this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
1369 points (97.8% liked)
Microblog Memes
5923 readers
3326 users here now
A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
Rules:
- Please put at least one word relevant to the post in the post title.
- Be nice.
- No advertising, brand promotion or guerilla marketing.
- Posters are encouraged to link to the toot or tweet etc in the description of posts.
Related communities:
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Middle class was originally defined as a class that gets at least some significant percent of their income from stocks bonds and other investments. I'm willing to bet that ain't you.
Is this a definition common in a specific country outside the U.S.? I see this claim in multiple places in the thread, but that's not how it has been historically defined in the U.S. or in France where the term originated. Middle class in the original context evolved out of the mercantile class that traded goods in cities - neither aristocrat nor serf - during the middle ages. That original definition had nothing to do with investments.
Does it not? Maybe the definition of investments has expanded to include more abstract things like stock in a company, but still a merchant needs to invest in goods that they then sell. Which now that i think about it is also called stock...
Technically that's anyone with a pension or decent retirement account.
So no one under 50?
I'm a couple decades under 50 and was making like 30-40k up until a couple years ago (and about double that last year) and I expect my retirement accounts average annual growth to be more than 1/3rd of my annual spending.
You're the exception, not the rule.
Sure. I wasn't implying otherwise. But a definition of middle class that considering someone who makes twice my income in my local area non-middle-class but considers me middle class would seem non-intuitive at best when my retirement accounts have been entirely self-funded (granted, I can only afford to do that because I haven't needed to go into debt, a luxury many don't have.