Just curious how the terms are defined in an anthropological sense.
your question prompts me to ask myself how i define it. i define it socially, not economically, and from dancer's write-up, and from what bunicula has been telling me in person, this is the real problem with the working class to middle class transition.
i have noticed that most people raised in middle class households really have no clue about what constitutes minimum survival. even i don't, but i seem to have more a clue than most, since i left college to live without my parents' support and work for a living. i went back to school, but i found that my views on life had permenantly diverged from my coddled, middle and upper-middle class schoolmates. they just had no clue what it's like to really struggle for a living, and no appreciation for everything their parents gave them, and in adulthood, most of them still don't. it makes me sad, and sometimes mad.
(i especially get mad at the ones that think they appreciate it. they're often the ones who feel trapped and stressed because of their busy social lives, interestingly -- they create a web of self-assumed "obligations" and thus create a stressful environment... almost as though they need the feeling of struggle to validate their otherwise luxurious existence.)
Fewer than 5% of the population makes over 100K/year
which reminds me, i have reluctantly concluded that you cannot buy a home -- even an apartment-sized condo -- in or near boston unless your aggregate family income is at least $150,000. no wonder the working poor rent -- they just can't get the capital to buy a house, even though in the long term it would cost less. it's sad because in thirty years, they'll be paying more rent, while those who can buy a house today will have no expenses other than taxes and utilities in thirty years.
no subject
your question prompts me to ask myself how i define it. i define it socially, not economically, and from dancer's write-up, and from what bunicula has been telling me in person, this is the real problem with the working class to middle class transition.
i have noticed that most people raised in middle class households really have no clue about what constitutes minimum survival. even i don't, but i seem to have more a clue than most, since i left college to live without my parents' support and work for a living. i went back to school, but i found that my views on life had permenantly diverged from my coddled, middle and upper-middle class schoolmates. they just had no clue what it's like to really struggle for a living, and no appreciation for everything their parents gave them, and in adulthood, most of them still don't. it makes me sad, and sometimes mad.
(i especially get mad at the ones that think they appreciate it. they're often the ones who feel trapped and stressed because of their busy social lives, interestingly -- they create a web of self-assumed "obligations" and thus create a stressful environment... almost as though they need the feeling of struggle to validate their otherwise luxurious existence.)
Fewer than 5% of the population makes over 100K/year
which reminds me, i have reluctantly concluded that you cannot buy a home -- even an apartment-sized condo -- in or near boston unless your aggregate family income is at least $150,000. no wonder the working poor rent -- they just can't get the capital to buy a house, even though in the long term it would cost less. it's sad because in thirty years, they'll be paying more rent, while those who can buy a house today will have no expenses other than taxes and utilities in thirty years.