Where does the middle class begin and where does it end? The Drum Major Institute defines the range for middle class at individuals making between $25,000 and $100,000 a year. But there is every indication that the middle class includes people who make far more than $100,000 a year. The upper strata of the middle class pay the bulk of income taxes and while they are comfortably well off, they are not wealthy enough to take advantage of many of the tax laws and tax shelters that benefit the superrich. Depending on their life circumstances, they are susceptible to having their small fortunes and savings wiped-out by accident or illness or job loss. One more reason why we think our clients who work in the financial services sector—Jeanne Brutman, Michael Fliegelman, Jonathan Gassman and Jim Kingsland—are doing a terrific job of protecting their clients.
Middle Class?
Who are the
Check out this Survey in the New York Times. As you can see, about half of adults surveyed said they were middle class. That includes almost half of respondents who had family incomes above $100,000, which is at about the 82nd percentile in the income distribution.
There is some indication that the middle class has the largest number of voters, and is composed of influencers such as teachers, journalists, editors, lawyers & judges, entrepreneurs—those individuals who shape and form public opinion.
Most ideas that find their way into the cultural mainstream... are crafted by a relative elite: people who are well educated, reasonably well-paid, and who overlap, socially and through family ties, with at least the middling levels of the business community—in short, the professional middle class.
—Author, Barbara Ehrenreich