Tag Archives: middle class

Dunphy’s home from Modern Family isn’t exactly a middle-class home

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The home used as the Phil and Claire Dunphy household on Modern Family is up for sale:

[G]et ready for a blast of memories from “Modern Family,” the Golden Globe & Emmy-winning ABC prime-time comedy that was filmed at 10336 Dunleer Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90064.

The price is $2.35 million, but listing agent Mitch Hagerman of Coldwell Banker Previews International said there’s decent income potential given the fact that TV producers have forked over generous fees for the right to film exterior shots of the property. He said it would be up to the new owners to negotiate with ABC Studios…

The home is a traditional, two-story style and has been impeccably remodeled, complete with crown molding, wood floors and upgraded appliances. It sits on a prime street in the coveted Cheviot Hills neighborhood. Hagerman says the home should sell pretty easily on its own merits.

“It’s a charming, gorgeous, cozy, family-oriented and classic-style home in a fantastic neighborhood where there’s very little inventory,” he said.

The home offers 4 bedrooms with en suite bathrooms, plus a powder room. The home last sold for $1.97 million in 2006.

A nice and expensive home. This is interesting because the Dunphy family is portrayed as being fairly middle-class. Phil is a realtor who is not the most successful or smart (these are running points throughout the shows). Claire recently returned to work, working for her father’s closet business, after not working. Where do they get all of their money? How do they afford such a nice house?

Sociologist Juliet Schor argued in The Overspent American that one problem of post-World War II television is that it showed an increasingly lavish middle-class lifestyle. The evolving image of the middle-class on television showed families with more money and possessions and not much discussion about how they could afford it all. The Dunphys are supposed to look like normal Americans yet their lifestyle is pretty wealthy with little concern about money and pretty nice possessions. Schor suggests portrayals like this pushed more Americans to consume more.

In other words, the show plays off the idea the extended family depicted is a “typical” American family yet its class status is far from what many American families experience.

Sprawling American cities have less inequality

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A new report from the Brookings Institution suggests sprawling American cities have less inequality:

In a new report, All Cities Are Not Created Unequal, Berube compared levels of inequality in fifty large American cities. He found the gap between rich and poor is rising in large cities on the East and West Coasts, while cities in the South and West like Las Vegas, Mesa, and Fort Worth, are more equal, and retain more of what the middle class needs…

“They built a lot more housing over time that has managed to maintain a middle class, and they don’t have sectors of the economy, like finance and technology, that tend to be driving incomes at the upper end of the distribution,” Berube said. “They’ve got sectors like transportation, warehousing, and retail.”

Those are industries, Berube says, where you’re unlikely to strike it very rich, but where a middle-class income is still within reach.

This sounds very much like David Rusk’s argument in Cities Without Suburbs. He suggests what differentiates cities is their elasticity, a measure of how much land they have annexed during their history. Newer cities, particularly in the South and West, have been able to annex more land. This then gives them more residents who might otherwise move to the suburbs, boosting the city’s tax base and mix of residents.

Read the full Brookings report here.

Describing the 20% of temporary rich (“mass affluent”) Americans

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New survey data looks at new rich Americans who draw a lot of attention from companies and who might have outsized political influence:

Fully 20 percent of U.S. adults become rich for parts of their lives, wielding outsize influence on America’s economy and politics. This little-known group may pose the biggest barrier to reducing the nation’s income inequality…

Made up largely of older professionals, working married couples and more educated singles, the new rich are those with household income of $250,000 or more at some point during their working lives. That puts them, if sometimes temporarily, in the top 2 percent of earners…

Companies increasingly are marketing to this rising demographic, fueling a surge of “mass luxury” products and services from premium Starbucks coffee and organic groceries to concierge medicine and VIP lanes at airports. Political parties are taking a renewed look at the up-for-grabs group, once solidly Republican…

In a country where poverty is at a record high, today’s new rich are notable for their sense of economic fragility. They’ve reached the top 2 percent, only to fall below it, in many cases. That makes them much more fiscally conservative than other Americans, polling suggests, and less likely to support public programs, such as food stamps or early public education, to help the disadvantaged…

As the fastest-growing group based on take-home pay, the new rich tend to enjoy better schools, employment and gated communities, making it easier to pass on their privilege to their children…

Sometimes referred to by marketers as the “mass affluent,” the new rich make up roughly 25 million U.S. households and account for nearly 40 percent of total U.S. consumer spending.

This sounds like a group that would call themselves upper middle-class: wealthy enough to enjoy some luxuries and good things for their kids but not wealthy enough to truly compete with the millionaires and CEOs. They resent the idea that they are rich as they think middle-class values, such as hard work and providing for their kids, helped them arrive at their current position.

Yet, when the median household income in the United States is around $50,000 it is hard not see this group as wealthy. To some degree, it is all relative: the mass affluent might not be able to consistently live the high life in Manhattan or San Francisco but they could do really well in cheaper places like the Midwest or Atlanta or Dallas. Perhaps it is the perceived fragility that matters most: losing their job might be enough to move them down back near the median income, though unemployment rates are much lower for the educated and well-trained.

A few questions after reading this article:

1. How big should this group be in the United States?

2. Long-term, which party will capture these voters?

3. Will this group get a lot of negative attention as they are more accessible than the ultra-wealthy who can live more cloistered lives?

Argument: sociologists not aware when they are gentrifiers

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Two sociologists have published a paper that suggests some sociologists are gentrifiers themselves even as they critically address gentrification:

Few groups, Schlichtman contends, are more hypocritical than urbanists discussing gentrification. As he and fellow sociologist Jason Patch write in a rather unusual article in the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, “many (dare we say most — ‘mainstream’ and critical) urbanists are gentrifiers themselves.” They mean this is an academic context, although the charge could reasonably be applied more broadly.

The point is not that these sociologists should stop talking about and researching the process of gentrification, but rather that they could do so with a self-awareness that might lead to a more nuanced understanding of what the word really means. Schlichtman and Patch, themselves, are owning up to the label. (The title of their article: “Gentrifier? Who Me? Interrogating the Gentrifier in the Mirror.”)…

Sociologists have backed themselves into a theoretical corner, he argues, with the caricature of the middle-class, latte-drinking urban pioneer whose inevitable taste for wine bars and boutiques drives up the rent and drives out the poor. If any middle-class presence in a diverse neighborhood is evidence of gentrification, he and Patch write, then it’s impossible for a middle-class person not to gentrify. “Is there any room,” they wonder, “for an ethical housing choice by the middle class?”

Is it necessarily unethical for a white middle-class family that wants to live in a racially and economically diverse neighborhood to move into one? How should that family reconcile that its presence on the block may signal unwelcome change to neighbors? As we’ve previously written, the idea of fair housing is as much about opening up high-opportunity neighborhoods to low-income people as it is enabling new investment in traditionally disinvested places, some of which will encourage new families to move in.

This leads me to a few thoughts:

1. I’m not sure there is much publishing space for sociologists to reflect on their own actions or own identities. For example, anthropologists are often open about their own personal backgrounds when writing an ethnography but sociologists are more tight-lipped. Perhaps this has to do with sociology’s more scientific aspirations.

2. I’ve seen how this plays out when talking about McMansions around sociologists. In that case, they are often quick to distance themselves from such homes.

3. What exactly do sociologists think about the middle class? Take the middle class choosing (or being pushed toward by policies and powerful interests) suburbia: this has been criticized by all sorts of academics for decades. What about the values and cultural preferences of the middle class? I remember one sociologist suggesting to a class that if they wanted to interact with regular Americans, they should go to Walmart. But, how many sociologists would want to go to Walmart or shop there themselves?

New TV shows with young adults feature unrealistically large city apartments

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The dwellings of many young adults on television are quite large:

Plenty of things are unrealistic about television: No iconic moment in my life has ever been accompanied by Ellie Goulding’s “Anything Can Happen,” despite how much I wish it were. But the perpetual tiny-but-annoying quirk that most shows are guilty of is the unemployed twentysomething with a fabulous apartment. I’m onto you, Girls: No matter how much junk you throw around in Marnie and Hannah’s onetime-shared living space, it doesn’t hide the fact that they’ve got a ton of room. I live in New York City; I know you’re lying to me.

This isn’t anything new, of course. The go-to example is usually Carrie Bradshaw and her ridiculous Manhattan apartment with its gorgeous walk-in closet full on Manolos when her only source of explained income was a weekly newspaper column. But while everyone loves some good 1998 nostalgia (the Friends’ West Village apartments are another egregious example), the trend of the unbelievably large home isn’t fading away.

I’m not simply talking about gorgeous, jealousy-inspiring apartments; I totally get and buy into the fact that say, Dr. Lahiri from The Mindy Project would have an awe-worthy living space to bring all of her meet-cute boyfriends. What I can’t get behind is recent shows like dearly-departed Happy Endings (perpetually unemployed Max’s “gross loft” in Chicago is gorgeous) or 2 Broke Girls‘ Williamsburg, Brooklyn, apartment (They’re supposed to actually be broke, not heiresses!) where the characters ostensibly “have no money,” yet are somehow chilling around complaining about said fact in an abode that would retail for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Sure, this is a minor issue. None of this is getting in the way of my enjoyment of all of these shows. But there is some point during each of these programs’ respective runs — often more than once — where I’ll laugh out loud at the sheer ridiculousness of it. It’s all I can do; I can’t change the channel: basically all shows with twenty-something characters are guilty of this. Weirdly enough, the most realistic living set-up on television right now might be the Big Brother house, with all 16 of its residents fighting in a Hunger Games of sorts for limited bed space.

Several quick thoughts:

1. If Big Brother is perceived to be more realistic, these other shows may have some problems.

2. Of the examples cited above, most of the urban apartments are in New York City with one in Chicago (Happy Endings). Manhattan and some of the surroundings areas are some of the most expensive areas in the country so the housing situation as portrayed on TV is really unrealistic. At the same time, TV shows with young adults in places like Atlanta or Houston or Dallas or some other cheaper markets could feature bigger apartments without losing all realism.

3. This is not a new phenomenon on TV. In The Overspent American, sociologist Juliet Schor talks about the expanding middle-class lifestyle on television in the later decades of the 20th century. As the years went by, middle-class people on TV had more and more material goods, larger houses, and had fewer concerns about work and money. Schor then argues that TV contributed to changing perceptions among Americans in what they needed to own to have “the good life.”

4. Shows on channels like HGTV don’t help. It seems like every show features a person looking for the most-updated features. Granted, their price range varies quite a bit but the homes tend to be on the larger side. This is simply unrealistic for many emerging adults.

5. There is potential here for some TV shows to work with more size-appropriate dwellings. How about a show about young people revolving around micro-apartments? How about bringing back the starter home on TV?

American middle class worried about downward mobility

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A new poll suggests the American middle class is anxious about falling out of the middle class:

That’s the deeply ambivalent message from the latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll exploring the public’s perception of what it means to be middle class in America today. Fully 56 percent of those surveyed said they believe they will eventually climb to a higher rung on the economic ladder than they occupy now. But even more said they worry about falling into a lower economic class sometime in the next few years. Reaffirming the results in earlier Heartland Monitor polls, most of those surveyed said the middle class today enjoys less opportunity, job security, and disposable income than earlier generations did. And strikingly small percentages of American adults said they consider it “very realistic” that they can meet such basic financial goals as paying for their children’s college, retiring comfortably, or saving “enough money to … deal with a health emergency or job loss.”

In all, the survey suggests that after years of economic turmoil, most families now believe the most valuable–and elusive–possession in American life isn’t any tangible acquisition, such as a house or a car, but rather economic security. Asked to define what it means to be middle class, a solid 54 percent majority of respondents picked “having the ability to keep up with expenses and hold a steady job while not falling behind or taking on too much debt”; a smaller percentage defined it in terms of getting ahead and accumulating savings. “It seems like that class of the people just live from paycheck to paycheck,” said Dale High, a trucker from near Idaho Falls, Idaho, who responded to the poll. “Everything is going up, but wages are staying the same. And people can’t live like that.”

Several quick thoughts:

1. Is this mainly the result of the current economic conditions? In other words, if the American economy rebounded significantly in the next few years, would the middle class again be more optimistic? I’m wondering if this is a temporary anxiety or is this a longer-term insecurity based on a perception that the world and their position within it is more fragile than before.

2. This seems related to research that suggests people feel losses more deeply than equivalent gains. Moving down is much more influential than moving up.

3. How do these perceptions actually line up with economic realities? Here is one indicator:

People who responded to the Allstate/National Journal poll reported a substantial amount of economic churning in their own lives–showing, again, a close balance between upward and downward mobility in American life. Exactly 30 percent of those surveyed reported they had risen from a lower economic class, and 27 percent said they had slipped down from a higher class. Forty-three percent had seen no movement at all…

This fear of losing ground is rooted in the conviction that, in the past few years, downward mobility has become much more common than upward movement. Asked whether more Americans recently had “earned or worked their way into the middle class” or had “fallen out of the middle class because of the economy,” almost eight times as many respondents took the bleaker view.

So how much “economic churning” is acceptable? Where do these ideas that people are falling behind at larger rates coming from – statistics about stagnant median household incomes, anecdotal evidence from family, friends, and neighbors, media coverage, etc.?

4. I wonder if this is also related to American interest in keeping up with others. Critics have argued that American consumption and life in suburbia has been motivated by “keeping up with the Joneses.” Is this still the case when times are tougher – people don’t want to fall behind relative to others around them? There is also some measure of generational comparison in this poll data – perhaps future generations will have it tougher in living in a “decent life.”

Politicians trying to woo the ambigiously defined middle class

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Amidst an election cycle where all sides want to woo the middle class, several researchers suggest that providing an exact definition of the middle class is difficult:

“You can’t define middle class, but you can ask people, ‘Do you still feel middle class?’ And more and more people don’t,” said Tim Smeeding, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin…

“The whole attraction of middle class … is it doesn’t mean anything,” said Dennis Gilbert, a sociology professor at Hamilton College who studies class issues. “Middle class means anybody who might vote for you.”…

Still, experts say the term middle class has a cultural connotation that goes beyond the number on your paycheck or tax stub.

Kevin Leicht, director of the Iowa Social Science Research Center at the University of Iowa, said many Americans think of a middle-class life as being one in which you have a stable job, own your own home and occasionally buy something substantial like a new car. You also either went to college or have the aspiration of sending your children to college.

I would disagree with Gilbert and agree with Leicht and Smeeding. When asked, Americans do tend to feel they are middle class, the recent economic crisis notwithstanding. The middle class in America is more of an idea than a clearly-defined category that people move in and out of. Cultural categories can be powerful, perhaps even more so than economic realities.

Recently, the Brookings Institution defined six likely life stages a middle-class person goes through and in 2010, a government task force tied being middle class to six outcomes. It is not impossible to set such criteria for measurement purposes but they do not match up with everyone who would call themselves middle class.

Speaking of politicians looking for middle-class votes, I haven’t seen journalists or scholars discussing how this wooing developed in American political history. How long has this wooing been taking place? Is this primarily a post-World War II phenomenon or does it have a longer history? I wonder if the middle class only matters here because it is in this period of history that politicians think there are a large number of voters to be swayed in this category…

Economic crisis hits black middle class particularly hard

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The economic crisis may have hurt a lot of Americans but it didn’t necessarily hurt everyone equally. Recent reports suggest the black middle-class was particularly hard hit.

The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Economic Mobility Project recently released a report projecting that 68 percent of African-Americans reared in the middle of the wealth ladder will not do as well as the previous generation.

In August, the National Urban League’s State of Black America 2012 report found that nearly all the economic gains that the black middle class made during the last 30 years have been wiped out by the economic downturn…

From 2005 to 2009, the average black household’s wealth fell by more than half, to $5,677, while white household wealth fell 16 percent to $113,149, according to the Pew Research Center. In 2009, 24 percent of black households had no major assets other than a vehicle, compared with 6 percent of their white counterparts.

“For every $20 whites have in wealth, blacks have just $1,” said Paul Taylor, director of Pew’s Social and Demographic Trends project. “And in many cases, households get a boost because they inherit wealth from parents and grandparents. Blacks for most of history haven’t been able to accumulate that type of wealth.”

Mary Pattillo, a Northwestern University professor and expert on the black middle class, said this segment of the population is so fragile because it’s disproportionately lower middle class.

This is a reminder that the “American Dream” can be quite fragile. Even if the idea of being middle-class is quite powerful in America, tough economic times which lead to job less or housing issues can erase hard-earned material gains. Since whites had on average higher levels of wealth compared to blacks going into the economic crisis, they were able to better weather the storm.

Brookings: who reaches middle-class affected by race, family’s social class, gender

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A new report from the Brookings Institution examines who makes it to the middle class through achieving a number of benchmarks. A summary of the findings:

The study breaks life down into stages (for instance, adolescence) and gives benchmarks for each of those stages (in that case, graduation from high school with a grade-point average above 2.5, no criminal convictions and no involvement in a teenage pregnancy).

They then studied children over time, analyzing whether they met those benchmarks and projecting whether they would make it to the middle class — defined as the top three quintiles of income — by age 40.

Unsurprisingly, the researchers found that success seems to beget success — meeting each benchmark makes one more likely to meet the next. Moreover, the effect accumulates. A child who meets all the criteria from birth to adulthood has an 81 percent chance of being middle class. A child who meets none has only a 24 percent chance…

Race matters as well. About two in five black adolescents met the benchmark of graduating from high school with a decent grade point average, no children and no criminal record by the age of 19. About two in three white adolescents did.

And from the introduction of the Brookings report:

The reality is that economic success in America is not purely meritocratic. We don’t have as much equality of opportunity as we’d like to believe, and we have less mobility than some other developed countries. Although cross-national comparisons are not always reliable, the available data suggest that the U.S. compares unfavorably to Canada, the Nordic countries, and some other advanced countries. A recent study shows the U.S. ranking 27th out of 31 developed countries in measures of equal opportunity.

People do move up and down the ladder, both over their careers and between generations, but it helps if you have the right parents. Children born into middle-income families have a roughly equal chance of moving up or down once they become adults, but those born into rich or poor families have a high probability of remaining rich or poor as adults. The chance that a child born into a family in the top income quintile will end up in one of the top three quintiles by the time they are in their forties is 82 percent, while the chance for a child born into a family in the bottom quintile is only 30 percent. In short, a rich child in the U.S. is more than twice as likely as a poor child to end up in the middle class or above.

This shouldn’t be too surprising: despite the American cultural emphasis on working hard and getting ahead (a story told by both political parties at their 2012 conventions), certain traits increase the likelihood of achieving a middle-class life. Hard work only goes so far; other social factors such as family background, race, and gender make a difference.

I am intrigued by how the report defines the middle-class life stages as defined by the Social Genome Model (p.3-4 of the report):

1. Family Formation. Born at normal birth weight to a non-poor, married mother with at least a high school diploma.

2. Early childhood. Acceptable pre-reading and math skills AND behavior generally school-appropriate.

3. Middle childhood. Basic reading and math skills AND Social-emotional skills.

4. Adolescence. Graduates from high school w/GPA >= 2.5 AND Has not been convicted of a crime nor become a parent.

5. Transition to adulthood. Lives independently AND Receives a college degree or has a family income >= 250% of the poverty level.

6. Adulthood. Reaches middle class (family income at least 300% of the poverty level).

Why exactly these stages?