Most Americans Think They’re Middle Class. Here’s What the Bottom 40% Looks Like

My brother wrote a book about fighting in Ukraine. In it, he mentioned that we grew up “working class.”

I thought we grew up middle class. Once I read that, other things started making sense.

When people called Uber exploitative, I was confused. Growing up, few people around us had a car new enough and reliable enough to qualify.

In college, I read a book about teaching in low-income schools. It said poor students move a lot. I went to five elementary schools.

A comedian who grew up low-income wrote a memoir. The culture in it felt like home.

Online reviews praised both books as a window into a whole other world.

Wait. Were we the other world? I knew people who were actually poor. That wasn’t us. I thought we were “normal.”

Almost everyone thinks they’re middle class

A friend whose parents are both doctors told me they were middle class too. A two-doctor household is in the top 20% of US households, likely the top 2%.

If everyone feels middle class, maybe that’s good for national cohesion. But I worry it hides the people at the bottom. Most journalists, government officials, think tank staff, and policy people come from the top 20%. If they think they’re middle class, their picture of everyone below them gets flattened.

For example, the jump from the bottom 20% of household income to the second-bottom quintile feels huge. Growing up, you could tell which one your friends’ families were in. It’s a jump in stability and in income.

Here’s what the two fifths looked like from where I stood. Most of this comes from my brother’s childhood and mine, plus family and close friends. (This is Texan, urban, and likely immigrant-centric.)

The bottom fifth makes under ~$27,000 a year

Often for the bottom fifth, the hard part is the logistics around getting to work.

• The average household has 0.4 earners.Grandparents might be too old. A parent might be in prison, dead, gone, or undocumented. A breadwinner who works full time might earn $7 to $13 an hour. Two breadwinners earning $8 an hour full time are still in this fifth.
• Without childcare, you can only work when someone can watch your kid. Lack of childcare often forces people into part-time work. Also, retail and restaurant shift schedules change every week, so it’s hard to match your shifts to a spouse’s or relative’s to coordinate childcare.
• Without a car, you can only take jobs accessible by foot, bike, or bus. Relying on buses means you must show up 30 to 45 minutes early because buses sometimes come only once an hour. Also, to make sure you’re not late when the bus runs late.
• Families with a car spend about 38% of their income on it. Even a $1,000 car needs insurance, registration, and repairs. My older brother lost his job because he couldn’t afford a car repair. Texas buses were unreliable. A taxi cost as much as he earned in a restaurant shift.
• People are limited to work that fits around kids and benefits. I see family and friends sell plates of food on social media, through friends, or at family members’ jobs. DoorDash is also helpful because you can do it while the kid rides along. Families who rely on Medicaid or SSI must watch how much they earn so they don’t lose their medicine.
• Teenagers work to help the family, if they can get to a job without a car.
• Families move a lot, for better work opportunities or cheaper rent.
• Basics might come from charity or improvising. Back-to-school supplies come from church donations. When toiletries run out, newspaper becomes toilet paper and old shirts become menstrual pads.
• Chores take hours. You and your kids sit at the laundromat through 50 minutes of wash and dry.

The second fifth makes $27,000 to $52,000

Families in the second fifth tend to have a mostly functional car, so at least one adult can hold a full-time job.

• One adult usually works full time for $14 to $25 an hour.
• The family car cost $800 to $5,000. You’re always watching for someone in your network selling a car, because you never know when yours will need a big repair.
• Teenagers start working at 15 or 16, but they keep the money. I bought a car, a computer, nicer clothes, and lunch that wasn’t from the cafeteria.
• There’s room for small treats. We’d get the Subway deal menu about once a week and go to Olive Garden for birthdays.

For both of these fifths, people clip coupons and cook the same six meals. Vacations and “weekends away” aren’t a concept.

Normal is whatever the people around you do

I didn’t feel poor. When we used newspaper or rags as toiletries, I figured other families did too. I only felt different when I met students who travelled on spring break, to summer camps, or took private music lessons.

From where I stood, I was lucky. I got a car right at 16 because my family could drive me to my job (because their cars worked!). Many of my friends, and my older brother, weren’t so lucky.

It works in the other direction too. A college friend felt less well-off growing up because the car their parents gave them looked beat up next to their classmates’ cars. They were in the top fifth but they lived in Greenwich, Connecticut, where the average household makes $376,000.

I didn’t know many students who were gifted a car. But in circles where that’s the norm, it makes sense you’d judge the car by its quality.

Americans increasingly live near people who earn what they do. The average DC household makes $160,000, double El Paso’s. Within each city, people sort again by neighborhood. Almost everyone grows up surrounded by people like them, and feels middle class.

If the people who set policy think they’re middle class, they’ll picture the bottom of the income ladder as their own lives with less money. But families there have different struggles. They are often working toward one steady full-time job.

That’s why I care so much about the basics: healthcare, childcare, transit. For a family in the top fifth, they’re expensive. For a family stuck in the bottom 40%, they dictate whether a parent can work at all.

Positive Sum is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Many bottom-fifth households have no children, so this doesn’t mean a fifth of kids grow up at this income! But the kids who do are obvious to their peers.

People change between the quintiles a lot. We probably reached the middle fifth of $52,000 to $85,000 on a good year.