What is Middle Class in 21st Century America?

[JagFan07]

True, I probably should not have used "falsehood". I agree that education is the number one answer, as your economist article points out:

Family background is not insurmountable, explain Isabel Sawhill and Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution. In particular, earning a degree and marrying before having children can help someone climb to a higher rung. However, family background influences the likelihood of education and marriage (see article).

[Dog Walker]

Typically for every generation in your family, you will either stay in the class your were born in, or go up one level. The chances of someone shooting to the top are very rare.

There is the saying, "Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations in America."  It is easy to go down a level too.

First generation:  Immigrant family.  Mother and father start by working for someone else in a ethnic restaurant.  Work insane hours, save every penny and push kids to be tops in school.  Take saved money and open own restaurant, work insane hours, save every penny, push kids to be tops in school and work in family restaurant on few off hours.  Kids do super well in school and win scholarships to state schools.  Graduate with honors and go to medical school and law school.  They go into practice and get very rich.  Have kids.  Want to make sure kids don't have terrible hard childhood that they had.  Give them every whim. Kids do terrible in school, run around with losers, can't make it in college and become restaurant workers, roofers and house painters.

Eddie Farah's father ran a corner grocery store in North Jacksonville.  Eddie employs over 90 lawyers in offices in two states.  Hope he has held his kids to the same ethic his father instilled in him.  There are lots and lots of people just like him in Jacksonville.

[Mattius92]

Going down in class is easy, but unless you are lazy or very unfortunate, you shouldn't fall down in class. In Eddie's case, he went up in class. Its called intergenerational mobility.

I can say that in the late 20th century and the 21st century has seen a lot of people go from rags to riches off the growing increase of technology and the internet. Heck Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, went from a underclass college student to a billionaire in just over 5 years.

[finehoe]

I don't know what you consider "underclass", but Zuckerberg attended Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard University.

[JC]

I don't know what you consider "underclass", but Zuckerberg attended Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard University.

Wasnt FB started as a way for Harvard men to meet women? 

[JaxNative68]

sex sells

[Mattius92]

I don't know what you consider "underclass", but Zuckerberg attended Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard University.

Well we would need to know how rich his family was, but most college students dont have any money. You can probably make more money staying out of college, till well the college student graduates, and then he will eventually make more money then the person who stayed out.

All I can say, is Mark was not a billionaire in college.

[Captain Zissou]

I don't know what you consider "underclass", but Zuckerberg attended Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard University.

Mattius, I was in favor of your argument until you started defending against this point.  

If you're from a rich family, you don't just lose all that when you go to college.  Also, there are far fewer scholarships for high schools, so Exeter was more than likely not free.  Harvard does not hand out many scholarships compared to similar universities, because they don't need to, so it is safe to assume that Zuckerberg's family was at least well off.  

Having just graduated from UF, I can tell you there is a whole spectrum of wealth among college students.  

[finehoe]

All I can say, is Mark was not a billionaire in college.

Probably not, but if his parents could afford to send him to Exeter, he is a child of privilege and to say he went from "rags to riches" is patently untrue.  I'm sure he fits into the "fewer than 20 percent that inherited their wealth" (since his parents are still alive) from JagFan's article too, but does anyone seriously think he would have been equally as likely to be were he is today if he had been born in the ghetto?

[JC]

All I can say, is Mark was not a billionaire in college.

Probably not, but if his parents could afford to send him to Exeter, he is a child of privilege and to say he went from "rags to riches" is patently untrue.  I'm sure he fits into the "fewer than 20 percent that inherited their wealth" (since his parents are still alive) from JagFan's article too, but does anyone seriously think he would have been equally as likely to be were he is today if he had been born in the ghetto?

Didnt you see the movie with Will Smith and he is homeless?  I think hey called it the pursuit of money or something or other.

[Mattius92]

Mark I guess wasnt the best rags to riches story, but I was just trying to point out that the increasing amount of millionaires nowadays can have a lot to do with us going into the information age. That and inflation.

[finehoe]

[Mattius92]

CEOs make on average 458 times more money then the workers. Huge difference there.

I can say CEOs play important roles, but you really dont need 458 times more then your workers.

[Dog Walker]

The CEO's of Lehman Brothers, Bear-Sterns, Goldman-Sachs, etc. didn't even UNDERSTAND what was going on in their businesses much less have anything to do with managing them. 

Just finished reading "The Big Short" about the fancy debt instruments that were made from sub-prime mortgages and how they brought down the big investment banks.  Made me want to scream.  Moody's and Standard & Poors, supposedly the watchdog rating agencies, didn't understand them either.

All those people walked away with tens of millions of dollars for screwing up.  They ought to be sued of every asset and every penny they have for shear incompetence and negligence.

[mtraininjax]

Middle class is anyone who is about to file for foreclosure, or so it seems. Bankruptcies in Jax are already at more than 3,200 so far this year. Last year this time, it was only 900, and these are only the ones reported.