[notfbi]

" The couple’s annual income was around around £700 ($50,000 in today’s dollars)—£500 ($36,000) from his salary and another £200 ($14,000) in passive income.

They rented a fourth-floor walk-up apartment in London with four bedrooms, two sitting rooms, and a “nice outlook on green.” The rent was £90 for a year ($530 per month in today’s dollars). To keep it tidy, they hired a live-in maid for £36 ($2,600) per year, which Christie described as “an enormous sum in those days.”

The couple was expecting their first child, a girl, and they hired a nurse to look after her. Still, Christie didn’t consider herself wealthy. "

Ignoring the point and rest of the article but it's a strange and uncanny framing to start it, while simultaneously giving the true numbers, trying to suggest that Agatha Christie in this circumstance of having income 25x that of the working class might not be considered well-off.

[amscanne]

They didn’t suggest that, it said:

> Still, Christie didn’t consider herself wealthy

Almost no one considers themselves wealthy. Even people that are very well-off typically consider themselves some variation of middle class, because they can so obviously and clearly see the next rung up the ladder, and how they are not on it. This point is made perfectly by her quote about how only the rich have cars.

[adrianN]

The middle class is just very wide. Essentially anybody who doesn't starve when they're out of work for a couple of months is middle class. Upper class is distinguished from middle class whether you have to work at all. Very few people have enough passive income to afford a ~median lifestyle. Agatha Christie might not fit into middle class, but today a lot of people do.

[pm215]

Since she was English, I suspect Christie would have considered herself middle-class on the basis of her parents, and not believed that her wealth had much to do with what class she fit into. Equating income levels with class levels is more of a US thing, AIUI. (Though wikipedia suggests her family was definitely pretty wealthy: she said her father "was a gentleman of substance, and never did a handsturn in his life", and the family could afford to send her to a boarding school in Paris. So definitely the upper reaches of upper-middle-class.)

[R0b0t1]

I've seen an updated definition that kicks in at the time you can take one or more yearly vacations, so basically just doctors, highly paid laywers, highly paid SWEs, and executives.

[leoedin]

Maybe this is my naive European view, but taking a yearly vacation doesn't seem like a "rich person" thing here. You don't need to be earning vast amounts to afford a weeks package holiday in Spain.

[christophilus]

It sounds strange to me, too. I grew up pretty poor in the US, and we always took at least one family vacation per year. Often, it was a camping trip or the like. Sometimes, it was a visit to a city or national park. My parents were very, very frugal. We almost never had new clothes. I guess it was just a matter of what they prioritized. Looking back on it all, I’d say they got just about everything right.

[lagadu]

That's extremely US-centric. Nearly everyone in Europe gets 20+ paid days a year, including minimum wage workers and it's common to use at least two of those weeks to go somewhere that's not in the region that you live in.

[thriftwy]

They usually never take those yearly vacations since it would mean lost of practice and connections.

By this definition, the only people who are rich are young professionals in Western countries who actually take those vacations and go on year-long travel through South America, for example.

[01acheru]

I think he meant "one or more vacations per year" not "one or more years long vacations" (it also confounded me when skimming)

[thriftwy]

That would mean that Russia is a country of very rich people, since even the blue collar workers here can afford a family vacation per year, going to e.g. Turkey or Egypt - these tours come pre-packaged therefore really cheap. Middle-class youth routinely have 2-3 of these, going to more exclusive destinations. A lot of these will never buy a car, especially a new one, since a new car costs 10 years worth of vacations.

[jccalhoun]

Reminds me of the Chicago law professor who made $250,000 and didn't think he was rich but he lives in a super nice neighborhood and sends 3 kids to private school https://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/09/todd-henderson-we-are...

[boring_twenties]

To know if he's rich or not we would need to know his net worth, not his income (or how nice his stuff is).

[bhelkey]

I disagree.

In an extreme example, Tim Cook made ~$100 Million in 2021 [1]. Regardless of his net worth, I would consider him rich.

[1] https://news.yahoo.com/apple-tim-cook-compensation-other-tec....

[eaxix]

Well, at that point it's borderline impossible to spend (on consumables, not assets) your yearly earning, so even if he's poor now, he almost certainly won't be by the end of the year (unless he has a massive amount of debt).

In contrast if you make $250k it's quite easy to spend the whole amount or close to it (again on consumables, not assets), hence your net worth stays the same in a year. You have to limit your spending to slowly build up your net worth.

[boring_twenties]

Your example only works because it's so extreme, it's enough income for a dozen people to become rich instantly, even if they all start from 0.

By contrast, a house in a "super nice" neighborhood along with multiple private school tuitions can easily eat up the entirety of the $250k/yr income, leaving that guy actually broke in the end.

[tonyedgecombe]

Yes, wasn't it Bloomberg (a billionaire) who said he didn't consider himself wealthy. It turns out there are ten people in his apartment building who are wealthier than him.

[curiousllama]

I remember the first time I got a chipotle burrito with double-meat and guac. I'd just gotten my first big paycheck. I turned to my friend and went "dude I'm so f***g rich now." He kinda chuckled, and when he realized I wasn't really joking, looked uncomfortable; he made more than me.

It is weird how uncomfortable rich people are acknowledging how rich they are.

[barrkel]

Income well above average, but that's a flow, not a stock. She probably didn't consider herself wealthy because she didn't have a lot of wealth, like wealthy people have.

Wealth, especially pre-World Wars, in the UK as elsewhere in Europe meant owning land and collecting rents. You didn't get wealthy by having a high income. You had a high income because you were wealthy.

[thaumasiotes]

The £200 of passive income presumably came from a stock of wealth. And the passive income by itself was still 6 times the salary of the live-in maid. The stock of wealth should therefore have been valued similarly to six healthy female slaves. (Give or take some adjustments, but broadly similar.)

[nicoburns]

> The £200 of passive income presumably came from a stock of wealth

Given we're talking about Agatha Christie here, I imagine the £200 of passive income came from book sales.

[binarybits]

No, this was before she became a successful author. About half of it was an inheritance on her side. The other half came from his side.

[notfbi]

ok, but it even says they had a passive income (aka wealth) leading to 1/3 of that 25x maid's earnings.

Many factual points in the introduction, with the modest apartment, income in today's value, and her own regard of wealth frame it as if she's relatable middle-class.

[onion2k]

having income 25x that of the working class

A live-in maid would have their accommodation, food and bills provided, which would be reflected in a lower wage. The UK average wage at the time was closer to £100 a year for a woman (£200 for a man).

The equivalent today would be like someone earning 7 * the UK minimum wage, which would be about £120,000 a year (US$160,000).

[notfbi]

According to this[1] you'd have ordinary workers earning 22 shillings p/w (£57.2p/y) and highest skilled labourers (firemen) sometimes earning £300, but yes the average wage seemed to be around 150[2]. (I think most people googling the average 1920s wage are getting the Australian-Victoria data accidentally, which is a bit higher, but it's still in the same ballpark) I think the Christie's equivalent today to US household income would then be 67000*700/150 = 313,000

[1] https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/1... [2]https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nominal-wages-consumer-pr...

[kube-system]

That's because being a maid wasn't even seen as an equal to the idea of a "working class job" as we see it now. Someone who had to support a family at that time would have been presumed to have an income from a man's job. Someone working as a maid was presumed to not have their own household to support and had their housing provided.

[notfbi]

I think this is a fair point. Also a live in maid is not comparable because it probably includes full room/board.

[Thorrez]

I doubt a live-in maid has a husband.

[kube-system]

That is what I mean by “presumed not to have their own household”

[franciscop]

Something conveniently ignored is that the maid probably had the room, food and basic necessities included in the deal (and possibly the nurse?). It's absolutely not the same paying X for all expenses vs paying X PLUS all expenses.

We like to demonize the past, and sure it was rough but let's not try to make it look even worse than it was.