On the nature of the true American middle class (re: $97,000)

The problem with the Clinton / Obama dust-up as to whether people making $125,000 are middle class is linguistic. I used to be a big fan of Michael Harrington style Democratic Socialism, and one thing Harrington's books really impressed on me was the cultural fraudulence of American perceptions of class.

America is unique in our staunch refusal to admit we have a working class. It's a clever bit of historical anti-socialist progaganda... convince the working class they don't exist and there can be no working class revolt.

Americans believe our only strata are the rich, the middle class, and the poor. In order to keep the rich free from worry, laborers are told they are in the same class as doctors and accountants. Because America offers a degree of class mobility, American poor and working class people are told to feel it is their fault, somehow. (In traditional societies there is no great shame in being in the class you're born into.)

As Kurt Vonnegut noted in PLAYER PIANO, the ugliest thing about America is the saying, "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" Laborers, conditioned to be ashamed of their class, accept their bogus linguistic/cultural 'promotion' to the middle class with pride, rather than recognizing that it is part of a con-job.

The real "middle class," the American bourgeoisie, is made up of professionals and small business owners. Dentists and restaurant owners and such.

So Clinton is correct, at least technically, that the $100,000 to $200,000 range is middle class, insofar as they are not rich. The rich are hardly the top 6%... the rich are the top 1% and they have about 50% of the stuff. But when an audience hears "middle class" it conjures up a picture of a working-class hero scraping from pay-check to pay-check, and that's not $100K.

(Compare the Clinton/Obama dispute to the Republican's recent manipulation our odd class sensibilities from the other direction on S-CHIP, ridiculing the idea that any family making $65K could possibly need help securing insurance for their children. 65K is a lot more than most people make, yet still can be in need of government assistance. Surely an additional $35K would not make that same family upper class. The comfortable or "well-to-do" are ill-defined in America, where we insist that retail clerks and Psychiatrists belong to the same nebulous class.)

And thus, we have today's disagreement over the language of class in America. Such is the damage done by being brain-washed by the American political lexicon that was developed in the mid-20th century. (And Lou Dobbs type rabble-rousers who describe a war on working people as "The War on the Middle Class.)

This is how I see it as well.

K&R

Good one.

It's high time everybody understood the economic reality so we can base decisions on reality.

I'll concede that Obama and Hillary might have been talking different languages. I believe that Obama would describe his "six per cent" as the upper middle class on up, whereas Hillary was talking of the middle class as a whole. Eliminating the salary cap, however, would make the SS rate of the lower and middle classes go DOWN, not up.

:headbang:
rocknation

trying to describe an entire economy as middle class.

I have strong objections to tinkering with the SS cap, but they are not motivated by a concern that the top 6% could not pay more. They can, of course. But they should pay more into general revenue, not SS. Our pressing fiscal problems are across the board. If we generate a huge SS surplus it will 1) not address our more immediate budgetary concerns, and 2) will eventually be stolen.

The more SS money we hoard needlessly (and it is not needed any time soon), the greater attraction that pile of money is to those who want to pump it into the stock market to inflate the value of their own stocks.

(Like in the 1980s when corporations avoided having too much cash on hand because it made them hostile take-over targets.)

I am not an expert, so I defer to Paul Krugman on this matter, because he has earned my trust through the years as a major left-leaning politically savvy economic guru.

I'm glad that this issue was raised during the debate because it is one of the underlying tensions within the Democratic Party. Are we going to be the party of the working people (as we have been historically), as well as the party of the upwardly mobile, or are we going to sell out and forget the little guys? I was particularly angered by Bill Richardson's comment about John Edwards wanting to start a "class war" when all Edwards is doing is reminding our party that there are plenty of people who are being left behind, who don't count -- EVEN IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY these days. If that's class war, then maybe we do need to have one, or at least the forgotten lower classes (and I count myself among them) need to start FIGHTING BACK against a class war that's been waged on us (without any defense by either party) since Reagan's arrival in 1980.

That's often how these things work out...

That's why I did not enjoy the SS cap dispute at all, on either side. Any division between working and middle class is a welcome distraction for the few thousand folks at the top with half the money.

Payroll taxes are irrelevant to the true rich, because they don't work.

"What I mostly don't want is a working class vs. middle class conflict staged by the rich."

that if you're a working stiff, that you're middle class.

"You have a place to live, don't you?"

"Well, I rent-"

"You have a place to live. You eat well, don't you?"

"Well, I've had to cut back because of rising-"

"You're well fed. You have a vehicle, don't you?"

"Yes, but it's hard to pay for the ga-"

"You have adequate transportation. You have insurance?"

"Yes, but-"

"See? You're middle class! Keep working hard, and you might well be able to retire some day. Pardon me, I'm late to my lunch with my Senator. Good day!"

Working Class Hero

As soon as your born they make you feel small,
By giving you no time instead of it all,
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school,
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool,
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,
Then they expect you to pick a career,
When you can't really function you're so full of fear,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,
And you think you're so clever and classless and free,
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
There's room at the top they are telling you still,
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,
If you want to be like the folks on the hill,
A working class hero is something to be.
A working class hero is something to be.
If you want to be a hero well just follow me,
If you want to be a hero well just follow me.

are "The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan" and "Broken English"

with his band Tin Machine.

and a small pension. I guess that makes us dirt poor.

asked us to write down on a piece of paper what we thought our social class was, fold up the paper, and hand it in.

When he read off the results, we heard that every single student in the class considered himself or herself "middle class." This included everyone from the kids whose parents earned roughly 150% of the minimum wage at the local factory to kids whose parents owned veritable suburban palaces.

I guess blue collar and lower level white collar would probably define it. I know my parents were barely making it for a lot of years, and as the oldest...

But the advantage to the attitude of middle-classness, at least as I saw it until fairly recently, was that everyone expected their kids to get an education and do well. And since we had a good public school system -- competing with the Soviets gave the country an incentive -- and there was a general air of post-WW II optimism -- it wasn't impossible. My mother's Holy Grail was college education, and since public universities were well-subsidized by taxes it was actually possible for me and my sibs to fulfill her dream by working our way through college.

The disadvantage was that we were taught a myth (of a classless society) and that believing that myth blinded all of us to the reality that, at a bare minimum, the playing field is absolutely not level. Those of us who don't make it big are left with feelings of personal shame and failure that have nothing to do with the quality of our efforts.

I feel like I should be wearing that T-shirt: "I'm an English major. You do the math." My interests, reading, and education have been humanities all the way. Reading Paul Krugman has taught me a lot. Occasionally talking to my husband about economic theory also has helped my dawning understanding -- we have a lot in common in some areas, but the content of his MBA is not one of them. Quite a few years ago I dumped the groceries on the table and said: "What the aitch are 'they' basing the statement that the economy is doing so fabulously on? I keep hearing there's no inflation yada yada yada. Food, though, has gone up quite a bit and stayed up." And that was the first time I learned how the government slices and dices the statistics so that literal kitchen-table issues are left out of rosy economic statements.

Hekate

And impersonate the upper classes.

Holding a job often depends on this sort of CRAP. In the San Franciso Bay Area, dressing well just to obtain a mediocre job is the norm.

Before I myself obtained credit cards, I had no idea the extent that a person could augment their meagre salary, high rent, pricey cost of eating etc. But credit cards close the gap on limiting your wardrobe to what you can afford. And hey, the ads for credit cards point out that once you are locked into paying off the credit cards, and so maybe now you don't have enough money for food, well, you can get another credit card and use that one to buy your groceries. It's the modern way!

on the employers' part, there now exists the expectation that anyone who works can look fabulous.

If little Sally in filing can wear designer clothes, then how is that Single Mom Mary who makes twice as much as an executive secretary doesn't have the same interest in looking great?? And her not looking great impacts the firm's image.

It must be that Single Mom Mary doesn't care about the firm's image.

SIGH.

I've always had a "bad attitude" about dress codes at low paying jobs, but seriously... if you want me to dress a certain way to work here then pay me more or take me shopping.

Offsetting our Withholding taxes by taking our many pairs of panty hose as deductions!

"middle" has a meaning to me.

The median family income in the United States is about $48,000. For one to accept that the 94th percentile is middle class one must accept that the 6th percentile is too.

middle class doesn't mean middle income, or average.

The middle class is the class between the working class and the capitalists (serious wealth). The poor are not the baseline the "middle" refers to, the working class is. (poor < working class < bourgeoise (middle class) < rich/capitalist)

Since wealth is distributed in a pyramid, "middle class" is well above average, not a median level. Working class people should vastly outnumber middle class people, just as the middle class vastly outnumber the truly rich.

If anyone said $97K is "middle income" they would be way off base. But "middle class" does (or is supposed to) denote someone who is quite comfortable... usually someone with enough money to have employees.

Ironically, since Americans call everyone who is not poor or rich middle class, in percentile terms that 6th percentile you mentioned wouldn't be far off from colloquial middle class. 12.6% of Americans are below the poverty line, and the great majority of those are children, so it wouldn't be surprising if 95% of American adults are not poor.

The poverty level for a couple with one child is $17,170, so to most Americans a three person family making $18,000 is middle class. (Which is crazy, but that's the point of the post... we avoid useful language when talking about class.)

Calling the 94th or 6th percentiles "middle" comes across as pretty outrageous to some of us. I understand the sociological roots of the term "middle-class", but I have to wonder if that term itself wasn't conjured up to mislead. The members of this so-called "middle-class" are the ones who do all the day-to-day work maintaining the status quo that enables the ruling class to stay in power and keeps the rest of the population in line. If you want to start dividing everyone into social classes, this "middle class" (i.e. upper income families) is much more closely aligned with the "ruling class" (the wealthiest 1%) than with the "working class" (i.e. middle income families). Calling them middle class is a clever way to make them seem closer to the working class.

Not that this line of argument is going to get much traction here on DU, since we are mostly middle-class (upper income), myself included.

I may have made myself unclear along the way, and I apologize if that's the case.

If anyone said $97K was average it would indeed be outrageous, and readily falsifiable. We can all agree that $97,000 is above average, comfortable, and even enviable. It is a lot of money!

The point of the post is all about the use and abuse of language, not about wealth. People have been arguing all day in several threads about whether $97,000 is middle class, talking about housing costs and regional differences and what seemed enviable, but they are all really just arguing about the definition of the term "middle class" and it does have speciffic meaning.

The definition is loose in terms of specific figures (because middle class is a class distinction rather than an income level) but it is universally accepted by social scientists of all disciplines that $97,000 is middle class for a household or an individual. Nobody sets middle class below $100K for an individual, for instance, nor could they because the median income of a male with a professional degree is $100,000. Wouldn't make sense to have a definition of middle class that excluded vast numbers of professional men, since they are the quintessential middle class in America.

Different sociologists have different models, but $50,000-$200,000 is a rough average of the consensus idea of "middle class." (considering inflation... it is easy to find references to lower ranges, but they are a few years old.) Almost any way you expand, narrow or shift that range, $97,000 will still be included.

(One can have a lively argument as to whether 97K is middle class or upper middle class, because the dividing line is usually in the 90-100K range.)

The problem in most discussion here today has been that we Americans tend not to recognize the working class as an entity, so we jump straight from poor to middle class, and that sets middle class way too low. A family of three making $18K is not middle class. If we think they are, though, then it seems a long way from $18K to $97K. (In reality, the family making $18K is lower, lower working class... that's a few hundred dolars above the poverty line.)

That is not to diminish any sense of how wealthy $97,000 is... wealthy is a vague term, and we can disagree all day as to what wealthy means to us.

And there is no rule that the middle class cannot pay more taxes.

middle is a geometric/mathematical/common sense term, and "middle class" has to do with wealth, not demographics.

If you want to come up with a term that is comparable to working class or investor class or leisure class to describe merchants and professionals, then go ahead. But it's not useful to try to co-opt "middle" to describe it.

Those who make more than 94% of their countrymen aren't middle-class any more than the children in Lake Woebegone can all be uniformly above average.

Using middle class to describe the wealthy is inherently un-useful language.

If we assume that Bush has cut three trillion in taxes, and that there are one-hundred million taxpayers, then the average tax cut would be thirty grand.

How does this average tax cut of thirty grand stack up against an average income of forty-eight grand?

This isn't my wacky idea of what the term ought to mean, it is what the term actually means.

The national median is the lower boundary of the middle class. Middle class incomes are ABOVE AVERAGE.

I am sorry if that offends you, but that's what it means. You can always look it up.

The national median income isn't the lower boundary of the middle class, it's the income at which half of households lie below and half lie above.

60% of US households have incomes between $18,500 and $88,030. 20% of households have income below this threshold, and 20% of households have incomes above this threshold.

It seems apparent that individual incomes would generally be lower.

It isn't a matter of offense, it is one of math.

"Looking up things" is something I am comfortable with.

You have already conveyed your firm opinion that you think you know what the term means, and that you prefer your personal definition to the actual meaning of the term.

Unfortunately the point is not debatable. The term "middle-class" has nothing whatsoever to do with an average income range. You might as well say, "Zebras are native to Australia" and then start laying out your personal common-sense definition of "Australia" that is different from everyone else's, but somehow superior because it is what you think.

Wealth is distributed in a rough pyramid. The mid-point of volume of a pyramid is well below the mid-point of height. Poor people are not middle class. There are MANY poor people. Working class people are not middle-class. There are MANY working class people. The rich are not middle-class and there is only a TINY number of rich people. The middle class is above the vast numbers of poor and working class people and below the tiny number of rich people.

The middle class is well above average.

You think middle-class means average. That's your right, but everyone in the world who uses the term in their professional work thinks that middle-class means well above average. So, at that point one must agree to disagree.

Middle class income varies considerably from near the national median to well in excess of $100,000.

Williams, Brian; Stacey C. Sawyer, Carl M. Wahlstrom (2005). Marriages, Families & Intimate Relationships. Boston, MA: Pearson. 0-205-36674-0.
Thompson, William; Joseph Hickey (2005). Society in Focus. Boston, MA: Pearson. 0-205-41365-X.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_middle_class

The American middle class is an ambiguously defined social class in the United States.<1><2> While concept remains largely ambiguous in popular opinion and common language use,<3><4> contemporary sociologists have put forth several, more or less congruent, theories on the American middle class. Depending on class model used, the middle class may constitute anywhere from 45% to 49% of households.

To some degree, I agree with your point - every american perceives themselves as middle-class because no one wants to think of themselves as rich, poor or working class.

Nevertheless, I reject the idea that basing public policy (such as the policy in question - should high earners pay social security tax) should be based on state of mind. When a person making $100,000 per year thinks of himself as in the same struggling boat as everyone else, no good comes from it.

No matter how much we have, we're suffering and entitled to more. Working class people consider themselves middle class and thus don't need government help while "middle class" Lexus-drivers are "struggling like everyone else".

The end result is that public policy is written to benefit those who have become accustomed to the idea that they're entitled to the help as opposed to those who need it.

This is why I feel compelled to point out the distorted sense of people's place in the economic order. If you make $100k/year, you don't have much in common with the average joe.

I have never said that the middle-class should be exempt from taxation, or that the middle-class doesn't have a lot of money.

I am not one of those complaining that a person cannot get by on 97K. I have never made nearly that much in my best year.

I am sorry for the heated tone. My emotional objection was to the idea that I was personally co-opting the term middle-class to my own ends, which is the opposite of my point. I didn't define the term as it is used by sociologists or by politicians.

Since the whole point I was trying to make concerned the political appropriation of the term "middle-class" to mean average, or middle income, I can hardly concede that middle-class means average or middle income.

Nothing in my posts should be taken as advocating Hillary Clinton's literal statements in the last debate. Eliminating the SS cap entirely would not be a trillion dollar tax on the middle class because a lot of that money would come from people who are clearly well above any definition of middle class.

"See, the difference between you and me is that you think we're arguin' when I think we're finally communicating!" - Jerry McGuire

I think, with some justification, that the term middle class has been appropriated all right, but appropriated on behalf of those with incomes in the 90th percentile and up. "I want some of the love that everyone else is getting".

The biggest problem with US politics is not that people vote their own self-interest, but they're so befuddled by language that those in the bottom 80% of incomes don't know what their interests truly are.

Almost everyone arguing about this seems to have missed the distinction between personal income and household income.

The Social Security cap applies to personal income, not household income. Since the typical American household now has two incomes, it can be looked at this way:

Single person making $97K/yr = rich
Two persons (with or without children), making $97K/yr each, for a total of $194K/yr = rich
Two persons (with or without children), making $49K/yr each, for a total of $98K/yr = middle class

The situation can be complicated by single-income households, especially with lots of dependents, and by geography, but the overall guidelines are there. When people earning in the top 6% in one of the wealthiest nations on the planet can't see themselves as rich, there is some serious self-delusion going on. Median household, not personal, income in this country is about $40K/yr. That is by definition middle-class. If you as an individual are earning 2.5 times what the average household makes, you're not in the middle class anymore. You are in the upper class.

DU tends to skew toward the wealthy side, based on demographic surveys the site has conducted in the past. I mean, think about it, most of us are highly educated, have broadband internet, and have lots of free time to spend surfing the web. That's not the case for most Americans. Most truly middle class families we would probably consider the working poor.

It is true that there is another social class composed only of the top 1% here and around the world, but I would call them the ruling class, not the upper class or merely rich.

a class distinction, again, by definition. And that distinction denotes a level WAY above the mean income.

The word rich has little meaning if a single person making $97K is rich. (except as a colloquialism for comfortable, or having a lot of disposable income.)

And "upper class" must denote something more than having a lot of disposable income. It is a class distinction. Strippers and drug dealers are not rich. I've known plenty of both, and though they have a lot of disposable income, it distorts the meaning of "rich" beyond any useful purpose, insofar as they have almost nothing in common with someone making the same money in dividend income on an inherited stock portfolio.

(Again, "upper income" would be proper, but "upper class" could not. The upper class has societal influence and institutional protections that strippers and drug dealers do not.)

I am eager that we not start referring to the center-to-upper middle class as rich.

The result of that will be a ginned up conflict between working and middle class people, orchestrated by the rich to keep middle class interests improperly aligned with the interests of capitalists.

I would absolutely love to receive a list of book recommendations. My favorites have always been Zinn, Chomsky, Fast, even Jack London. Just about everything by Vonnegut as well.

But I can see you've read more and know far more about economics than I do, so I'd love to hear who you have read.

Since I've never really gone to school, I missed out on a lot of "required" reading.

Little help to a fellow Duer?

Thanks.

I tend to read what I bump into.

But many DUers can doubtless offer excellent advice on good books about class.

Michael Harrington, who I mentioned in the post, wrote lots of wonderful books in the 1970s, but they are quite out of date today... the specifics and proposals in them are often no longer relevant.

(Though his book THE OTHER AMERICA from the early 1960s remains a classic. It was an influential book in the federal anti-poverty efforts of the 1960s)

Always looking for a good book to read.

Surely the Los Angelenos and so-called "New Yorkers" (who moved to the Island of Millionaires a few years ago on the strength of a robust trust fund and/or a cushy job in the "creative field") have chimed in and told us, "but no one can LIVE on less than $100,000 dollars a year"? They're always good for a laugh.

If 'middle class' means upper middle class professionals, then it is a stupid term. Like Obama said, bless his heart, the top 6% is not in the 'middle'. That's not what most people mean by 'middle class' even if it is some traditional 200 year old definition.

It's very simple. If you say "rich and non-rich" then the dividing line is the median income. If you say "poor, middle, and rich" then the dividing line is bottom 20%, 21-79%, and top 20%. To define only the super-duper rich as "rich" is total bullsh*t IMO. All it does is justify the greed of the $130,000 family that only looks up and wants more instead of looking down at the vast, vast majority that has so much less.

As long as my income is below $15,000 a year, I can never see people over $80,000 as non-rich, except for the fact that I consider having to live in a major metro area like NYC, Chicago, LA, Houston, DC, Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, San-San, Seattle, Phoenix, St. Louis, KC, Twintown, etc., etc., etc. as some kind of cruel and unusual punishment.

Your post is based on an assumption that before we tax someone we must define them as "rich."

Calling a family making $130,000 middle-class doesn't justify their greed unless you assume that the middle-class should not pay taxes.

If someone makes that assumption, it's not my doing.

The interests of the 96th percentile are closer to the working class than they are to the 99th percentile. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the wealth of the top 1%. From the perspective of a rich person a retail clerk and a doctor are both poor.

The top 1% has about half the wealth.

The remaining 99% of us are fighting over the other half.

Look at it this way... would the top 1% prefer that we call the whole top 10% rich? Of course they would! That's their whole plan. As long as people associate rich with people who are merely well-off it reduces political support for taxing the rich.

So why should we play along with the PR interests of the profoundly wealthy?

(My saying Hillary was technically correct on an aspect of the use of a term doesn't say anything about the equity of the surrounding policy. The fact that $125K is solidly middle-class doesn't say anything about policy. It's about language... $125K is the same amount of money no matter what label we put on it.)

and language is very important. Hillary promises to 'revive the middle class'. She promises policies that benefit the 'middle class'. Is she talking about policies that benefit families in the $30-80,000 range, or is she talking about families in the $60-140,000 range? Those are vastly different targets.

I have different statistics. The top 1% has 39% of the wealth. The top 20% has 84% of the wealth. The 2-19% bracket is not doing so bad with their 45%, and their interests are vastly different than those of the bottom 20% who they probably hire to cut their grass.

Income is somewhat similar. The top 5% get 22.4% of the national income, the top 20% get 50.1% and the top 40% get 73.1%. The share of the 5-20% bracket is higher than that of the top 5%, and so is the share of the next 20% (higher than that of the top 5%).

Look, the superintendent of schools makes over $100,000 a year - in this town. Are we in the same boat? I make $13,000 a year. If I had his job, I could work three years and then retire on the money I had saved up. He recently got fired. Except, unlike me, getting fired for him means he is placed on paid leave, so he is making $1900 a week!!! for doing nothing.

What I mean by 'endorsing their greed' has nothing to do with taxes. To a family making $40,000 a year, that other family making $110,000 a year is rolling in dough, they are prosperous, they are kicking serious financial a$$. So typical of America though, is for that prosperous family to 'live the high life' run up their expenses to the point where they feel like they are struggling. Why? Not because they are not making enough money, but because they feel like they need to have the 'best' house, and the 'best' car and the 'best' clothes, and the 'best' lawn, and to eat out at the 'best' restaurants and to go on the 'best' vacations. It's because of their 'high' lifestyle that they do not feel as prosperous as us poorer people think they should. They are already richer than we can ever imagine, but they still want more before they will call themselves rich.

Like the Bush tax cuts, do not ever expect me to support a policy that provides a $5,000 benefit to people like them while providing a $5 benefit to people like me. That's just trickle down from a slightly lower elevation.

"To define only the super-duper rich as "rich" is total bullsh*t IMO. All it does is justify the greed of the $130,000 family that only looks up and wants more instead of looking down at the vast, vast majority that has so much less."

It seems that you are saying that failing to call the $130,000 family rich benefits them somehow, specifically in justifying their greed.

Sorry for missing your point. I assumed that since you started out talking about a tax issue you were referring our cultural bull-shit reluctance to tax the "middle-class" as that benefit.

As to the nature of the truly rich, I have been using 1% as short-hand for the more correct figure of roughly 1.5%, in terms of controlling about half of national wealth.

Calling $130,000 "rich" benefits only the true rich. The rich are delighted to be lumped in with people who actually work for a living and happen to make good money. It creates a bogus sense of shared class interest between the upper middle-class and the rich. That is the political tool the rich have used for 100 years to protect themselves from people getting wise to just how much money they have.

Since the rich clearly want me to thinks of dentists as "rich," I prefer to not step into the trap.

I have worked for the true rich (while making about $40,000), and I can attest that the rich have very little in common with that $130,000 family. At $40,000 I had MUCH more in common with that $130,000 example than that $130,000 family would have had with my employer... more in common in terms of buying power, status, cultural background and political interests.

$130,000 is a lot of money, but it is still people who work and worry and can be ruined by lay-offs and illnesses.

The rich are an altogether different animal.

and I simply cannot do that. Nor is it to my benefit if politicians propose 'middle class tax cuts' that benefit them and only trickle down to me, or oppose 'middle class tax increases'.

I do not know that much about Bill Gates, but I think I have more in common with him than I do with a homeless person.
I have multiple sets of clean clothes and shoes.
I have control over my thermostat
I have no worry about my next meals for at least half a year.
I can take a hot shower whenever I want.
I can see doctors and dentists at almost no cost.
I have my own TVs, videos, computers and books and games to entertain me as well as hobbies I have the time and money for. I can, for example, blow $400 a year on DSL and another $120 a year on an ancestry membership. Richer people have more freedom and more options and more security. Nobody has unlimited options, freedom or security.

However, I am not disagreeing really that the SUPER-rich are a different animal. You would claim, however, that Hillary is not even one of the rich. Neither, I suppose is Dan Marino, even though, in my view, somebody like Dan does not HAVE to work. Even when he does work, because he chooses - he can pick his job. His 'work' consists of sitting in front of a TV camera, either as a commentator, announcer, or making some ads. Nice work, if you can get it. Not only does he have a 'good' job, but he goes to work with the knowledge that he can quit anytime he wants and not starve. Dentists are probably like that too. Can really go wherever they choose and set up shop and prosper. Me, if I leave this halfway decent job that I have, my next one may be for minimum wage or even much harder, dirtier and in worse working conditions, even assuming I can get one at all.

No matter who is like whom, it is just absurd to oppose a tax increase on people making $100-200,000 a year and pretend that you are standing up for 'ordinary Americans'. It is also absurd to propose a tax cut, or tax 'relief' for that group as if you are doing it for 'ordinary Americans'.

I'm sure both of them have investment portfolios of more than 5 million dollars. And Hillary made way over a million dollars at least one year recently. (When her book came out) She and Bill have a combined net worth of 8-12 million, so I'd be happy to call them upper class. :)

Your similarities with Bill Gates are well taken. I dread being homeless more than I covet being rich.

The most offensive thing I've ever heard in my life is Donald Trump, during one of his creative bankruptcies where his paper worth was negative millions, pointed from his limo at a homeless man and said, "That guy is worth ten million dollars more than I am."

You, me, a dentist and Bill Gates all get enough calories, which is more than billions of other folks can say.

The differential between us and Bill Gates is not so much about personal security as it is about power. I calculated recently that Bill Gates could eliminate poverty in Mexico for years by writing a check. (The poverty level in Mexico is very low... something like $2.50/day) If he wished, Bill Gates could swing a presidential election, or create jobs for 10,000 people, or all sorts of things you and I cannot even dream of.

And that power differential is why I see us as closer to a dentist than a dentist is to Bill Gates. The rich have direct economic and political power to reshape the world around them, and the rest of us are all along for the ride. (Though some of us on the ride have much nicer houses than others)

the other 94% are either poor or just scraping by.

I make $13,000 (minus 2800 for health insurance) and I am neither poor, nor just scraping by. I retired at age 45 and am only working part time.

Or a family can't live off $200,000, then their priorities are very VERY misplaced. People don't need to buy every status symbol advertising throws at them.

You are becoming my favorite poster here on DU. I appreciate your thoughtful and relevant posts.

With my private school bachelor's degree, and my doctorate in law? And my work experience in the legal field my whole life?

I was told by some damn employer pimp that they wanted "recent experience" in law.
What bullshit. Law is NOT supposed to change unless there's a damn good reason.

This pimpette was implying that I have forgotten everything I learned about the law, since I started learning about it at the age of six or so.