Definition Of Middle Class In United States
But it s an ambiguous label.
Definition of middle class in united states. The definition of middle class can vary wildly depending on who you ask. However economists don t all agree on how close to the median income you actually have to be to qualify as middle class. The middle 60 percent of american households earned half of all income before transfers and taxes in 1979 but only 40. Former secretary of labor robert reich suggests that the middle class should be defined as households making between 50 below and 50 above the median.
Other definitions of middle class income. Thus to step over the national middle class threshold of 48 500 a household in jackson needs an income of only about 39 300 or 19 0 less than the national standard. But first the task force had to define middle class. And while there are several measures of a technical definition of the middle class it is.
If you re hardworking thrifty and humble for example you re middle class. For some it s defined by certain attributes. Census bureau the median household income for the united states was 53 657 in 2014 so you would expect middle class people to have income somewhere around this level. While the concept is typically ambiguous in popular opinion and common language use contemporary social scientists have put forward several ostensibly congruent theories on the american middle class.
Depending on where you live you can feel middle class earning as much as 250 000 a year about five times the us median income of 52 250 from the same. Norm to join the middle class. The middle class typically dominate voting in a developed country with a middle class of larger than 1 3 of the population. This would put the middle class in the 34 352 to 103 055 income range based on the census median income of 68 703.
Middle class is a tricky concept. Depending on the class model used the middle class constitutes anywhere from 25 to 66 of households. The american middle class is a social class in the united states. However it is also common for politicians to perform a bait and switch maneuver whereby they claim to represent the middle class in words but represent corporate and upper class interests in action.
This definition highlights the middle class s declining share of income. But a household in the san francisco area needs a reported income of about 63 800 or 31 6 more than the u s.