The have-lots who are struggling on £370k a year - Daily Mail

[shelivesthedream]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2764595/Squeezed-upper-middle-hard-maintain-private-education-huge-properties-despite-six-figure-salaries.html

You have to love the Daily Mail. There are, actually, a few interesting kernels in here:

- The table of what it takes to be in the 1% now and in 1989
- Reference to a book about Inequality and the 1%

[nereo]

quote summarizes all: "The upper middles have an ‘unrealistic vision of the world’, according to Mr York, because they constantly compare themselves with the super-rich."

The working class feel poor because they can't have all the things the middle class has.  The working professionals feel poor because they can't have all the things that the wealthy have.  The wealthy feel poor because they can't have all the things the super-rich are buying.  The super-rich feel poor because some sheik just bought a bigger yacht than they have. 

The table of what defines the 1% is nice, but I wish such comparisons came with the caveat "*in the most expensive city in one of the wealthiest countries on earth."

[Albert]

The table of what defines the 1% is nice, but I wish such comparisons came with the caveat "*in the most expensive city in one of the wealthiest countries on earth."

Yes, albeit I suspect that there is less difference between Brazilian and US top 1% than between top 25% in the same countries. Many developing countries have even more skewed income distribution than we are familiar with.

[farmstache]

The table of what defines the 1% is nice, but I wish such comparisons came with the caveat "*in the most expensive city in one of the wealthiest countries on earth."

Yes, albeit I suspect that there is less difference between Brazilian and US top 1% than between top 25% in the same countries. Many developing countries have even more skewed income distribution than we are familiar with.

Definitely. I calculated from my income (last year it was about 100k Reais - about 50k USD a year for the two of us), and it put us in about the 5% bracket. Inequality here is much much worse.

I'm a loooong ways from the 1% but my richer friends from school had houses in Miami and travelled the world, did exchange programs with Swiss schools, had Yatchs and whatnot. I honestly don't feel too different from similar-income people or even a bit higher in other countries, since I grew up in a R$300k/year household - maybe USD$150k. That should put us at the top 2% or 3%. Even we went overseas a few times, bought a 50' sailing boat, had beach houses (notice the plural?), and went to private school with all those very rich kids. It took me a while after school and way into college to realize we were really high class, and not middle class like everyone at school thought of themselves. Humbling lesson for sure. My parents were frugal comparingly, they actually had to save to have the beach house and we had scholarships to school, so I always considered myself more middle class than my peers... and then I realized we were still living the high life.

So basically: almost surely the lifestyle of our top 1% is extremely similar to the top 1% in the US. Just change the location of most stuff (but they still went skiing in Aspen and Boulder, spend summers in Greece and Bahamas, etc). Also we have a few guys on the Fortune 500 list. Just not as many as the US.