"I couldn't possibly fail to disagree with you less."
26 October 2006Properly centeredThe way to get America's attention, says Tam, is to invoke the sacred Middle Class:
The reason for this is because in America, we're all middle class. Really. Don't believe me? Go ask any American whether he'd consider himself "Poor" or "Rich" or what, and I guarantee you that unless he's currently sitting in a cardboard box over a sidewalk grate or on the deck of a 125' yacht anchored off Cabo San Lucas, he'll say "Neither, really. I reckon I'm just middle class." This is maybe the only nation on the planet where the guy in the $500,000 house with a new Benz in the driveway and the single mom making $8/hr at the Food Lion and living in a single wide will both sigh and turn up the volume to listen in when the TV announcer says "A new threat to the Middle Class!", thinking he's talking to them.
I suppose I should look for where I stand. The Bureau of the Census has Median Household Income tables only up to 2003; I'm above the state level for '03, but below the national. (I'm waiting for the Democrats to announce a platform plank which calls for all 50 states to be above the national median. The GOP, for its part, will simply tell me that it's my own damn fault I'm not rich.) So who is the true middle class? Tam says:
... those folks schlepping their way through the 40-hour grind in cubicleville to keep up with payments on their '02 Camry.
My car is older, and my grind longer, but otherwise that pretty much sounds like me. Posted at 2:51 PM to DyssynergyThe GOP, for its part, will simply tell me that it's my own damn fault I'm not rich. It is. You need to vote Republican more. Posted by: McGehee at 6:20 PM on 26 October 2006If only I could do as Congress does and vote myself a pay raise...... Posted by: unimpressed at 7:27 PM on 26 October 2006The real question is: are you the lower-middle-class, the upper-middle-class, or the middle-middle-class? Posted by: Andrea Harris at 7:36 PM on 26 October 2006Actually, I used to assume a nine-class system by definition. From Vent #481: I perceived three subsets: lower, middle and upper, each of which was divided into three further subsets: lower, middle and upper. The bottom of the range was therefore Lower Lower (duh), while the top was Upper Upper (double duh). I should have known that there was something askew with this scheme when I couldn't locate the dividing line between Upper Lower (#3) and Lower Middle (#4), despite the fact that crossing that line was high on my list of Things to Do; I saw myself as Middle Lower (#2), and that sight made me ill. Things seem more like a continuum today, but I suspect where I'd land is right on that 3/4 line; once I make a dent in this crushing mountain of debt, I'll rise a notch or so. Posted by: CGHill at 7:44 PM on 26 October 2006No-class. Posted by: Mister Snitch! at 6:27 PM on 27 October 2006 |