[quote=“Redmed, post:773, topic:1661, full:true”]
Where in the world is “wealth and income not concentrated at the top”?[/quote]
Off the top of my head, Denmark, Sweden, a longer list of nations would require looking it up. They’re low on the Social Inequality Index, have much larger Middle-Classes, are healthier, with rising Life Expectancies… I could go on.
Contrast that with the U.S., with wealth inequality greater than in any other democracy in the developed world, income inequality one the greatest of any democracy in the developed world, a shrinking Middle-Class, and declining Life Expectancy.
The more relevant question for myself is: “Do I think I can do anything about X?”
If I can’t, not really worth worrying about it. This can help reduce stress levels pretty well. And more available time and effort to focus on the things I can change.
IMO the middle class is mostly a myth anyways. Depends how you define it, but in my opinion there’s really no comparison for the 99% to the 0.1%. “Middle” implies you’re half-way in between the two. Not just on step 3 on the staircase while the upper class is on step 1000.
Now if you instead take the more common definition of “being able to have a couple kids fed and a house (or why not just “shelter”) and a car (or transportation)”, then it’s a pretty large “middle class” and we’re probably in pretty good shape today compared to other time periods.
It seems like the ideal end-game for tech, automation and AI, would end up with the vast majority of people with no real “job” and still being pretty comfortable and lots of free time to pursue hobbies. It’s unclear how we’d get there from today, you’d have to go to increased taxes and more “entitlements”. If most people all have an equal share i’d define those as all lower class except for a few people “employed” that run things.
If you define middle class based on income then the middle 50% is the middle. It doesn’t shrink. If you define it based on some sort of thresholds of income or education level or homeownership or “feelings” then it changes in size.
Here’s one way to measure middle class based on income level which could see middle class shrink :
“Pew defines middle-income households here as those making between two-thirds and twice the national median household income. For a three-person household in 2014, that means an income between about $42,000 and $125,000.”
since they’re just using the median plus / minus a % of the median then you can get a shrinking middle class.
For example theoretically you could have 10 people with a median income of $60k 2 people making $10k, 2 people making $30k, 2 people making $60k, 2 people making 100k, 2 people making 250k. That gives you 4 people in the middle class. If that changes so that 1 of the people making $60k loses their decent job and ends up working as a walmart greeter for $10k then you’d end up with only 3 people in the middle class. Thus the middle class shrinks in this kind of definition.
I agree. I know one person I can get out of the middle class :). I suppose under these funny definitions I could promote someone into the middle class (with no change to their financial situation) by quitting my job and loafing around, but that seems less promising.
I’m afraid I don’t grasp the relevancy of your post.
It only makes sense if someone had claimed there were no billionaires in Denmark and Sweden, or perhaps you misconstrued being “low” on the Social Inequality Index with a zero rating on the Social Inequality Index ?
I could respond, but I don’t want to guess at your implication.
The quintiles don’t grow or shrink. (Except with overall population change). So there question i was replying to makes no sense if it’s using quintiles like you suggest.
I’ve lost the point of this argument about the definition of the middle class. There are academic models commonly used by sociologists that aren’t different enough for this discussion, can be found here.
That’s absurd. Especially because that “opinion” supported your argument.
That’s ridiculous. You can absolutely do something about the shrinking middle class – by aligning your political views and actions with politicians who understand that a shrinking middle class is bad and that trickle down economics is bullshit.
Politics is a valid exception to the statement. Thanks for pointing out the error. There’s limitations to what one person can actually “do” in many cases, but I’m not going down that route here. After going through the system to the state convention once, I’ve decided to not invest too heavily in the process. Political contributions to close races (that are not local) seems to be the way to make the largest impact as an individual.
[quote=“Bend3r, post:801, topic:1661, full:true”]
The quintiles don’t grow or shrink. (Except with overall population change). [/quote]
They used to as they were aligned with the rising inflation-adjusted Standard of Living, but there hasn’t been much of that since we were in a depression with deflation. Still have disinflation, much to the chagrin of the Fed.
I was merely responding to the assertion that there is no definement of Middle-Class.
[quote=“JoeFriday, post:765, topic:1661”]
Wikipedia is opinion.[/quote]
That’s absurd.[/quote]
Then it’s their absurdness, as they are self-defined as opinion.
Not by me. When Ted Bundy was arrested, they found a set of golf clubs in the trunk of his car. Does that mean everyone with a set of golf clubs in their trunk is a serial killer ?
A quintile is 20% or 1/5th, that’s how it’s defined. The size is constant. The income or asset thresholds between the quintiles changes, but not the percentage of households in each quintile.
So if you’re defining middle class as the middle 3 quintiles, that means the middle class is always exactly 60% of the population, so they didn’t used to grow in size.
