Middle Class Mystery
May 19th, 2008 -- Posted in American Politics | No Comments »Well I was surfing the internet when it occurred to me that this election has created so many websites on both sides of the political divide. Each of these sites is seeking its own audience and information in order to give it an edge with its readers. I spent two hours on Sunday looking through some Senate votes before I found the Washington Post project. I never imagined that I could spend a Sunday afternoon doing that but in all honesty I really enjoyed that research and found it fascinating in terms of who vote for what and when.
During my trek around the internet today, I found this great site called factcheck.org where they had a great factual analysis of some of the things Senator McCain has said with regards to the budget. I am going to post the video at the bottom of this post but the one issue I did want to touch on was Tax cuts. Tax cuts are great but I believe like most liberals that the Bush Tax Cuts went to the wrong person which is the wealthier half of society. John McCain wants to renew these Tax cuts for “middle-class people” but like many Democrats, I want them to expire and go towards the “real middle class.”
What is the middle class? The video correctly describes the term as a ’spin-term’ because the parties on both sides of the divide can use it to prove their respective points. First of all, my definition of middle-class is people who earn between $35,000 and $75,000 based upon my living in Massachusetts and the amount of money I believe you would need to live comfortably. The official American Heritage definition is:
The socioeconomic class between the working class and the upper class, usually including professionals, highly skilled laborers, and lower and middle management.
Since the tax breaks are based on income level, this definition does not suit us for discussion purposes. Thankfully the people over at the PEW Research Center published an article about the Middle Class recently in which they defined the Middle Class as:
When we refer to those who are “middle income,” we are describing the 35% of adults who live in a household where the annual income falls within 75% to 150% of the national median (a standard yardstick in economic literature about income dispersion).
The national median as of 2006 is $63,955 therefore someone is technically defined as a middle class citizen if they fall between the range of 75% of $63,955 or 150% of that amount. The lower end of the bracket for middle class would be $47,966 and the higher end would be $95,932. These are the kinds of people who deserve the tax cuts if not the lower middle class. Anyway enjoy the video and let me know what you think?
