
NFL players get paid very high salaries, but the average career is only three years. many of them blow through it and have only meager pensions and the aftermath of injuries to look forward to in their old age. are they "upper class" for the brief part of their life when they have the cash flow or just an edge case of the exploited worker?
> Yes it does. Making 10x the annual average family income makes you upper class. That’s what the words mean.
No that's not what the words mean.
Social class is what circle you run in. It's what kind of car you can see yourself driving. It's how you think about financial security. It's what rec activities you think about doing. It's how you get involved politically.
Income is only a tiny part of that equation. You can be upper class and dirt poor. And you can be lower class and have millions in the bank.
Don't use class to refer to wealth or income. These three concepts are totally different and can exist independently of each other.
It's not your fault you don't understand this. America failed you.
High income doesn't mean upper class as much as a large amount of wealth does.
There are many people who have modest incomes, but high wealth. Those people are upper class.
On the other hand, there are a small number of people with high income, but who have a lot of drains on their money (support a large family, donate a lot), and who I would not consider upper class because they do not have a large amount of wealth
The top 1% does not make such a small amount. The top 1% has a net worth of $18 million after accounting for loans and other debts, and an income north of 1.7million... And that's in 2013. It's even worse now.
We should be talking about net worth, not about income, or else people who pay themselves a salary of $1 but are billionaires are classed as "lower class", which is obviously nonsense.
That's tautological for you since you've decided that income is your determiner of class status, and I think this is more controversial than you accept.
My wife and I are income 1%ers, but we're also first-generation college graduates. We live in a city with a tremendously high cost-of-living, because it's where our jobs are. If we are lucky, we will inherit some small amount of equity in our parents homes. We have no political connections or clout. Our income is virtually 100% in the form of pay from our employers.
From your point of view, we're better candidates to be "upper class" than say, Andrew Cuomo, the Governor of New York (salary: ~$180K) despite the fact that Cuomo's father was also Governor of New York, he was married to a Kennedy, and he presided at Billy Joel's wedding to his fourth wife?
I do think there's an interesting question about whether income or wealth is the defining characteristic of upper class. Top 1% wealth is around $10m, which your typical 30 year old high-income tech worker won't have.
it's sort of a tautological question. "upper class" is just terminology; it means whatever is convenient shorthand for the discussion. you and I get to decide what the defining characteristic of "upper class" is for the rest of this thread.
that was a bit snarky so I'll expand a little. I think people typically use "upper class" to signify the highest echelon in the power structure of society. but there are a lot of ways to have power over others, and it doesn't map perfectly onto money. an influential media personality may have more influence than someone far richer but unknown to the public. someone with a high worth on paper might have liquidity issues that force them to be careful with their spending. you might be wealthy and politically connected, but excluded from certain social circles anyway.
Where should that threshold be? Does it move every year due to inflation?
I think a more reliable distinction would be whether a person's income predominantly comes from their labour, or whether it proedominantly comes from what they own.
No they aren’t. Making 400k puts you in the same class as someone making 80k. Both have to work for a living, and neither experiences real deprivation. Those are the two most salient factors.
If you have to work for a living you are not upper class, period.
