Governor Romney seems to believe that the middle class is made up of households earning between $200,000 and $250,000 a year. Obviously, that is not what most of us think. We assume that he is wrong and we are right.
President Obama seems to think it's about $50,000 or $100,000 up to $250,000 a year. I'll bet most of us think that's high, too. But is it?
Median Household Income in this country is about $52,000. But median income isn't middle class, if it ever really was.
Mean income? Maybe. I have no idea what the mean income of an American head of household is. I know that the per capita is about $41,000 and that the average household is 2.6 persons. So I presume it's around $106,500.
The President seems to define the middle class to mean from about $100K to $250K. If you take $106K to be the mean, then that's about right.
In other words - Above $250K: upper class; ~$175K - $250K: upper middle class; $100K - $175K: middle class; $50K - $100K: working class, lower middle class (class isn't only income); $30K - $50K: working poor; <$30K: poor. Of course, the ranges above $250K are divided as well - and very important too. The lower rungs of that range are professionals without a great deal of political power themselves. The ruling class uses them as they wish.
So Governor Romney's "middle class" is really the upper middle class. Big whoop. A quibble. (Okay, so it shows the lower limit of his social circle.)
Median income isn't always even close to middle class. Surely no one here thinks that the median income in China or India approximates China or India's middle class. If we are going to have a serious conversation about class, income and inequity in our nation, we must stop equating middle class and median income.
The crazy thing is, the lack of health care and retirement benefits mean that it takes more income to be financially secure. Our present median income would be more nearly sufficient of we had the social safety net of Western Europe. It would be cheaper to provide American workers with a safety net than to provide income sufficient to be secure without a net.
Why should you care about the poor? Because the shrinking of the middle puts most of us at risk of poverty. I know that I am. If we defined median income as middle class when it included health care, retirement, vacation, unemployment insurance and worker's compensation and was greater, adjusted for inflation, why would median income still equal middle class now?
So, between inflation and stagnant incomes on the one hand, and reduced financial security on the other, we must revise upward our definition of the income required for a middle class life. In other words, the middle class is shrinking so fast, many of us have left it without even knowing.