USA TODAY: …Strictly speaking, the median, or middle, household income in the United States today is $50,054. That’s easy. The hard part is figuring out how far above or below the middle someone’s income can go and still be considered middle class…
Plenty of smart people have taken a stab at that question. In the past few years, the “middle class” income range has been described as between $32,900 and $64,000 a year (a Pew Charitable Trusts study), between $50,800 and $122,000 (a U.S. Department of Commerce study), and between $20,600 and $102,000 (the U.S. Census Bureau’s middle 60% of incomes)…
“It’s really more about identity,” [Psychologist Ken Eisold, a contributor to Psychology Today,] said. Even families making six figures are “much more comfortable calling themselves ‘upper middle class.’ They might have a lot of money, but they don’t want to feel different.”… (more)
