After years of working and saving, I can now afford to miss ONE paycheck. I’m no longer poor! /s
Capitalist scum!
Fuck outta here with your weak-ass bones!
Give that man some milk!
We need r/neverbrokeabone over here.
When the revolution comes, you will not be spared.
Lots of people in here fighting about what “working class” means. If you have to work to survive (other than minor household chores), you’re working class. If you have enough money, or assets that you get dividends from or can borrow against, or passive income so you don’t need a regular employment then you probably aren’t working class.
Working Poor isn’t as common and definition varies a lot.
This is it, it’s super simple.
If I dialed back everything, I could probably live a few years off my savings/investments, and selling some stuff. But I would be just burning trough my money, and I would need to go back to work eventually. So I’m still working class, even if I’m in a luckier situation than most people.
I feel like there is a world in between of these two
There really isn’t. Each group has a wider pay rate than maybe is implied, but functionally, there isn’t a role in capitalism between them. Wealthy people want us to think there is a wide range of classes so we argue with each other instead of cooperating against them.
There is a class in between though. Those who can’t stop working and live on capital alone, but still have enough leeway to try and an asset that’ll improve their financial status. For example:
- Investing in higher education that can bring you higher salary. For the middle class it’s a gamble - maybe you won’t make it, or maybe you won’t be able to get a job that justifies your degree - but that’s categorically different from the rich who are pretty much guaranteed to graduate and get a good job using their connections (with the degree used as laundered merit) and from the poor who can’t afford to invest the time (let alone the money) because their families will be in big trouble for several years if they don’t work and bring income.
- Buying a house. Not a problem for the rich, not a possibility for the poor, but for the middle class it’s a huge thing - both in the effort it requires and the benefit of not having to rent (or being able to rent it to others)
I can stop working for about 2 or 3 years depending on sacrifices I am willing to make. Do I qualify as a working poor class?
Oh I think working poor is pretty easy to define. If you work full time (or equivalent at multiple jobs) and you’re not able to pay your bills without government assistance then you’re the working poor.
But you can be working poor and not in those conditions
You mean above the assistance line? I’m willing to entertain it, but please explain.
I’m not sure on the exact definition of working poor, but I’d say someone who works to make just barely enough to live (aka don’t need/get assistance) but don’t earn enough for more than that and saving for when necessary utilities like fridges break down is still working poor.
I don’t know. I get that it seems like being poor and it’s certainly a dangerous financial area that could make you poor. But if you’re covering all your bases then I don’t think we can say your poor.
I know it seems like splitting a hair but if we define it like that, in general terms, then people who are just financially irresponsible would also qualify, while someone making less then them would not. I’d probably put together a basket of required goods in an area, average rent, average grocery, healthcare, average utilities for X number bedrooms (i.e. kids), etc and set that as the standard you need to be able to cover and not be poor. That way if you’re making more than those items added together we know you’re actually doing alright and we can focus elsewhere.
In a less capitalist focused system I’d probably include funding vacations, pets, and retirement.
I see, I hadn’t thought of that but you make a good point.
It is a contentious subject. The basket of goods is constantly argued over in policy circles. So it’s not a settled thing by any means.
What I find interesting is how often statements like this that are trying to unify the working class (or whatever you end up calling it) just derails into semantics instead of actually people bringing out the pitchforks and shouting “eat the rich”
We are all fucked.
Amongst the little mice fighting under the table for crumbs falling from the cake being divided above, once in a while one finds a slightly larger crumb, proudly raises it over his head and shouts: “See?! The system woks!”
Fuxking right?!
Which sounds like the statement wasn’t well crafted
“But through my retirement I own .000000001% of a company!”
Having stock in a company doesn’t make you a capitalist anymore than checking out a bible from the library makes you a Christian.
.000000001% of a $100 billion company is $1. The average person could own per year $5000 if they used automatic deposits and got the employer match.
I know you are trying to exaggerate to make a point, but don’t discourage people from getting the employer match if they can.
I employee matched for years just to watch our CEO tank our stock to 1/5 the original price.
Point being, remember it’s still an investment in a single stock and comes with that amount of risk.
Hol up, you left your retirement fund in the hands of your employer? You didn’t diversify and invest in the broader market? Most plans make you hold some for a period of time, every single plan offers a way to get out of being fully invested in one company. That’s insane.
He’s talking specifically about company matching of their stock purchase, no?
Employee stock purchase plans usually don’t match, they just offer a 10-15% discount. I honestly have no idea what they’re talking about. 401k isn’t held by your employer, and ESPP doesn’t match.
My ESPP would match up to ten shares, which is why I thought they meant ESPP. But yeah, I’m confused as well
Ten shares per paycheck? Wow, that’s an amazing benefit, assuming you can sell. That is basically doubling your money. The best one I’ve ever had was a 15% discount off the lower price between the start of the quarter and the end of the quarter. If the stock was moving upwards I’d hold it, and if it was moving downwards I’d just sell it immediately for the free 15%.
I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but I’ve never heard of an employer that requires their 401k match to be invested in the company. Everywhere I or my wife has worked you could put it in any fund available with that 401k plan.
Oh, 401k. I was thinking they meant ESPP.
Even so, every company I’ve worked for allows withdrawals at various times for parts of the fund. I need to keep a certain % of mine in company stocks, I move the overflow asap into a different fund to protect myself.
If your retirement plan absolutely has to be locked into your employer, you have a rather large risk to yourself there and I’d potentially consider finding a new employer if I ended up there. Too many companies disappear to be comfortable with that.
- 10,000 seconds = 2.8 hours
- 100,000 seconds = 1.2 days
- 1,000,000 seconds = 11.6 days
- 10,000,000 seconds = 116 days
- 100,000,000 seconds = 3 years
- 1,000,000,000 seconds = 32 years
Don’t be fooled. It’s billionaires against everyone else. Even multimillionaires are closer to the everyday person. The working class consists of two groups: those without disposable income (nominally those with “hours” in income), and those with some disposable income (days in income).
If they ain’t got a “year” in income, their they’re one of us.
I think it’s better to think of it like this:
How do you make your money? Do you need to make a wage? Or can you let your property (land, buildings, stocks, etc.) be your income?
The real amount doesn’t matter, it’s whether you have to work to live or not.
If you have to work, you are the working class. If you don’t, you are the owner/capitalist class. But your analysis is still somewhat correct: millionaires and small business owners are closer to the working class than billionaires, it does still matter how they make it though.
I think I generally agree, yeah. There’s something to be said too for if your money is made by owning or by maintaining. I don’t give a shit about landlords who rent shit out and do nothing else, but I think building administrators who fix issues and handle maintenance are probably working class.
Comes back to what you were saying. Do you make money through labor, or through ownership?
Modern America is like Tsarist Russia. A tiny elite, a small ‘middle class,’ and a vast army of poor people.
It’s generally considered safe to withdraw 4% of your nest egg each year. Someone with 2 million can support an 80k/year retirement.
The average multimillionaire is literally just any person with a six figure salary who has been saving for retirement and is nearing retirement. You basically can’t retire without at least being a millionaire.
Yeah the big difference is now much it takes to amass that money. If we have a capitalist system, there’s nothing wrong with workers saving money to retire with a few million.
What if I can miss two paychecks? Super-rich, or?
Yeah people don’t believe me when i say middle class is 300k because they want to be middle class
A person making 300k can still be working class. Unless you own capital that makes enough money for you to live off, you are working class
Exactly. It’s how you make your money, not how much you make.
That’s not the commonly accepted definition of working or middle class. Middle class has never meant “don’t have to work to live”.
In the U.S. the differences have always been defined by income level. Depending on the context, working class has also been used to mean someone working a blue collar non-salary job without a college degree.
I don’t think anyone has ever seriously defined a college educated person making over a quarter million a year “working class”.
Working and middle class by the American cultural standard (as in, defined solely by income bracket and working conditions) are ultimately useless designations meant to drive a wedge between the working class or proletariat as defined by marx; “individuals who sell their labour power for wages and who do not own the means of production”; those responsible for creating the wealth of a society.
The american concept of class is harmful because it groups together the working class members most vulnerable to exploitation; those earning the least and doing the hardest work for the longest hours; and pits them against the better off members of this very same class; those with more time, formal education, and expendable income; who might have more power and means to do legwork in organizing and uplifting the class as a whole through solidarity and collective action.
You are somewhat correct though, in that it would be difficult to make over 250k/yr without engaging in some sort of profit from capital ownership and/or labor exploitation. That person would become middle class and cease to be working class not because they made over an arbitrary dollar amount per year, however, or because they went to school in order to do so, but because they are earning profits from capital ownership and labor exploitation rather than solely those generated by their own work. Yet, by working for most of their living, they are still subject to many of the same conditions as the working class and would likely still benefit from solidarity with the working class.
via https://uregina.ca/~gingrich/o402.htm
The lower middle class or the petty (petite) bourgeoisie, “are smallowners who still work their own means of production, or owner-workers” (Adams and Sydie, p. 134). The characteristic of this class is that it does own some property, but not sufficient to have all work done by employees or workers. Members of this class must also work in order to survive, so they have a dual existence – as (small scale) property owners and as workers.
Capitalists are the owners of capital, purchasing and exploiting labour power, using the surplus value from employment of this labour power to accumulate or expand their capital. It is the ownership of capital and its use to exploit labour and expand capital that are key here. Being wealthy is, in itself, not sufficient to make one a capitalist. To be a capitalist or member of the bourgeoisie, the owner of a sum of money must be actively involved in capital accumulation, using this money to organize production, employ and exploit labour, and make the money self-expansive by using the surplus value to continue this cycle of capital accumulation.
Software and finance tech are both fields where one can make 300k/y without owning anything. Company stock I guess is technically owning a piece of the means of production, but not to a degree that they can really make change to the company. I would argue additionally that owning some index funds does not kick one out of the working class.
Okay but they can easily invest 2/3rds of that for a decade and then live off the dividends. That’s not middle class or working class.
For that amount of money, they’d be lucky to get a couple hundred in dividends each month. I used to work for a company that gave dividends, and their reasoning for laying people off instead of touching the dividend was that a lot of people relied on the dividend to make ends meet.
A coworker of mine did the math, and you’d need to have millions invested in the stock to get a dividend you could actually live on. The fact of the matter is that working class goes up to over 1 million. You have to be born rich or be an immoral businessman like Gates or Bezos to live off just investments.
Even a lot of celebrities don’t qualify! You had John Boyega protesting with people because even most actors aren’t that rich. It’s why Hollywood tends liberal instead of conservative.
Then your coworker fucked up the math. Once you get about 1.8M in stocks you can get around 80k in dividends. 200,000 a year (2/3rds a 300,000 take home) would reach 1.8M in about 9 years.
This is how people retire in their late 30’s (or earlier if they got handed that kind of pay via nepotism/networking)
Getting a million dollars a year and calling yourself working class is fucking ridiculous. At that point you have so much access to assets that if you don’t create a self sustaining income it’s nobody’s fault but your own.
Our company has a 3.88% dividend rate, and when things were okay and stock price was like $60. That’s $2.328 annually from one stock when things are mediocre, and at the time, it was worse than mediocre. For that annual dividend, you’d need to own roughly 34.4k stock, or $2M worth, to make $80k a year.
Your math on take home pay doesn’t check out. Someone making $300k is looking at like $60k in income tax, plus $60k in housing if they follow the 20%ish rule there. If they’re making $300k they’re probably in a high cost of living area, so food and gas and electricity are going to add up too, not to mention insurance. If they’re lucky, they’ll put away $100k, tops, but only after their savings cover 3 months of expenses. Long story short, they might have enough for $80k a year after 20 years of intense saving from a $300k a year job. They’ll probably need closer to $150k, frankly
My coworkers and I were upper middle class at $100k or so a year, and I lived significantly below my means. I was able to put away roughly 40k a year at best. It would’ve taken me 50 years to buy enough stock.
If you’re making $300k a year single, you’re almost definitely not able to put $200k away into investments each year unless you have significant expenses covered through other means.
I don’t have to invest in your company dude. And assuming we’re not talking about take home pay in general finance stuff is just ridiculous.
If you want to talk about 300k before taxes though then let’s do that. Your take home will be around 182k in California, (more in other states). You can easily live off 70k, leaving 110k for early retirement savings. So it takes about 18 years instead of about 10 years with a 300k take home.
The biggest mistake people make is living larger instead of saving larger.
I agree on your last point. I still think though 70k is way too low an estimate, especially for California.
I think 150k (ish) in my city would be solidly middle class. You could buy a house/car/retire on that.
I’m in a super weird spot, because I make good enough money that I have savings to support me after job loss, and I make enough money that I don’t really have to worry about my grocery bill (within reason). Heck, there’s even a chance that I’ll be able to have a decent retirement.
But a house? Not happening. New car? No chance. Even eating out every week isn’t viable. And even what I have is only because I have a pretty sweet rent situation.
That’s ridiculous. Middle class is absolutely part of the working class. It starts around 70k for a single income in a rural area. And 120k for double income in a high cost area.
Who in those income brackets can afford their house, car, and vacations?
600k for a rural house, 5% mortgage is 30k
1.5m in urban, 5% mortgage is 75k
Car is 20-40k
Food is 16k/year
30+20+16= 66 out of 70 but you aren’t buying a new car every year
So let’s say you’re spending 1.8/L on it and going 20 000km per year. CX-5 is 8.2L per 100
I believe that’s 1640L so an expense of 2952
Our number then is 30+2.952+16 for simplicity we will just say 49
So we have 21k left, for heating I found it cost 3840, again round up to 4 so we have 17k
I know what you’re thinking what about tax?
Property tax we will go cheap with 1% because we rounded the other things up. 6k
Now we have 11k
Income tax?
Thats 12 333 but we will round down to 12k
We are now -1k
Yearly vacation that you take if you’re middle class? Let’s say 5k
We are now -6k
there are more expenses of course but you get the idea
Are you a teacher?
I only ask because this sounds exactly like the response a fed up teacher would give
I studied for it but not currently
I hope you didn’t take that question as an insult. I didn’t mean it to be. It just seemed so similar to the rants my teachers would go on when someone pissed them off.
I laughed at it
Your cost for a rural house is way off. It’s more like 200k in the current market. Mine was less.
I’m the one you’re asking about - “who in those income brackets can afford their house, car, and vacation?” because I’m in that income bracket and and able to afford it all. I could buy a car with the money in my checking account, own my house, and take vacations on occasion.
house is way off. It’s more like 200k in the current market. Mine was less.
I am currently looking, it’s not
Your price would be vacant land or American
Middle class was originally defined as a class that gets at least some significant percent of their income from stocks bonds and other investments. I’m willing to bet that ain’t you.
Is this a definition common in a specific country outside the U.S.? I see this claim in multiple places in the thread, but that’s not how it has been historically defined in the U.S. or in France where the term originated. Middle class in the original context evolved out of the mercantile class that traded goods in cities - neither aristocrat nor serf - during the middle ages. That original definition had nothing to do with investments.
Does it not? Maybe the definition of investments has expanded to include more abstract things like stock in a company, but still a merchant needs to invest in goods that they then sell. Which now that i think about it is also called stock…
ITT: lots of people making very concrete statements about cost of living that somehow apply equally to every single city in the US at the same time
That’s an American point of view. Here in Britain there are pretty much only two main classes: aristocracy and dirty peasants. Doesn’t matter what you do and how rich you are, if your ancestors didn’t sit at the round table - you’re a peasant.
I don’t think that’s true. There’s definitely the three classes, but many people believe they’re middle class when they’re not.
It’s basically impossible to become upper class. I think I read somewhere that it takes 3 or 4 successive generations at somewhere like Eton to be considered upper class.
I can afford to miss a paycheck. In fact, I’m currently planning for a four month stretch where I’ll need to live off of savings. Thinking that I, with my 11 year old honda fit, 10 year old PC, and my 2 roommates, am in the top 20% of this stat is very alarming.
Man, if I could split my living expenses with TWO other people? 🤤 Currently I’m paying them for 2 kids and a husband (who recently wrecked our only car).
I almost quit my job after Christmas because they canceled my holiday time off without any work for me to do. I was just going to live off of savings while looking for a job, but the job market is so weird right now I decided to power through it
I work paycheck to paycheck but if I told people how much I made and called myself poor I’d probably anger people. I just make sure that I do what’s in my power to keep myself comfortable now, even if that means overspending on luxuries
If you have no financial reserves, you are IMO poor or stupid. One of both.
Which are you?
Edit: I’m going to go with both.
Being comfortable does not require luxuries or overspending.
I stress quite quickly so I spend money to avoid stress. Stuff like cooking, cleaning, variable bills I am happy to pay a premium on so they don’t affect my everyday
Personally speaking, having zero savings or very little savings in case of a big cost or unemployment would leave me significantly more stressed. That would affect my life greatly, versus not being able to have takeout whenever I feel like it.
I’m not condoning how I live but I’ve been on both ends of the spectrum and the fact I transitioned from one to the other should give some indication of how well it went.
That really sounds like a therapy thing. Because there are far better ways to cope with stress.
how much do you make though
I like how things are defaulting to the US as if that’s the whole world.
She’s probably American and talking about America. We shouldn’t have to qualify every single thing we say, if it doesn’t apply to you then it doesn’t apply. It’s certainly worthwhile to the discussion to add your own experiences in places it doesn’t apply, but just pointing out that she didn’t explicitly say she’s talking about America (even though she very nearly did) isn’t super relevant.
I’m dead sure the traffic Lemmy instances overall see have America as the top country.
Looks like every single international online space, not just Lemmy, is somehow dominated by Americans.
Do Americans exist outside Internet?
It’s probably equally slanted towards your country if we all got on their network your country invented
Bold of you to assume I’m American.
That was silly of her. I mean, look at you? Clearly nowhere near America. She should apologize to you.
Still I incline on agree that Internet got super America-centric
There’s over 96% of people living outside land of the free, can we talk about it for a second?
Real talk, I suspect there are a number of contributing factors to that phenomenon that have very little to do with John American sharing a twitter screenshot with Lemmy. I mean, Americans are just online, talking to each other. If we’re that overwhelming, I wouldn’t point any fingers at normal american people.
Everyone is online, what makes me wonder is how Americans and not say Indians dominate the interwebs?
Americans dominate the English speaking Internet, because there are more English speakers. There are sites in German or Hindi that have almost never used by Americans.
no one is stopping you. Just like no one is stopping an American posting American stuff, you can probably safely assume that not everything posted online is about you or to you directly. Feel free to go about your day posting what you want to. You don’t need an American’s or really anyone’s permission to do so. They didn’t ask your permission to post. Nor should they have to.
Maybe she wasn’t talking to you though.
I disagree. You are NOT poor just because you end up without money at the months end.
My brother is an perfect example. He earns A TON of cash every month. Nearly as much as I, my fiance, my Dad and Mum combined.
And still he lives from payday to payday without any reserves. Because he can not handle money.
He eats in restaurants at least ten times a week. At least twice in highest luxury restaurants. He has leased four different cars in three years, none less than €2000 per month. Lifes in an absurdetly huge penthouse. Buys his girl friend so much bullshit she gave me a €5.000 collier because she ran out of space and I drove her home after parties a couple of times. But still he asked Pa and me several times for fuel money at the end of the month.
See, if he would live like I do he could live two years from one months earnings.
So you think I am poor I guess?
Nope. I own a huge plot of land. I am going to build my own house and I am talking about a nice big house made from stone at the gates of Munich where land is expensive and houses are even more expensive. I have paid generous amounts of pension insurance. If I would stop working in five years when I am 35 I would be a made girl and could live from my savings although on a low level.
So he can absolutely afford to miss at least one paycheck, he just doesn’t want to. That’s already covered in the image. “You can’t afford to miss a paycheck”.
This is really irrelevant. He obviously can miss a paycheck. He is rich, so if he says “I’ll pay you next month” to anyone, they go “sure”. Even if that doesn’t work, he can just sell a piece of jewelry. This is just an elaborate version of the “avocado toast” trope.
If that is how he spends than he can clearly afford to miss a paycheck. Its not the same as having spend it all.
When you cant ask the landlord to pay rent next month because you already had to ask last month is when you cant afford to miss it.
It would really suck for your borther and he wont keep up the lifestyle but at the end of that month when the next paycheck does arrive he is going to be just fine.
Multiple restaurants in a week sounds like he can afford to let someone else manage his money and still have enough pocketmoney for his vices. He should Look into it.
You have no idea how hard it is to get rid of an unwilling renter as a landlord in Germany. In the event of rent arrears of two months’ rent or more, the landlord can terminate the lease without notice. Only then can he or she file an action for eviction which can take another two to four months. And if the tenant only pays the arrears for one month, the cycle starts all over again. I have seen people dragging this out for five years and when leaving the premise they left behind a battlefield. And absurdetly I am not even allowed to burn or sell their shit because it is still their properties so I have to store it, show it to a bailiff for evaluation, sell the few things worth anything, then store it for another two years and only then I am legally allowed to burn it.
(And yes, my brother missed his rent a couple of times but always caught up after one or two months. Given how expensive rents in Germany are we are not talking about small sums. A 1960th 84m² apartment in a suburb is around €1500, a 1870th 70m² apartment in the centre of munich is around €3500 per month. The penthouse my brother lives in… just short of five digits. If he ever gets seriously sick he will go broke within two months and will take decades to pay of the debts. Again, he has no long term insurrances, no savings, nothing at all. And social wellfare and social health care of a couple of €100 will only bring him so far…)
I don’t want to dismiss the challenges and difficulties you speak off. All experiences are valid and personal. Yet i feel like there is a disconnect here where i don’t think you gravity of what is meant with not being able to afford.
I don’t live in Germany but just the fact that there is social wellfard and that you speak of him still having a couple of hundred says plenty of the privileges compared to the people this post is actually all above who may not even have that money after working. (Not everyone on the globe is granted fair and legal Working conditions and rights)
I assume with renter protections and your brother having a a good job missing a payment for him can be solved with an annoying call to the landlord who can reasonably expect that your brother has the means to make enough money.
For people who love in slums, who can barely Afford their home ij the slum when they do have money and sometimes need to chose between heat, food and rent the relation with the landlord who is routinely dealing with tenants who dont have the means to pay.
Also, it sounds like you care about your brother and you yourself ard doing reasonably well. Imagine that he does end up jobless with no home or food. Would you or some other family not help him out? Poverty is a systematic issue, there are exceptions but most poor families come from poor families. If they end up on the street and there is no wellfare that cares they and their kids may just die on the street.
That is the distinction that i believe should Be made here when we talk about not being able to afford. Its nog about hardship or financial ruin. Its about the difference between barely surviving and not surviving.
I must confess, currently I am not even living on my own. A storm in 2019 destroyed the apartment my fiance and I lived in and as housing is insanely hard to find in Germany we fled literally into my old childhood room at my parents house and annexed the room of my brother too - he hasn’t needed it for like five years so who cares. Which is fine because I am working at my family business anyway and it is just a two minutes walk from home. Then the Pandemic hit and in 2023 my fiance and afterwards we realized how much money we had saved - because my parents only charge a miniscoul amount of money from us - we can literally buy a complete house, something we didn’t even think about five years ago.
Another renter in the wrecked apartment building moved into a trailer park, or to be more precise, a container park - yes, they exist around here too but are not as Ultra-Low-Class as i have seen them in the US. It is okeyish and pretty cheap and you can literally get a container on short notice but usually they are so deep in the bonneys that you need to ride to work on a horse. I mean when the shit really hits the fan this seems a good emergency solution even in the US. I have been visiting some when I did work-study (*1) over there and while they were less nice than those around here I was surprised how nice the people around there were.
(*1) I am mortician and embalmer and we picked up some deceased over there for funeral preparations. Which means we had very close interaction and looking into private stuff, literally helping the local police to recover papers and documents from their stuff.
Being irresponsible wasn’t the topic.
Either person doesn’t need a tonne of money to survive. Not that they aren’t using it to survive.
