Am I middle class ??

[creditchief]

 Hello Forum, I was just needing an identity check and I know  I should get some great help here. Hey I am a younger end baby-boomer ,wife,kids( 1 out of college 23 1 high school 15) I am a recovering bk13 ,lower 700 ficos (shooting for 760 in less than 14mos) 150000 mortgage 3000 cc bills and no other debt. Are we the common middle class this day and time in America or am I fooling myself?? All are welcome to chime in!!

[DI]

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@creditchief wrote:

 Hello Forum, I was just needing an identity check and I know  I should get some great help here. Hey I am a younger end baby-boomer ,wife,kids( 1 out of college 23 1 high school 15) I am a recovering bk13 ,lower 700 ficos (shooting for 760 in less than 14mos) 150000 mortgage 3000 cc bills and no other debt. Are we the common middle class this day and time in America or am I fooling myself?? All are welcome to chime in!!

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If you're carrying credit card debt, its an indication you're struggle to maintain a middle class status.  What's your definition of common middle class?

[creditchief]

Hello DI, to clarify my cc debt is below 9% my only reason for having cc are for ficos. My intent was to say having an average home debt small cc debt and a few kids and possibly  some past credit concerns, oh and around 100k income. With all the government going ons and status in America I was wondering where we stood??

[MidnightVoice]

Well, according to economists, a "normal" family in their prime earning teas having an income of $30-110K is middle class

 US average, dual income household, of about $50K

Only top 20% earn more than about $95K  Only top 5% earn $167K

[Anonymous]

Of course, it's also going to depend upon the market where one resides.

$50K a year in Seattle versus Yakima is a huge difference.

[demi]

There is a thing on the Yahoo homepage today about defining middle class..I thought you were bringing that up!  My answer, win I discussed with a coworker...I think you are middle class when you make too much money to qualify for any type of assistance, but not enough to pay for kids to go to college (or fill in the blank).  Basically, I think its where you still have to struggle.  The Yahoo article didn't help me..its was more of family situations, I am single...so maybe that in itself makes me not middle class !

Link to the article

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgetingk/article/109155/how-to-gauge-your-middle-class-status?mod...

[MattH]

Historically the term "middle class" orginated in times and places where social strata were more rigid than they are in the US today, as those who were neither in the large working class nor the small educated class.  For example Galileo, who died in 1642, published most of his scientific books in Italian rather than in the Latin then standard for scholarly works because he wanted to reach a then-new middle class readership who were literate unlike most of the working class of the time but could not read Latin as the upper class could.

Today such social distinctions are not as clear, so we go with economic definitions such as income levels, but then one has to pick numbers such as those making more than X percent of households and less than Y percent of households.  Typical values for X might me 15 to 25 percent below, and typical values for Y might be 10 to 25 percent above.