re: What do you consider middle class?

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Or you could just move to the burbs or some place that cost less.

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Go to the city center and start driving away from it. Stop when you can afford it

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Went right over your head. If you only make 100k why in the frick are you buying a 3000 sf house?

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no it didn’t . I only addressed the “good neighborhood” part

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Family of four and need to live in a good neighborhood.....1750-1800 max.

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this is where it gets debatable. I don’t think there are all that many neighborhoods in good school zones with plentiful homes in that price range.

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well as a parent in this situation i'd argue that its easier for my kid in college to get a job having her own transportation and i don't have to drive her back & forth to college...or do you just assume every kid starting out in college can afford to buy their own car?

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I would assume if I couldn't pay for my kid a car, they get a job and pay for it themselves or that they live close to campus with roommates and take public transportation.

Or you and your wife car pool.

In the end I don't give a shite, it's up to the person making that to decide what is better financially for them.

But if I am only making 100k as a family of four....why are you worried about a kid that has left home for college...shouldn't that be their responsibility? Sure help where you can, but plenty of people bike places, walk places, take public transportation.

And if it was my daughter and I didn't want her doing those things, I would sacrifice in other places like have 3 old used cars instead.

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this is where it gets debatable. I don’t think there are all that many neighborhoods in good school zones with plentiful homes in that price range.

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see now you are shifting your argument from "not being able to survive" to "you won't be able to go to the best schools"

once again, middle class people will not be able to do everything upper class people do

how is this so hard to understand

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Middle class is around 100-400k household income, IMHO

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This is the OT. We all pay our butlers 100k.

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What are you talking about? The cost of living and inflation are outpacing wage growth. The middle class is as small as it's ever been.

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Having it good is a comparison statement. So it just depends on what you compare it to.

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People are in so much debt. Between student loans, credit cards, and medical bills. Most Americans are one car repair away from defaulting on payments.

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Student loans and credit cards. I wonder how many students take out loans to go to more expensive schools than they probably should if they were truly worried about paying back the loan it took to go there. As to credit cards, if people are middle class and don't outspend their means, they should not be carrying a bunch of credit card debt.

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Cars are so expensive now they moved to 84 month loans so people could afford the monthly payments.The same trucks that were less than 30k a decade or so or go are approaching 50k.

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The same trucks that were 30,000 a decade ago are the same trucks that are 50k now and are the same trucks that are options that are too expensive for people who can't afford them. There are trucks available today for less. One example is the 2020 F-150 MSRP as low as $29,000. People wanting stuff that they can't afford is not the same as the middle class not having it good.

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Child care is 10k + per child and that's for a mediocre daycare. Its closer to 15k for a better one.

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This depends on where you live. My last daycare bill, for a good daycare center, was about $6,000 for the year.

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Grown men are having to get roommates because rent is so high or they are commuting like an hour because they can't afford to live in the city.

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Oh the horror.

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People are working 60 hour weeks or getting 2 jobs just to afford the same lifestyle that was easily attainable off of 1 40 hr a week job in the 90s or early 2000s.

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You know you have it good when your biggest problem isn't being able to live the "lifestyle" that you think the world owes you.

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The middle is the absolute worse place to be in America. You get fricked by the rich who don't pay their fair share and the poor just leech off of those who don't really have it to spare.

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This doesn't say anything about how good the middle class has it. This just speaks to your apparent obsession with how others have it. If you think the poor have it so good, then please quit your job and join them.

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Government cut taxes and increased the budget and kicked the debt bucket down the road.

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Again, this doesn't speak to how good the middle class getting along. It's probably a true statement, but irrelevant to the comment you are addressing.

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Same shite different person in charge of flushing the country down the toilet.

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Another political comment that doesn't address the status of the middle class.

I want to live 10 minutes from downtown on 100 wooded acres.

Why can't I have that?

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Whoa. No. Upper middle is inside of the middle. If you're making 130k/yr, even with a family of 4, your standard of living will be far greater than 75% of this country.

So this is your standard of what you consider to be upper class?

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I think "how much better off are you than the rest of American households" is a pretty good standard.

Income is not the only way to do it, and it's clearly part of a bigger picture, but it's also a solid single factor if we have to boil it down to one.