Wuerker Toon: Sitting at America's Kitchen Tables

[n2doc]

[leftstreet]

1. Do people really believe unless they're homeless they're 'middle class?'

:shrug:

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Yes and that is part of the problem actually

we are working class, but I am strange... I did not grow here either.

[RC]

3. Ya betcha dar Charley.

They really do. All it takes is a job of some kind.

[happyslug]

4. I have had clients on Welfare who called themselves "Middle Class"

"Middle Class" has become to mean any American but "Them" and "Them" is all ways NOT "US".

[Sal Minella]

5. On NPR today, they quoted a study done after the Great Depression

when so many people had nothing, and yes, so long as the family is not actually living in a cardboard box on the street and eating out of dumpsters, Americans resolutely tend to identify themselves as "middle class."

People at the bottom of the income scale consider anything over $35,000 a year and up as "wealthy."

Maybe that's why there isn't more outcry that people making $350,000 pay income tax at the same rate as the guy making $350,000,000 -- both incomes are simply unimaginable to many.

[leftstreet]

6. 'both incomes are simply unimaginable to many'

a very good point

[n2doc]

7. We see that at DU all the time

Whenever a story about someone having a hard time making ends meet is posted, unless said person is truly indigent, you get posters writing "I live on $7K a year like a king! These people are just lazy and stupid!. Happens every time. People making a middle wage of 50K are considered 'rich'. And god help anyone lucky enough to make 100K a year, they might as well be the same as Bill Gates as far as some are concerned.

[Sal Minella]

10. I do have to smile a bit at this, since $50,000 is more than

five times my annual income.

I admit it's hard for me to read somebody complaining about squeaking by on three times what I make. (Or the congressman who has only $400,000 left after he buys groceries!)

But . . . I haven't had to apply for Food Stamps yet, so that makes me "middle class" -- right??? Ha!

[1monster]

8. Middle class is not just an economic status, it is also a state of mind.

Even though economically one has fallen from the income level of "middle class," one still feels his/her life style and beliefs fit into the middle class mindset. It isn't just about income.

[leftstreet]

9. What are middle class 'beliefs?'

:shrug:

[Sal Minella]

11. I'll take a quick shot at this --

That people should receive a decent day's pay in return for an honest day's work performed.

That a full-time job should pay well enough so the parents can save toward the kids going to college if they want.

That people have an intrinsic right to a certain amount of dignity -- a decent place to live in, adequate police protection, roads that are patched and plowed as needed, journalists that dispense news instead of propaganda, and reasonable legal safeguards against government intrusion into personal effects, sex lives, and uterine contents.