USA middle & upper mc.. How do they compare to UK & Irish MC & UC

[Merryandbright1]

Big difference for me (have family on the East Coast) is the mc style in the East Coast is very preppy (Ralph Lauren, Kate Spade.. Plus Tommy Hilfigger for the teens), understated. And the children do very expensive activities.

Like if you said someone was 'a total D4', you were saying so much!

@CarolinaInTheMorning what is so interesting about the USA is the way the different coasts & the different states will have different class markers... Obviously the East Coast is the most obvious for outsiders to spot, you can just tell the mc & umc preppy types a mile off. Understated, very wealthy & very well educated.. But obviously they will know their equivalents throughout the states.. Ivy League schools etc are a common denominator for the upper classes

Even worse if they were "wannabe D4s" 🤣🤣

This thread is absurd. Forget the xenophobia in the cultural desert comment, it's also racist. The Native Americans were here for thousands of years before any white people showed up.

MC in the USA means everyone who isn't very poor or very rich, so there's levels within that. it is about both money and education: there is a difference between an accountant and someone who works in his family's plumbing supply business, but they'll both consider themselves middle class. And as such anything like style is going to vary by location, racial/ethnic subculture, and income level. The American side of my family would laugh at the idea they're all supposed to be understated preppy WASPs. Although, Ralph Lauren - né Ralph Lifschitz.

Also, most people in the US will avoid using a term that has been mentioned several times on this thread.

https://thesocietypages.org/clippings/2018/09/12/how-the-term-white-trash-reinforces-white-supremacy/

I'm an east coast American and what would be considered upper middle class here. The ivy League schools grant about two percent of the university degrees here and the upper class is certainly larger than that. And it's not the key to success it was fifty years ago. An art history degree from Harvard or Columbia won't get you a great job, but a STEM degree from almost anywhere will. My son graduated from a small college in New England you never heard of and now has a high paying job at a big four firm.

DH and I didn't grow up preppy and neither did DS or DD. DD goes to a very exclusive college you have likely never heard of and is doing a double major in neurobiology and data science. She'll have her pick of jobs when she graduates.

As another American has tried to say on this thread, ‘middle class’ does not have the same meaning at all in the US as it does in the UK. US middle class is closer to what the UK calls working class, it means something like ‘everyday folk’, and will often be used to talk about people who are struggling. It’s a ‘false friend’.

I agree that middle class has the connotation of "everyday folk" in the US. But I think that it has broader application than what would be considered working class in the UK.

But definitely when politicians talk about focusing on the middle class as they often do, they are definitely using that "everyday folk" connotation.

Street style needs streets.

It's alive and kicking in inner city African American areas, and there is Hispanic street style too, in the barrio.

How long have you lived in the US?
Presumably there's some lived experience behind your trenchant judgement?

Congratulations on your literacy.

That depends on your racial and cultural background. The preppy thing applies to just a segment of the population, a large number of young people find it laughable.

🤣

No she hasn't.

She's just parroted a silly cliche.

"Money and flash cars", LOL.

British people speak sagely about the American class system as if Americans gave a rat's ass about class. It's entirely your own preoccupation.

It's all projection. You want everyone to reflect yourselves back at you.

Every discussion I have ever seen on MN about class divisions in the US is full of misguided projections based on class prejudices in the UK.

And, of course, a little bit of American bashing to stir the pot.

Utter BS, needless to say. It's as if you think Americans go about their days with their radar primed for class markers. Frankly, they don't care.

You must have lived in a different Ireland than I did. They might not say working class or middle class but they replaced it with the word respectable, and judged by what farm or house/houses the family owned.

Agree with @Liorae wrt Ireland and the coded terminology.

there is a difference between an accountant and someone who works in his family's plumbing supply business, but they'll both consider themselves middle class.
Yes, the difference is that the plumber earns more.

There is plenty of street style here in America but just like in the UK it’s not emanating from the wealthy MC/UMC. It’s working class kids who live in areas where they are sharing ideas and music in close proximity. I remember growing up in London and going to some MC parties with kids who went to private school and finding their clothes and music so cringe as they were so out of touch which what was actually happening in the local area. They were loud and opinionated of course, but definitely not cool.

Same in the US.

Living in the US you have a social structure.

WASPs - No one likes this group. Referred to as snobs and English.

Billionaires - some self made and some inherited. These people are worshipped. These people are upper class.

Millionaires ($100m+) - Deep respect. Seen as worthy. These people are upper class.

Millionaires ($50-100m) - bottom rung of upper class in the majority of cases.

These upper class groups will tend to have certain things in common such as large donations to financial institutions, Ivy League education as a legacy student is standard and they have a family office with a foundation.

Millionaires ($10-50m) top rung of upper middle class in the majority of cases.

Millionaires ($1-10m) upper middle class. Normally have a bachelor and masters degree, not necessarily from an Ivy League school

$500k-$1m middle class. A health incident will floor them.

$100-500k working class. They are mainly pay period to pay period.

$0-100k poor/destitute. This group is so very vulnerable. Mainly illegal immigrants.

As you move from the coasts you can adjust the numbers a little bit but honestly not that much. What’s interesting to me is how certain upper class people are socially excluded. A good example is Ivana Trump and her husband Jared Kushner. Both have an Ivy League education because their parents donated to the schools they attended. Ivana has never been accepted by nyc society.

Brits need to understand that most Americans hate the English and Americans don’t differentiate between being British and being English.

Again, your usa seems different from mine. It seems my 30+ years in New England differ wildly from yours.

Can people please just IGNORE @Cam22 - s/he/it has form for coming onto threads to tediously nitpick. It doesn’t matter what the topic is.

God only knows what its life is like outside MN than this ^^ little hobby constitutes a good time… <sympathetic / patronising head title>

Mm, everyone likes to say that, but it's not true. Not all plumbers are raking it in, and I know accountants who are making a lot of money. It's a tired stereotype. A CPA can easily make $150K if not more, very few plumbers make that unless they own the company.

Also the numbers for MC/UMC there are absurd. earning $500K a year puts you in the top 1% (though the truly rich in the US don't get their money from salaries). The only place you can make over $300K and cry middle class is Manhattan. $500K working class, on what planet? Destitute at six figures when the average household income in the USA is $70K?

I'm not going to divulge my financial details, but I have a master's degree, live in a major metro area, have a household income well under $500K - and we own a house, have children, can afford eldest's state university tuition next year (could not afford full cost of high end private, but that's a whole other numbers ballgame), and have retirement funds. Working class my arse. Not that there's anything wrong with being working class but it's insulting to people who are really struggling.