General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: $20,833.00 per month???? [View all]Orrex
(63,208 posts)What, exactly, is the point in setting up these comparisons, except to demonstrate the futility of the catch-all expression "middle class?"
Again, you're making a self-evident point by saying that the preposterously, astronomically rich have little in common with the $250K crowd, but that's irrelevant. And I'm not even sure that anyone claimed otherwise, at least not until you showed up in the thread, though I admit that I haven't read every single post outside of this subthread.
You're the one who posited the 80% disparity, incidentally, by telling us how much $250K and $50K have in common. So if it's a straw man then it's yours to own. The $250K crowd has, at the end of the day, little in common with the $50K crowd.
The distinction should be between families that can barely scrape by versus all the rest. Every argument that you're making is an effort to pretend that the quarter-million family faces, ultimately, the same hardships as other "middle class" families, or at least you're suggesting that they suffer more so than do the multi-million families.
If you're trying to show the commonality between $250K and $50K, then the posited 80% reduction is entirely valid and relevant, despite your wishes to the contrary. A family making 500% of median income has little in common with a family making just the median income.