Chief
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I am Chartered accountant with 3 years post qualification experience in assurance global audit from big 4 working for canada. I am getting a CTC of 13.80LPA fixed and variable 1.48 LPA. Is this enough or should I ask for a hike..EY Deloitte KPMG PwC . I am not seeing any notification on the coming hike..
Oct. 15th is almost here. Hang in there!
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Chief
Chief
Has anyone maxed out their IRA yet?
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Middle class according to fishbowl is 300k
Chief
So you’re saying I’m poor
Rising Star
This thread is an indictment on the consulting industry.
People are ignoring or impervious to data.
There’s almost no connection with the reality that 80-85% of Americans make less money thy even our six figure 24 year know nothing analysts.
The expectations for being above middle class are 1% lifestyles.
There’s so many cognitive biases, logical fallacies, and pure stupidity that it’s a wonder clients pay us anything. As a group, this thread is a collection of clueless chuckleheads.
I await the coming barrage of reports for speaking the truth…
Chief
Pwc6 they don’t get it. Anyone making more money than them is “rich”.
Rising Star
For the visual learners.
Interesting snippet:
Only 6% of families making more than $100,000 per year considered themselves upper class in a 2015 survey from Pew, despite the fact that about 20% of these households make above what Pew considers a middle-class income. And 34% of families making less than $30,000 considered themselves middle class, too.
I‘d say anything between 50k-1m is middle class (1m definitely upper middle class)
I’m having trouble parsing out what you’re saying…you can be an F500 CEO and HAVE to work to maintain your lifestyle contingent on your choices. There is a whole continuum of lifestyles, so “having to work to maintain your lifestyle” is not all that robust of a litmus test
Chief
Middle class is dead. 170 isn’t middle class by income, it’s just the erosion of what amenities are available to the middle class today. Owning a house and a car, funding retirement, taking vacations — who can do any of those anymore unless you’re in the upper middle class/wealthy?
As to why that wouldn’t just mean that middle class income caps have shot up, you can’t have only a few % above the middle class. That’s a dishonest distribution.
M2, no its not
There’s a psychological bias towards the middle class, basically everyone in the middle 98% believe they are middle class, and that has to do with the people around us that we self select into (the wealthier you are the more you will have wealthy friends) and also has to do with our need to fit in.
That effects even political affiliations, because no one will support taxing the “middle class” while upper class urbanites gladly support “taxing the rich” when they are themselves the target (the very rich don’t pay much in income tax anyway).
So it’s natural that you “feel” middle class, but the data doesn’t lie, and a 250k HHI is not “middle”
Chief
OW1 If you don’t classify via income then you are merely comparing subjective, anecdotal data points like the people you know. No one is upper class if you compare yourself to Bezos or to families with generational wealth as the benchmark. Once you make millions of dollars in your lifetime you can ALWAYS continue to compare yourself to next person/family who is wealthier than you which is why it os a poor measure of class/status
Yall have the worst bias.
Middle class is around $68k
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/07/21/middle-class-calculator.html
Rising Star
If you’re making over $200k and don’t feel like you’re upper class, it’s not the salary that’s the problem, it’s the incorrect definition of what upper class is lol.
🐠 here will say safety is a privilege and we should pay for it
Not sure what people are thinking here 🤣 we have ~500k HHI and while I dont feel „rich“ (having friends with generational wealth) it is certainly not middle class (as it is in the top 1% of earners). I dont think a middle class family can invest >200k a year…
Chief
Invest 200k a year 🥰🥰 that’s on my mood board 🥺
Rising Star
I dunno. I think the metric of gross or net HHI doesn’t adequately capture the nuances of personal finance circumstances (loans, debt, multiple jobs etc).
I think if you can cover housing costs (either rent or mortgage) with one secure source of income, you’re middle class. Probably middle class if you can pay student loan. Definitely middle class if you’re putting money aside for retirement/other savings.
Come to think of it, I’d stratify it as:
- Welfare Class (people reliant on public assistance to get by)
- Labor Class (the vast majority of people, people whose main source of income is labor)
- The New Middle Class (people like us on this app who rely on labor-earned income but have 401ks, 529s etc for rainy days and retirement)
- Investor Class (people who mostly rely on investments)
Chief
Growing up in the 90’s I thought 6-figures was rich. Now making $150k and I finally feel comfortably middle class, but certainly not rich of any sort. I live in an average apartment which I pay a shit ton for, I can’t sensibly afford a luxury car in the “new normal” market, all my money goes to debts/bills of some kind — $1000/month on student loans. I just barely don’t live paycheck to paycheck anymore. So I would consider myself middle-middle class. Maybe upper-middle, maybe.
Between the insane inflation, and salaries not keeping up with costs, and additional costs (I.e you didn’t have a cell phone bill in the 90s, houses cost $200k for a NICE house, etc etc), 50k is like poverty these days.
$150k is the new middle class for sure. And even then there’s plenty you can’t afford (nice or even shitty house, the car you thought you’d be able to afford when you were a kid in the 90s dreaming of a $150k salary, etc etc)
Chief
🤣
Middle class is usually the working class. So people who make more than minimum wage and are not in executive or high end professional service ocupations nor are high income business owners.
A family of four makin between 50k and 150k is pretty fair to say you are middle class.
If you have 401k you expect to retire on, you are more than likely out of the middle class.
Most of fishbowl is not middle class, we are fairly comfortable in the upper classes.
I make $115k base and I feel like it’s 🥜
Lads, you’re not poor if you have moments in your life without the fear of your family ending up homeless or dead
You’ve already made it 👍🏼
I would consider middle class $50k - $250k depending number of family members and geographic location.
Pro
You realize op said salary right? A million a year in salary is not middle class…
Chief
Leave it to a bunch of consultants to spew bullshit while not just taking the median income and calling it a day
FYI Pew Research which studies this considers middle class between 2/3 and 2x median household income. As median household income in 2019 was $68K, middle class upper range is < $150K.
So no, up to $1M is not middle class.
Feel a lot of people are cosmically out of touch on this app with how average Americans live…..
See sociologist Bourdieu’s concept on social capital, economic capital, cultural capital and symbolic capital. Fascinating.
I’ve always thought there were more like 5 or 6 classes - lower class, lower middle, middle, upper middle, upper, ultra wealthy. If I make 100k and my sister makes 250k, we’re considered middle class by most. But in reality that’s two completely different lifestyles and “classes”
You, my friend, have had a sociology class before
Husband and I make around 300k combined. We consider ourselves as middle class. To get to upper middle class , we would need to make around 700k combined and we are definitely not even remotely close to that. So , no new cars , no first class flights , no Michelin dinners. Also , having kids set you back.
I would say you are upper middle class. But 300k is definitely not rich.
This
I don’t think they average housing price is $300k in those countries….
You guys are all conflating income with class. They are not the same.
Rising Star
While it’s true that a high income can lead to wealth accumulation, focusing just on income creates some unintended consequences.
First, it will distort how income is measured. Peter Thiel did this masterfully with his ROTH and now has $5B in assets that can’t be taxed.
Second, you can make it harder for NEW high earners to accumulate wealth. A millennial entering their prime earning years probably doesn’t have a huge nest egg and trying to flatten out income inequality makes it harder for them to do so.
You also need to be careful about creeping taxation. The Alternative Minimum Tax was meant to target a couple dozen families in the 1960s. Now it impacts about 7 million tax filers a year - mostly people with small businesses or large donations to charity.