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  1. #7676
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    We aren't talking wealthy, we are talking about middle class folks, who literally no matter where you live, do not make 250k or more.

    250k literally puts you in the top 5% of even Boulder households. Top 5%! That number holds in Boston and New York cities by themselves also as well.

    Bunch of lawyers and dentists talking about bootstraps right here.
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  2. #7677
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    Quote Originally Posted by skaredshtles View Post
    I'm wealthy, and the household makes just a bit over $200K in the Denver area.

    And no, we aren't dentists.

    Despite being wealthy, we live a very middle-class existence. No car payments (in fact, no vehicles have less than 100K miles on them), no 2nd house/condo in the mountains, no big fancy McMansion.

    So perhaps it's possible to be wealthy AND middle-class at the same time?

    My main "goal" (I use that term very loosely) is to retire *really* early compared to what is considered normal retirement age. And yes, I use the term "retirement" pretty loosely, too, as I will likely do something that pays me money even after I retire...
    In my book you are comfortable and able to save because you live below your means. Compared to a ski bum making $10-15/hour in a ski town you are doing well, but that doesn't make you wealthy.

  3. #7678
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    Quote Originally Posted by AdironRider View Post
    We aren't talking wealthy, we are talking about middle class folks,
    Is it possible to be both?

  4. #7679
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kevo View Post
    In my book you are comfortable and able to save because you live below your means. Compared to a ski bum making $10-15/hour in a ski town you are doing well, but that doesn't make you wealthy.
    Well - it's the assets that make me wealthy... which hopefully will allow me to put up a big, fat middle finger to the hand that currently feeds me soon-ish.

  5. #7680
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    Quote Originally Posted by AdironRider View Post
    We aren't talking wealthy, we are talking about middle class folks, who literally no matter where you live, do not make 250k or more.

    250k literally puts you in the top 5% of even Boulder households.
    26% of married couples in Boulder make more than $200K per year as of 2017 per the American factfinder census survey- https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/...es/index.xhtml

    Type in "Boulder city" and select "Boulder city, Colorado" and the look at the income section of the data.

  6. #7681
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    Your source says 11.8% of households over 200k, not 26%. Let alone we have moved the goalposts are now talking 200k instead of 250k, which is only a 20% variance....

    Link directly to the income table for Boulder:https://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/t...00000US0807850

    But let's use your source and the 200k number. Being in the top 12% of households does not make you middle class. End of story.

    But wait! Let's now relegate it to just families (and all the required expenses for such) that make 200k or more, which would make up barely over the top 22%, which again, is upper class at worst.

    So no, at no point in Boulder would even a family making that much money be considered middle class.
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  7. #7682
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    Quote Originally Posted by AdironRider View Post
    Your source says 11.8% of households over 200k, not 26%. Let alone we have moved the goalposts are now talking 200k instead of 250k, which is only a 20% variance....

    Link directly to the income table for Boulder:https://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/t...00000US0807850

    But let's use your source and the 200k number. Being in the top 12% of households does not make you middle class. End of story.
    "households" is only one metric, he's looking at "married-couple families". Household includes the random single guy living in an apartment.
    "fuck off you asshat gaper shit for brains fucktard wanker." - Jesus Christ
    "She was tossing her bean salad with the vigor of a Drunken Pop princess so I walked out of the corner and said.... "need a hand?"" - Odin
    "everybody's got their hooks into you, fuck em....forge on motherfuckers, drag all those bitches across the goal line with you." - (not so) ill-advised strategy

  8. #7683
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    I think the other major factor is when a given couple bought into the property market. If you have lived in Boulder since 1980 and you bought your house in a desirable area for $40k and paid it off in 1990 you are probably living pretty well on $250k per year.

    If you moved to Boulder in 2019 and wanted to buy that same house it would cost $1.5MM and $250k won't even get you in the door.

    Where I live in Golden you could have bought a 3,500 sq foot designer home up against the mountains for $400k in 2004. That house today is well over $1MM and again, $250k won't get you in the door.

  9. #7684
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    I included families, which would be top 22%.

    If you are in the top quarter of income distribution, you are not middle class.

    Maybe in your distinct bubble you sit around the middle, or even the bottom, of your peers in terms of income, but that doesn't mean all of you aren't part of the upper class as a whole.
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  10. #7685
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kevo View Post
    <snip>
    Where I live in Golden you could have bought a 3,500 sq foot designer home up against the mountains for $400k in 2004. That house today is well over $1MM and again, $250k won't get you in the door.
    Pffffft. I could afford one of those houses.

  11. #7686
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    Quote Originally Posted by dunfree View Post
    No. Actually what I'm seeing is the self-selection of the US population. So, in my case in my "high tax" blue state neighborhood, the people who really get fucking pissed off about taxes move to Texas or Florida. some of them make money, some don't - but most of them voted red. Lots of other people stay. Some of them make good money, some don't - but many of them vote blue.

    you've got your worldview, you want to find irony in it, you want to think that "limousine liberals" will never vote for Warren or Bernie. Have at that circle jerk. I'm not saying nobody moves and taxes don't matter - they do. Just not nearly as much as the people constantly fixated on taxes claim.
    You keep interpreting my words incorrectly. although I do find it ironic that when the rubber hits the road people don't like paying more, period. Whether its through higher taxes or less deductions.
    Even the corporate overlords of Wall Street are choking on the possibility of a Warren presidency. Everybody screams tax the rich, until you realize you are also rich in their eyes.
    All the ballers at the 250k household range are really going to choke if Warren instituted her additional 14.8% tax on earning over 250k in additional Social Security taxes.
    I guess she missed that 250k is "middle class" also.

  12. #7687
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kevo View Post
    I think the other major factor is when a given couple bought into the property market. If you have lived in Boulder since 1980 and you bought your house in a desirable area for $40k and paid it off in 1990 you are probably living pretty well on $250k per year.

    If you moved to Boulder in 2019 and wanted to buy that same house it would cost $1.5MM and $250k won't even get you in the door.

    Where I live in Golden you could have bought a 3,500 sq foot designer home up against the mountains for $400k in 2004. That house today is well over $1MM and again, $250k won't get you in the door.
    1.5 million is literally twice the average home cost in Boulder, which sits at 749k. Golden is 590k.
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  13. #7688
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    Quote Originally Posted by AdironRider View Post
    Your source says 11.8% of households over 200k, not 26%. Let alone we have moved the goalposts are now talking 200k instead of 250k, which is only a 20% variance....

    Link directly to the income table for Boulder:https://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/t...00000US0807850

    But let's use your source and the 200k number. Being in the top 12% of households does not make you middle class. End of story.

    But wait! Let's now relegate it to just families (and all the required expenses for such) that make 200k or more, which would make up barely over the top 22%, which again, is upper class at worst.

    So no, at no point in Boulder would even a family making that much money be considered middle class.
    What makes you think that being in the top 26% of married families makes someone upper class? Wealth in the US is highlight consolidated towards the high end of income earners. I'm arguing that that particular income level makes someone upper middle class at best. $250k is not upper class in Boulder.

  14. #7689
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    Quote Originally Posted by AdironRider View Post
    1.5 million is literally twice the median home cost in Boulder, which sits at 749k. Golden is 590k.

    The deck stacking here continues.
    Owning an average home does not make someone upper class.

  15. #7690
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    And again, instead of arguing that someone is or isn't middle class, define how you are using that term. It's meaningless to say "the top 12% isn't middle class" if you haven't defined what you mean by "middle class". Is the top 12% in a metro area an automatic disqualifier? Or is it income based? If income based, what income is the cuttoff? Is that income dependent on geography or localized cost of living?

    You can deride us as "Bunch of lawyers and dentists talking about bootstraps right here", which seems to be a shot at me as I'm the only lawyer in this discussion and you've taken shots at me before for the same thing (without knowing anything about me, my job, or my income). But if you actually read anything I have posted, I have not said $250k is "middle class", nor have I said it isn't middle class. All I have said is that you have to have some agreed upon evaluation criteria before you can make that determination. Yet you just keep yelling "get out of here with that shit".
    "fuck off you asshat gaper shit for brains fucktard wanker." - Jesus Christ
    "She was tossing her bean salad with the vigor of a Drunken Pop princess so I walked out of the corner and said.... "need a hand?"" - Odin
    "everybody's got their hooks into you, fuck em....forge on motherfuckers, drag all those bitches across the goal line with you." - (not so) ill-advised strategy

  16. #7691
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    If you are in the top quarter of earners, you are, by literal definition and basic math, not in the middle class.

    Get out of here with that shit is literally the answer 95% of this country would tell you. It is laughable to argue anything else other than 250k is a shitload of money to earn per year. Literally no household making that is struggling, outside of trying to keep up with the 1% of the Joneses, which sure, you are going to feel that you aren't in the 1%, but that is a very very good problem to have.
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  17. #7692
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    Quote Originally Posted by AdironRider View Post
    1.5 million is literally twice the average home cost in Boulder, which sits at 749k.
    Where is your stat for that? As someone who lives here, I have a hard time believing that 749k is the current mean or median in single family home value.
    "fuck off you asshat gaper shit for brains fucktard wanker." - Jesus Christ
    "She was tossing her bean salad with the vigor of a Drunken Pop princess so I walked out of the corner and said.... "need a hand?"" - Odin
    "everybody's got their hooks into you, fuck em....forge on motherfuckers, drag all those bitches across the goal line with you." - (not so) ill-advised strategy

  18. #7693
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    Poor/Poverty
    Lower Class
    Lower Middle Class
    Middle Class
    Upper Middle Class
    Upper Class
    Wealthy

    Defining where the splits are is not as simple as 100/7.
    Move upside and let the man go through...

  19. #7694
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    Quote Originally Posted by AdironRider View Post
    If you are in the top quarter of earners, you are, by literal definition and basic math, not in the middle class.
    no, there is no definition. There is no rule or objective definition that says the middle class equals 25-75%. That's your definition. And even that isn't enough of a definition. Top 25% of what? Local income? Statewide income? Is someone in the top 20% of incomes in Dubuque, IA "upper class", even if that same income would not qualify elsewhere?
    "fuck off you asshat gaper shit for brains fucktard wanker." - Jesus Christ
    "She was tossing her bean salad with the vigor of a Drunken Pop princess so I walked out of the corner and said.... "need a hand?"" - Odin
    "everybody's got their hooks into you, fuck em....forge on motherfuckers, drag all those bitches across the goal line with you." - (not so) ill-advised strategy

  20. #7695
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    Quote Originally Posted by Danno View Post
    no, there is no definition. There is no rule or objective definition that says the middle class equals 25-75%. That's your definition. And even that isn't enough of a definition. Top 25% of what? Local income? Statewide income? Is someone in the top 20% of incomes in Dubuque, IA "upper class", even if that same income would not qualify elsewhere?
    has kids in ski racing = must be wealthy
    Move upside and let the man go through...

  21. #7696
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    Quote Originally Posted by Danno View Post
    Where is your stat for that? As someone who lives here, I have a hard time believing that 749k is the current mean or median in single family home value.
    Again with the goalpost moving, now it is just single family homes.

    Between you and Kevo a middle class family should apparently be able to live in a single family home that costs 1 million plus and have no stress about their disposable income or struggle raising a family as a result.

    Literally "get out of here with that shit".

    This argument started at 250k income is middle class. That was the metric. Despite you guys moving the goalposts to families that own single family homes and make just 200k, that still puts you in the top quarter of households, and that is excluding all the poors outside of Boulder. Decidedly upper class at worst.
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  22. #7697
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    Quote Originally Posted by Danno View Post
    Where is your stat for that? As someone who lives here, I have a hard time believing that 749k is the current mean or median in single family home value.
    I just saw. You pulled from Zillow. Which includes attached dwellings in its number; the number for SFRs would be much higher. It also includes homes in the mountains, which are generally valued much lower than in-city homes.
    "fuck off you asshat gaper shit for brains fucktard wanker." - Jesus Christ
    "She was tossing her bean salad with the vigor of a Drunken Pop princess so I walked out of the corner and said.... "need a hand?"" - Odin
    "everybody's got their hooks into you, fuck em....forge on motherfuckers, drag all those bitches across the goal line with you." - (not so) ill-advised strategy

  23. #7698
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    Quote Originally Posted by AdironRider View Post
    Between you and Kevo a middle class family should apparently be able to live in a single family home that costs 1 million plus and have no stress about their disposable income or struggle raising a family as a result.
    Aside from the $1 million home (which is just the cost of a single family home in some place) that's been the definition of the middle class US dream since WW2.

  24. #7699
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    Quote Originally Posted by AdironRider View Post
    Again with the goalpost moving.

    Between you and Kevo a middle class family should apparently be able to live in a single family home that costs 1 million plus and have no stress about their disposable income or struggle raising a family as a result.

    Literally "get out of here with that shit".
    I'm not moving any goalposts, you dumbass! I have multiple posts in here asking folks to agree on where the goalposts are, so we can actually have an intelligent discussion. That you're too fucking myopic to even see that is not my fault.
    "fuck off you asshat gaper shit for brains fucktard wanker." - Jesus Christ
    "She was tossing her bean salad with the vigor of a Drunken Pop princess so I walked out of the corner and said.... "need a hand?"" - Odin
    "everybody's got their hooks into you, fuck em....forge on motherfuckers, drag all those bitches across the goal line with you." - (not so) ill-advised strategy

  25. #7700
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    Quote Originally Posted by dunfree View Post
    Aside from the $1 million home (which is just the cost of a single family home in some place) that's been the definition of the middle class US dream since WW2.
    exactly. Somehow, just being able to live the "american dream" in some communities makes you "upper class" to him.
    "fuck off you asshat gaper shit for brains fucktard wanker." - Jesus Christ
    "She was tossing her bean salad with the vigor of a Drunken Pop princess so I walked out of the corner and said.... "need a hand?"" - Odin
    "everybody's got their hooks into you, fuck em....forge on motherfuckers, drag all those bitches across the goal line with you." - (not so) ill-advised strategy

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