re: What is the income range for "middle class" per the board?

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Does demand for high-end gaming computer consoles mirror income bars?

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If the consumers were across the income spectrum, yes. But I doubt there are many high end gamers across the poverty spectrum.

Obviously theres a cutoff point where someones income isnt sufficient to purchase a home. That point going backwards, yes demand would be negligible. That point going forward should loosely resemble home buying power, and loosely demand. As you said not all $100,000 millenials even want a home at the moment.

But that could be viewed a couple of different ways. Possibly the currently supply doesnt meet the demand. Possibly they have too much student loan debt to afford a home, or perhaps daycare is too much to get out of an apartment.

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For most people...
if you make less than me... you’re “poor”
If you make more than me... you’re “rich”
If you make about what I make... you're “middle class”

There’s nothing better than people making $120k/yr that tell you the top 10% are “rich” but they are “middle class”

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This is why politicans always talk about helping the middle class.

Someone making 30k a year thinks they are middle class

Someone making 200k a year thinks they are middle class

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You still have to pay payroll taxes (FICA, Medicare & Medicaid) on your 401(k) contributions.

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True, you can't avoid all the taxes, but you're not paying federal, state and local earnings tax. Between me and the wife that's a decent amount of money.

Before I maxed out the 401k our taxable income for federal/state/local combined was 25k less than our total compensation. We should be able to hit 30-40k in 401k money in 2018. My goal is to pay very little tax or break even, the past several years I've had to pay and that was still deducting mortgage interest and claiming my daughter, both of those deductions are gone in 2017.

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$400k would put you in the top 1%.

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Doesn't mean you're not middle class - I said that was the upper edge of upper middle class and I also said a lot of these lines are arbitrary. If you're living in Harrisonburg, Louisiana, and you pull $400k, you're one of the richest people for miles around. If you live in Falls Church, Virginia, you're average/above average. So, that's relative too.

I bet you think $200k is "rich" too.

Financial Samurai shows how $200k isn't all that much money in the grand scheme of things.

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There’s nothing better than people making $120k/yr that tell you the top 10% are “rich” but they are “middle class

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I'm in this range and I still consider myself poor.

Middle class earnings doesn't always translate into middle class life.

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In terms of lifestyle, is there a whole lot of apparent difference between living off of $150K vs $200K?

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No - but my argument is that from about $50k to $60k of household income up to ~$400k - day to day, even year to year, isn't that much. Now - like I said, the $400k family is living in a larger, nicer house. They're driving nicer cars and cycling those cars more frequently. They're taking longer, nicer vacations. They're taking more frequent vacations.

But, "middle class" for me has never meant the 3 middle income quintiles. It's the 99% of us that have to work for a living or otherwise rely on the government for subsistence.

That $400k doctor has to shut his practice because of a billing problem, or a negligence suit or whatever? They're hurting. Maybe not Day 1 or Month 1, but those folks live paycheck to paycheck just like everybody else. My definition of wealthy is - mom and dad don't have to get up and go t work if they don't want to. Rich people are often gainfully employed, but that's more of a tradition than a necessity.

Local cost of living should be factored in with their salaries.

Doesn't matter if you make 80-100K, but live in CA or NY where everything is so high, vs making 50K and living in an area where everything is much cheaper.

It is relative to where you live and all that stuff. My wife and I earn around $190k combined but I don't feel at all like we are upper middle class. I feel we are average.

Funny how perspective changes though depending on where you are. When I am on the coast anywhere for vacation, I feel poor when driving by all the beach front homes and boats in marinas, etc.. But on the 5 hour drive home going through rural areas and small towns, I see tiny homes with shite all up in the yard and rusted up cars on blocks. It is then that my perspective is reset to reality. That is that there are a lot more people in the nation that are lower middle class than upper middle class.

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It is relative to where you live and all that stuff. My wife and I earn around $190k combined but I don't feel at all like we are upper middle class. I feel we are average

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well obviously you're not average but again this is why we need far more than three terms or even extra terms like upper middle and lower middle.

The person making 100k is nowhere near as well-off as the person making 400k but the person making 400k is ridiculously poorer then the person making a million a year. And the guy making a million is a Pauper next to a CEO making 5 million a year. And the guy making 5 million still doesn't even know where the parties are that Bill Gates attends. And it will be a long time before he will.

The term middle class is entirely a political term