[refurb]

Is this household or individual? I only see "tax return" mentioned, so it could be a mix of both.

A common Silicon Valley working couple, 10+ years into their careers are likely to be in the 1% if you roll in things like bonuses and stock/option grants.

And at the same time you have people claiming to be middle class with incomes over $250K.

[marnett]

Social class PSA:

Lower, middle, upper-middle, upper class, etc do not map (as much as news media tries) to income levels. Middle class does not identify a level of income.

To identify income levels use quintiles instead.

Middle class is a social class and annual income has no causal effect on social class.

[refurb]

Depends on the country. I know in the UK class is distinct from income. In the US it's very closely linked.

[marnett]

I think how the term is used is different, as you mention, in the US and UK. I'm trying to prevent Americans from assuming social class and income brackets are linked. Most Americans just assume, likely due to class brackets being used by the media as an economic indicator, that lower, middle, etc class just correlate with one's salary; this form of usage is a misnomer and ought not be used.

[shiftpgdn]

You don't feel a 250K annual salary is middle class? That is a king's ransom in most of the country.

[mjmahone17]

I suspect they meant 250K is too high to be middle class.

[isostatic]

Certainly is, however you have to look at outgoings too. It's entirely possible a retiree on $50k who owns a 3 bed house in SF is better off than someone on $150k who pays $60k a year in rent for the exact same house.

[tunesmith]

Yeah but I think you need a much higher income than you used to (relatively) to feel reasonably assured of a comfortable retirement. If you believe that a middle class person should feel relatively certain they'll have a comfortable retirement if they work for 30-40 years, then it messes with the definition of what "middle class" really is.

[rlabrecque]

They didn't say that, they said that there are people that make that much that claim they are middle class there.