Future of the Upper Middle Class
I want to preface this with the fact that I'm in my 20s and still early in my career, so experienced professionals, if any of this sounds stupid, try not to rip me a new one please lol.
I've been seeing an uptick in posts decrying the end of the 'american middle class' or 'western middle class'. It does appear that rising commodity prices, food/ags, petrochems will have an adverse effect on middle class consumers, but hasn't this been the case since 2008 if not earlier? I'm not sure what all the doom and gloom is about considering that the hollowing of the lower middle class has been apparent since the 90s.
It appears to me that the more likely scenario is upper middle class kids noticing that the standard of living their parents attained, will require significantly more effort to maintain, on their end. A 200k lifestyle 20 years ago is now closer to 400k but the quantity of jobs/opportunities in that band are not as numerous. Obviously certain industries (big tech) are paying silly salaries these days with some L8s apparently netting 600k+ TC, but that's only a small segment of the greater american population. I'm guessing that on a scale of 1-10, achieving an upper middle class lifestyle in the past was akin to a 6, whereas now it's more of an 8.5.
Is this going to have major ramifications down the road? Society appears to be splitting in two between the winners (big and small) and the losers rather dramatically, and I can't help but think that this will inflame extremist political positions in the coming years.
Coming from an immigrant family, the great thing about the States was the ability to attain an upper middle class lifestlye with prudent decisions and a moderate amount of hardwork. Do you all think that this is changing, or am I just being silly?
Appreciate the thoughts! Of all varieties as well.
> I'm not sure what all the doom and gloom is about considering that the hollowing of the lower middle class has been apparent since the 90s.
If not now, when’s a good time to get mad about this?
time to reverse mass non-white immigration then....
No. It’s just hysteria and leftist talking points. You’re at the age (18-23) where you think you are arriving at some unique point in history. You’re not. That narcissism will fade over time
work hard and you’ll be ok
I think this particular recession was hard on the upper middle class who usually do well in America for two reasons. First of all, they have a significant amount of money in equities/fixed income which have done poorly, but in most other years they do better than wage growth. Meanwhile most lower wage workers barely have anything invested so they weren't as impacted. Second of all, the labor shortage has given low wage workers bigger raises than higher income workers, and even some unionization which is again the opposite of what has happened the past few decades. Upper middle class workers haven't gotten as much.
However I don't see this becoming a permanent trend. I think education, white collar skills, and investing money instead of spending it will continue to be important to success in America.
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