But that comfort could fade very quickly, given a few scant months of unemployment.
[0]: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/cpstables/032011/perinc/new01...
[1]: http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/s...
Anyone with a computer, an Internet connection, and the gumption to do so, can send a product to market.
The shareholders and board, primarily.
>What class do I fall in to if my income is below average yet I have significant stock holdings?
Well, you're implying that you have to work for a living or starve, so you're working-class.
>Anyone with a computer, an Internet connection, and the gumption to do so, can send a product to market.
And yet only roughly 0.1% of the population actually lives off anything other than wages.
If you look at households, that percentage is much lower - at $150,000 they're in the 90.1%; at $100,000 a household (aka an individual earner living alone or as the sole earner in a household) is in the 77.4% [1].
> If that's the middle class, then what does that make the other 93%, who are worse off?
You've introduced a false dichotomy here. Just because an individual in the 93% (by your own figures) or a household in the 77.4% (by the ACS figures) is considered middle class doesn't mean that someone in the 57.5% (~$50,000) isn't also middle class. These things aren't linearly distributed.
On the other hand, it's pretty evident that neither one is upper class. But that depends on the definition of upper class, no?
What is your definition of upper class? Sheer income percentile, or what an individual can actually accomplish at a given income percentile?
General usage has upper class being those who can afford not to work if they so choose; those who not only are rich themselves, but whose families have been rich for several generations. They send their children to private schools with a higher tuition than a State university; they probably own more than one home. I don't know any SWE that can claim that unless they were born to it or got in just after (or before) the first round of investment at a unicorn like Google or Instagram.
"Upper middle class" is a pretty apt term, and usually reserved for those in professions like software development (surprise!), mechanical engineering, architecture, managerial, etc. Those under this label are usually comfortable, can easily afford to own their own home, and - in comparison to the creature comforts available - better off than royalty from two hundred years ago.
But in comparison to the creature comforts of those just 1-2% above them, they're paupers. And those in the 95% are, to those in the top 1% (generally considered the cutoff for Upper Class), simply one head of chattel among the unwashed, hepatitis ridden, gout prone proletariat.
0. http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/p... 1. http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/p...
A friend of mine once shared learnings from a university class that talked about markers of each class.
Lower class can be marked by immediate gratification (sometimes out of need): Buying a bag of chips and soda because you need calories now, spend that tax refund on a TV because you want something to make yourself feel better and you "know" the end of your poverty/pain isnt ever coming, better to spend today than wait for a broken promise to come true.
One of the middle class markers is deferral of gratification for greater future gratification: buying a home instead of renting forever, going to school to eventually make more money, buying a jumbo pack of toilet paper today to save 12c a roll for the next year.
The upper class marker is that of unlimited gratification and a separate economic; You can have anything you (reasonably) could want and the basis of your life is not monetary/material but more about economic power, political influence, access to inaccessible people and places. Examples might be anything that is actually "exclusive" (as opposed to the marketing term applied to everything), relating to and breeding with people at or above your ranks and, various markers of your importance in this world to show off to others (Awards, recognitions, philanthropy) ...
And Upper class quite often go for a shabby look and can actually be quite poor
And if the poor Americans suddenly started behaving like responsible Indians, they would become middle class?
I used to be an IT auditor. I worked in public accounting. The CPAs who really crushed it were partners. They usually had been with the firm for 10+ years minimum, and were basically in sales at that point. You have to buy into the company normally when you make partner, and less than 10% of employees ever make partner.
MDs, yes they're high earners, but many go into a ton of debt, and don't start earning a lot till pretty late in their career. Many blow through all their cash too.
Lawyers, yes obviously some make bank. But many make next to nothing. I have tons of friends who are just graduating and can't find work.
As a developer, I can clear 100K a year working remotely in a very affordable state. And I have no debt. That's a pretty good living. On top of that, I love what I do. Note that I don't have kids though.
The only concern I have about software development is that it seems to plateau around 100-150K a year. I guess that makes sense though. You'd have to go into management to make more, and you wouldn't be writing much code, which is what I like to do.
Anyways, I wouldn't call a good developer making a reasonable developer salary lower middle class.