Big Lie: America Doesn't Have #1 Richest Middle-Class in the World...We're Ranked 27th!

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. Well, it's not about the size of the middle class

It's about the median wealth. There's nothing in this about how broadly you define the sector in each country.

For what it's worth:

So who counts as middle class?

According to organisations like the United Nations and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), it's someone who earns or spends $10 to $100 per day.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22956470

So if your household income is above $36,500 per person, you are above middle class, internationally.

The paper which seems to have been taken as the basis for the definition is here: http://www.oecd.org/dev/44457738.pdf

It says (2009 figures):
USA: 230 million middle class
EU: 450 million
rest of North America: 108 million
rest of Europe (which I think includes Russia): 214 million
Japan: 125 million
Whole world: 1845 million

It points out:

The numbers of the global middle class hide the differences in purchasing power. The
range for what constitutes a middle class consumer is quite broad, so someone in the Chinese
middle class does not spend as much as someone in the US middle class. The data bear this out.
The North American middle class accounts for substantially more of global spending than its
population share, while the reverse is true of Asia’s middle class. The US is home to 12 per cent
of the world’s middle class in terms of absolute numbers of people, but it accounts for
USD4.4 trillion (21 per cent) of the USD21 trillion in global spending by middle class consumers.
The difference is because the US middle class is much wealthier than the average global middle
class consumer.