#themiddleclass

People drop the term “middle class” like it’s nobody’s business, but what does it mean? Sometimes I think it’s just a buzzword phrase to appeal to everybody. I mean, most people can relate to the term “middle class.” In some ways we all consider ourselves that. I mean, look at me and my boyfriend. 

My mother (single parent family) makes ~$46,000 gross income, not including taxes, which cut out about half. We consider ourselves middle class.

His parents, both very successful, make over several hundred thousand a year together gross, they too consider themselves “middle class.”

I mean you could say both of us live in luxury, his household has more cars than family members, but our household lives in NYC, one of the most expensive cities to live in.

Whose to say it’s one or the other? Does the middle class stretch so radically far in terms of pay grade? Should it? Do we have enough in common to be lumped as one group of people with similar beliefs and solutions? Or maybe it’s just a clever trick used to get a lot of people united on the same issue, finance? 

Finance is difficult topic to begin with, always loaded with confusing terms and many, radically different theories. It’s hard to wade through everything, the jargon making it impossible in a feasible amount of time - so normal people don’t. Let’s be honest. That’s basically the major pitfall of the Occupy movement. A bunch of people were unhappy - there was a motivating force to do something. There was no message. And honestly, I’m glad, in some aspects. That means it really was a movement of ordinary people, people who don’t really understand what’s going on in the financial world being frustrated that the people who do fucked them over. 

But that’s also why it failed. We don’t know what’s going on. Sometimes I think that maybe if all of those people so frustrated and exasperated, camping out outside financial institutions actually walked over to the nearest library and picked up a book on the subject - we wouldn’t be so fucked in the first place.