[ireadmevs]

There’s no middle class. You either have to work for a living or you don’t.

[dagw]

You either have to work for a living or you don’t

The words 'have to' are doing a lot of work in that statement. Some people 'have to' work to literally put food on the table, other people 'have to' work to able to making payments on their new yacht. The world is full of people who could probably live out the rest of their lives without working any more, but doing so would require drastic lifestyle changes they're not willing to make.

I personally think the metric should be something along the lines of how long would it take from losing all your income until you're homeless.

[nosianu]

> I personally think the metric should be something along the lines of how long would it take from losing all your income until you're homeless.

What income? Income from job, or from capital? A huge difference. Also a lot harder to lose the latter, gross incompetence or a revolution, while the former is much easier.

[dgfitz]

The sentence works without those two words. “You either work for a living or you don’t.”

Now what?

[mantas]

Homeless or loose current house? Downsizing and/or moving to cheaper places could go a long way. Yet loosing current level of housing is what most people think want to avoid.

[larrled]

“from losing all your income until you're homeless.”

I’m willing to bet you haven’t lived long enough to know that’s a more or less a proxy for old age. :) That aside, even homeless people acquire possessions over time. If you have a lot of homeless in your neighborhood, try to observe that. In my area, many homeless have semi functional motor homes. Are they legit homeless, or are they “homeless oligarchs”? I can watch any of the hundreds of YouTube channels devoted to “van life.” Is a 20 year old who skipped college which their family could have afforded, and is instead living in an $80k van and getting money from streaming a “legit homeless”? The world is not so black and white it will turn out in the long run.

[d4mi3n]

While you’re not wrong in what differentiates those with wealth to those without, I think ignores a lot of nuance.

Does one have savings? Can they afford to spend time with their children outside of working day to day? Do they have the ability to take reasonable risks without chancing financial ruin in pursuit of better opportunities?

These are things we typically attribute to someone in the middle class. I worry that boiling down these discussions to “you work and they don’t” misses a lot of opportunity for tangible improvement to quality of life for large number of people.

[hobs]

It doesn't - its a battle cry for the working classes (ie anyone who actually works) to realize they are being exploited by those that simply do not.

If you have an actual job and an income constrained by your work output, you could be middle class, but you could also recognize that you are getting absolutely ruined by the billionaire class (no matter what your level of working wealth)

[freefrog334433]

Traditionally there were the English upper class, who had others work for them, and the working class who did. Doctors and Bankers were the middle class, because they owned houses with 6-8 servants running it, so while they worked, they also had plenty of people working for them.

I agree with your point. Now doctors are working class as well.

[laughing_man]

That's reductive. The middle class in the US commonly describes people who have access to goods and services in moderation. You aren't poor just because you can't retire.