I was going to walk this morning...

but I didn't get home until almost midnight (11:57) and I wasn't able to fall asleep until after 1:15.  Still would have been find if the requested wake-up call had come at 6 as scheduled.  Instead I found myself awakening at just after 7 and there went the time to walk.

I may have to blog about the thing I wanted most to discuss this morning and leave the rest until after class and a movie as my time this morning is short.  I wanted to talk about what makes up the "Middle Class" this morning.

We have three classes in this nation, and in most nations.  The Upper Class, the Middle Class and the Lower Class.  By definition that means we're breaking the groups of all households into thirds.  Here in the U.S., we look at income a little differently, breaking households into fifths, or quintiles.  But the same rules still apply.  Across those five quintiles there are still only three classes.

The IRS tells us that in 2009 (most recent year for which comprehensive data is easily available) 50% of households earned more than $32,396 and the other 50% earned between zero and $32,395.  The same data tells us that the top 25% earned $66,193 or more.  Since 25% is less than one third, every family that earned more than $66,193 is NOT, by statistical definition, part of the middle class.  That's on a national basis. 

Let's make that even clearer.  Families that earned $112,124 or more in 2009, are in the top 10% income-wise.  Even further removed from the middle class.  But ask any family that earns $125,000 or so in the L.A. or San Francisco area, and they'll insist to the point of intransigence that they're just some middle class family.  Emotionally they are.  Statistically they are not.

Thusly, we have two middle classes.  The statistical middle class and the emotional middle class.  And that's where we have issues, because of the differing definitions and how people approach discussions of how this group is shrinking.

It isn't really.  It will always be one-third of the total group of families.  What is changing are the parameters of how the statistical middle class is defined.  The income range that makes up the statistical middle class is being altered, with the bottom and top levels of that range going down.  As fewer and fewer earn larger and larger shares of the income, the averages move.

So while you may think yourself middle class, statistically you may well be in that upper class third.  Sorry, but that's how it works.

I'll have some more, regular type of ponderings later today.  But for now, off to class.