Yeah, the govey accountants and statisticians probably have definitions tied to standard deviations around median income and so on, but what do we mean by "middle class"? There must be a social as well as economic cohort involved here. I remember I always thought of myself as MC even when I had the income of a pauper and my family history was strictly "working class", whatever that means. I wnt to know what the social and educational component is, what causes someone to think of himself as MC, even if he's a starving actor working as a busboy, or a student barely making ends meet on his GI Bill and his part-time at the golf course.

No matter who you ask they almost invariably tell you they are MC. No one will tell you they are poor, unless they are long-term welfare recipients or homeless. Likewise, I've known families where both spouses pull down good jack at executive or professional positions, live in a million $ house and earn several hundred grand a year and they think of themselves as "middle class", not rich. So does the family of four renting a small house, driving a jalopy, working a single uncertain unskilled service job. No one wants to be thought of as poor (lazy, mean, stupid, criminal) or rich (arrogant, elitist, smart-ass, criminal). Everyone THINKS of themselves as MC.

There are regional differences too, and conditions change over time. I'm earning as much now in Florida as a civil servant as I was as a Silicon Valley software engineer 20 years ago. But my standard of living is about the same, salaries are lower here, but housing cheaper, and there's been two decades of inflation and a 15 month layoff in the interim. But I manage to save a piece of my income every month and both my jalopies are payed off.

We talk a lot about the MC, and seem to think the country somehow belongs to them, that they are the backbone of the nation, that they have built us up and that we owe them something. We talk about MC values and MC work ethic, but we have never really defined the term, much less quantified it. You guys all sound like you're MC, and you probably think of yourselves that way, I know I do. What do you think?