No one really seems to know what middle class is anymore. Both the family that is one missed paycheck from being homeless and the one lobbying their state for school vouchers so they can repurpose the cost of their kids' private school tuition to their college fund think they're middle class.
this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2025
870 points (97.0% liked)
A Boring Dystopia
11906 readers
350 users here now
Pictures, Videos, Articles showing just how boring it is to live in a dystopic society, or with signs of a dystopic society.
Rules (Subject to Change)
--Be a Decent Human Being
--Posting news articles: include the source name and exact title from article in your post title
--If a picture is just a screenshot of an article, link the article
--If a video's content isn't clear from title, write a short summary so people know what it's about.
--Posts must have something to do with the topic
--Zero tolerance for Racism/Sexism/Ableism/etc.
--No NSFW content
--Abide by the rules of lemmy.world
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Is there a real definition of middle class? I've seen income percentile based ones, but that's just bs, because depending on how poor or rich and equal or unequal a society is as well as cost of living, being in the 50th percentile might mean you're dry pasta every day (because it's cheaper than instant noodles, per kilogram), or it might mean you're very comfortable.
What follows is entirely subjective, and is my perception of middle class is, in the US versus my own country, Estonia)
To me, middle class means you can live a comfortable lifestyle, and once you've been earning a decent income for a while, you can lose your job and keep living mostly the same lifestyle for several months without going bankrupt. But in reality, that may be only people in the top 20% (excluding the 0.1% ultra wealthy that are most definitely NOT middle class).
Middle class is the classic 80s and 90s American movie/TV show family. Either the sole provider, or both parents if both are employed, lose their jobs? Well, it'll be a tight few months, but we'll make it.
Home is not middle class though. This article puts it into perspective. I love this bit: "So what did Kevin’s parents do for a living? It’s likely the mom was a fashion designer considering the amount of mannequins in the home. As for the dad, he was likely a regular businessman." What the hell is a "regular businessman" and how do I become one and make 300k+ 2022 dollars solo or 600k+ total household?
Now you could say "this is what the middle class was in the 80s and 90s, it's not like that anymore", to which I'd say, no, it's not that the middle class has changed, it's that the middle class is shrinking hard, and most Americans are actually working class now.
Anyway, this is my thoughts about a country I don't live in and thus heavily skewed based on media. In my own country, the middle class has only started forming over the last decade or 2. We gained independence from the soviet union in 1992 and at first the class system was "hustlers and organized crime vs normal people (poor)". Nearly all the wealthy businessmen of the 00s either had organized crime ties in the 90s, or deceived people out of their capital vouchers (yes, that was a thing during the privatization of the country). After all, what good is a voucher when you need food money NOW?
A couple of decades later, to me, growing up middle class here means you're not worried about where the down payment for your first home is coming from after you've held a job for a few years. Growing up upper middle class is never having to rent in your life, your parents help make sure of that. Upper class is if your parents didn't just buy you a home with a loan or fund your down payment, they bought it outright for cash. Now yes, it's possible that your parents are loaded and don't help you at all because "damn kids need to learn how to make it on their own", but most parents do realize that getting started in life is ridiculously hard, so if it's within their means, they tend want to help their kids get their foot in the home ownership door one way or another. Also noteworthy is that unlike the US, buying an apartment/condo here is a much better deal generally, so most people's first home is an apartment/condo. I mean we get shafted less when renting too, but most people still want to own (even if with a loan), because otherwise you're just paying someone else's mortgage, or funding their holidays.
All in all, middle class is a vibe based definition more than a numbers based one if you ask me.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Maybe that's why these 1%ers wealth hoard so hard, maybe they genuinely think they ARE middle class.
They're either extremely uneducated in current standards of living, or being purposefully deceitful. I'd like to think it's the former. They should have a class for rich people so they can understand what life is like without family money or high salaries.
No class can teach you what it feels like to be a few bucks away from homelessness.
When the class is over the billionaires go back to their worry free lives. The poor worry about ending up on the street.
load more comments
(2 replies)
being purposefully deceitful
Warren Buffet keeps around the house he bought in Omaha, Nebraska in 1958 and brags about how little it is worth. The man travels on private jets and sleeps in hotel high rises, surrounded by an army of aides and adjuncts and a smattering of medical staff. But he's still got the title to that old homestead from sixty years ago, so he's perpetually middle class according to business talking heads.
I remember seeing a clip a long time ago of someone asking Gates how much a box of rice-a-roni is and he was like… 5$?
load more comments
(1 replies)
In the U.K. there’s a somewhat popular TV series called “Rich House, Poor House”. We still worship the rich.
load more comments
(1 replies)
In 2018, Bill Gates' net worth was approximately $90 billion. His estimated income was around $12 billion, according to estimates from Business Insider.
In 2018, the median net worth of an American household was $101,800. I chose median cause these billionaires drastically skew the mean. The median household income was $63,179.
If an average American household gave the same scale of gift in 2018, based on household income, the gift would be $83.29, and based on net worth, it'd be $17.89.
So it's the equivalent of letting you kid buy a DVD from the discount bin.
At those sums, there's really no equivalent. That discounted DVD has a real impact on your finances, even though it is a small impact. There's no purchase that Bill Gates has to forego after spending 16 million on a horse farm, because the money flows in faster than he could ever spend it. He won't be steaming a ham fewer for it, as we say in upstate New York.
It's like letting your kid buy a DVD from the discount bin at the store you own?
A graduation gift worth more than most people will earn over an entire career.
Much like the soon to be german chancellor, who told an interviewer, that he is upper middle class. All that while being a former Blackrock manager and owning (and using regularily) a personal private jet. Thats some kind of chancellor material...
load more comments
(3 replies)
When you are a billionaire a $16m ranch is middle class.
Remember the difference between 1 million and 1 billion, is 1 billion.
load more comments
(6 replies)
At least he's relatively philanthropic, Mush and Bezilbub don't even try to make other peoples lives better.
Rich people always, without exception, fail to recognize their own disconnections from reality.
load more comments
(1 replies)
This shows you how billionaires imagine middle class to be. They're completely out of touch, as expected.
Never defend a billionaire, they would never defend you. Don't defend them, idolize them, or trust them. Billionaires care about money and the power it provides, NOTHING ELSE. That's the main prerequisite for becoming filthy rich, after all.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Being a billionaire in a world where most people don't even early 50k annually is objectively immoral.
Gates may be one of the better billionaires, but it's still like comparing prostate cancer to brain cancer.
load more comments
(1 replies)
These rich people are so disconnected from the actual reality that the rest of us live in that it's not funny. And to make matters worse, a lot of these rich people see themselves as visionaries and leaders. Imagine that, blind visionaries. And to make matters even worse than that, a lot of people worship these 'visionaries' that can't even picture what life is like without billions of dollars, as if they have all the answers.
She's that bored.
Ikr? Rich and power but still a weird horse girl
I want to be this middle class...
What could a horse ranch cost? $10?
I know people want to hate on Bill for being rich, and I can understand that, but I still prefer him to a certain South African billionaire.
Maybe some people will say that's like comparing a giant douche to a turd sandwich though.
You don't have to choose a favourite when none should exist
I worry more about the actual rent-seeking oligarchy in my part of the world running for political positions in next month's elections, purely for feudalistic reasons.
Rich people are so goddamn out of touch with reality.
“Middle class” isn’t a thing. There’s the working class and the ruling class.
load more comments
(1 replies)
posting from Yahoo Finance eh
if you are seeing Yahoo Finance in your feed i bet there isn't a single word of truth in the whole scroll
How do you raise a child “middle class in this house:
Bill Gates designed and owns a 66,000-square-foot (6,100 m2) mansion that is on Lake Washington in Medina, Washington.In 2009, property taxes were reported to be US$1.063 million on a total assessed value of US$147.5 million.
The house features an estate-wide server system, a 60-foot (18 m) swimming pool with an underwater music system, a 2,500-square-foot (230 m2) gym, and a 1,000-square-foot (93 m2) dining room. There are six kitchens and 24 bathrooms, ten of which contain bathtubs.
load more comments
(5 replies)
view more: next ›