It’s not. If you can’t afford a dentist you’re not middle class. IDK where dude lives, but I make $100k in a major metro area in the USA and consider myself middle class. My family still qualifies for partial forgiveness from medical bills.
I’m middle class and I haven’t been able to afford to go to the dentist is about 20 years.
That doesn’t sound right.
fishy@lemmy.today 1 day ago
doingthestuff@lemy.lol 1 day ago
[deleted]fishy@lemmy.today 1 day ago
My area introduced tiers for medical forgiveness based on household income, even if I made twice as much there’d still be some degree of assistance. May be worth looking into for your family.
doingthestuff@lemy.lol 1 day ago
[deleted]GunValkyrie@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Man that must be rough. Poor people only have to worry about where their next meal is coming from and whether they can afford rent. I can’t imagine having to deal with repairing my house.
FYI. Not trying to say you don’t have struggles or challenges. But to say that it’s harder to live like that than being even more poor is insane. Just like the rich people this thread is about.
doingthestuff@lemy.lol 1 day ago
[deleted]GunValkyrie@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yeah, again I’m not saying you don’t have struggles. I get it. But to phrase it in a way that suggests you have it worse than poorer people is insane. These people don’t have half the shit you do.
LilB0kChoy@lemm.ee 1 day ago
That’s because the term “middle class” without context doesn’t mean much.
My wife and I life in the Twin Cities metro in Minnesota and we meet the definition of middle class for this part of the country which ranges for our state from ~$55k to ~$150k if going based on income.
We have almost no retirement savings but we have tens of thousands in the bank, we have a mortgaged home, two cars 6 years or newer with one completely paid off, in the last 3 years we’ve had to replace our AC, furnace, water heater, water softener, stove, refrigerator, dishwasher and garage door. We have also chosen to replace our kitchen counter, front door and front walk/patio as well as add a fence and dog door. All of this we paid for up front in cash.
We carry no debt outside of my student loans which I pay on every month as well as one car loan and our mortgage. We both go to the dentist and get all needed medical care.
Caveats to this are we don’t have kids and I can’t imagine how difficult it would be if we did. We also live pretty simple lives. We’ve always lived in a fashion so that we could afford our basic expenses on one income because my wife and I both lived very poor, check-to-check lives when we were younger.
I don’t think middle class truly exists anymore. You either can afford to live now or you can’t, it’s just by how much and where.
Dasus@lemmy.world 1 day ago
eattherichtextformat.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/
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