What defines the "new" middle class?

[SoCalDem]

there used to be some pretty clear benchmarks for middle class.. I dont think those are so clear these days.

When the post war boom came around , some of the benchmarks were:

extra money left over after living expenses
post high school educations
a personal phone line (no more party-lines)
a home of your own (no more living with relatives )
a car of your own
a tv (color made you feel UPPER middle class)
a washing machine (without a hand wringer)
a job that had regular pay increases
a savings account
a yearly vacation
a pension with the job

Some of these things appear to be silly, but in their time, these were things that made people FEEL upwardly mobile, because not everyone HAD them..

Middle class (to me at least) almost seems to be a contrivence..Truly poor people suffer, no matter what policies are in effect, and rich people can usually ride out most blips, but middle classers have always been the ones who were testing the boundaries..grabbing for more more more, and who were willing to take real chances. Middle classers were always over-extended in one way or another, and were the first to really feel changes in policy that weakened their position.

Not many true "middle classers" ever make it higher, but I KNOW that many many of them move silently down the ladder..

"Modern" benchmarks might include:

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. We're living paycheck to paycheck and falling behind on bills, in a

trailer that is rotting around our ears, but we have a few of the latest electronic gizmos, two cars in the driveway, and two college degrees on the wall (and the student loan to go with, just 15 short years later).

We consider ourselves to be middle class socially speaking, but not so much economically speaking.

[Xipe Totec]

2. Mortgaged to the hilt,

and barely making it on two salaries.

Those are the lucky ones. The rest of the country is F**KED.

(Well, except for the top 2%)

[Rabrrrrrr]

3. As something that exists only in history. The new "middle class" is where people aren't.

That is, it is the fictional/theoretical divide (or "no man's land") between those who are financially okay and those who are financially fucked.

[SoCalDem]

4. In fact, it's gone, but the images and desires for it remain..

like a 40-something looking longingly at high school yearbook pictures of lost loves...etched into his/her brain at their most beautiful (not how they are now)

[jody]

5. Poverty. n/t

[Rex]

6. Someone who doesn't live paycheck to paycheck.

Actually there are only two classes - the working class and the wealthy class.

[Warpy]

7. Traditionally, middle class meant you could afford

household help, whether or not you tried to substitute mechanical conveniences for it. If you could afford a once a week maid, a once a week gardener, and could do it all on one paycheck, you were middle class.

The new middle class is anyone who hasn't been thrown out on the street yet.