If you need to work in order to keep a roof over your head, food on your plate and to take your kid to a doctor, then you are working class. It doesn't matter how much money you make, because it is never enough to leave the working class and live off of your assets indefinitely.

While I agree with your reasoning, I think the generally accepted understanding of "working class" is of skilled and unskilled laborers that are distinct from the "professional class" that tend to work in offices and don't work so much with their hands. A plumber running a small business employing other plumbers with a massive cash assets could be a lot farther from being homeless than a senior lawyer with multiple houses and expensive cars but the plumber will always be perceived as "working class" in contrast to the lawyer's "professional class".

Social class defined by economic relations has material consequences that exist between countries and cultures, and the colloquial usage you're referring to[1] is dependent on where you are and who you ask.

To sociologists, economists, and academia, those who rely on a salary or wage to live are considered working class compared to those who don't.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_class#Definitions

I suspect this forum has an (relatively) high ratio of people who can and do manage to do exactly that.

That's not true. With a six figure income, you can live like people making half what you do, save the other half of your income and retire early to live off your assets indefinitely. That's harder to do the lower your income gets.

No. If that were the case, then some banker in NYC, making $1M a year, but no savings, living in a $2M condo with a $10,000 monthly mortgage and 3 kids in private school would be "working class".

That's a perversion of the definition.

And a 65 year old alabamian plumber living off his meager trade union pension would be upper class.

You might find Me Money Mustache [0] interesting.

[0] https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/blog/

This visualization is pretty eye opening in illustrating the difference between a cushy six-figure job and the ultra-wealthy that we're talking about as the complement of "us plebs"

https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/

There are only 500-600 billionaires in the US and I'd wager that none or very very few of them cheat on their taxes, given that doing so would have provide essentially no noticable improvement on their spending ability, but have a very high cost if caught.

I don't think your handsome graphic there is offering much insight into the topic at hand. The richer someone is, the less likely they are to cheat on their taxes.

Yes and no.

EITC not withstanding you need to have income to hide it.

According to Brookings, the bottom 50% pay 14% of the taxes but are responsible for only 12% of evasion.

The better distinction is the source of income. Farms, landlords and sole proprietorships are the leaders in misreporting income. W-2 salary reporters account for <1% of evasion. Between those two groups are misreported tips (typically lower end) and capital gains (typically higher end)

Please stop comparing wealth and income.

Your salary is not what makes you working class or bourgeoisie. The distinction is, broadly, whether you must sell your labor to survive.

I think "survive" has a really wide range of definitions. Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck, both the $1m+ per year NYC bankers and the $50k per year midwest mailman.

Both could survive on far less.

So a FAANG employee pulling in $600k a year is "working class"?

Hell no. If you're in the top 1% of income (~$400k per year) you are wealthy.

"Working class" in the sense of political economy, not Western shorthand for "blue collar".

And yes, I believe that if you sell your labor for a living, whether it be for $400k at Apple or otherwise, you have more in common with someone making $24k bussing tables than you do with the person who owns property for a living.

While they definitely are not “blue collar”, income is not wealth. It is a mistake to conflate income and wealth, the implications are very different. One can have a high income today and be destitute tomorrow absent wealth. Wealthy people are a subset of those with high incomes.

Your definition doesn't really align with how "wealthy" is used.

If you're making $400k per year, how long before you start to accumulate substantial wealth? Pretty quickly I'd say. Sure it might not be millions, but if you sock away $200k at age 25 after 3 years, you have more wealth than 99% of people your age.

"Wealthy" is not limited to wealth alone. If you're making $2M a year and have no savings, you're still "wealthy".

And people with large amount of wealth (your definition) can still become destitute. There are plenty of examples.

Starter homes in San Francisco start at $1M.

That $400k post tax is mostly going into housing.

Being able to own a starter home outright within 3 years or so sounds pretty sweet to me. Many people need decades to pay off their mortgage.

Yeah, but owning a single family home in one of the most desirable cities in the US makes you rich. That’s something 90% of America couldn’t dream of doing.

Yes, the middle class has the luxury to not be bothered with immediate survival. A food on their plate and a roof over their heads. A time to think.

Some might say that with that luxury comes the responsibility to improve the situation.

Low six figure salaries are barely middle class in many cities the US.

The kinds of rich people being discussed in this thread are still a very small percentage of six-figure+ earners. I would venture to say (no pun intended) that most HN readers are not accredited investors.

Sure, but "middle class" doesn't really mean much, the median income in the US is $61k.

Is that per capita, per household or by tax return?

I'm a little thick. What are you implying here?

I mean that "middle class" doesn't mean you're in the median.

I believe the median salary in Loudoun County, VA, which is the richest county in the US or close, is around $70K. The lower boundary of "middle class" must be lower, then.

So I continue to think that the six-figure norm people talk about is within a "reality distortion field".

Median incomes in metro areas all over the US often exceed 120k, meaning one half of people earn more than that.

Not sure if that’s right. Median income for SF is 74k, for instance.

Is that income or salary?