OT. Middle Class

[Dean Hoffman]

This article says it takes a little under $24K per year to be middle class in Cleveland, OH. It takes a little over $104K per year to be middle class in Fremont, CA.

[rbowman]

I think the DailyMail flunked their maths curriculum.

The median income for a household in the city was $30,907. The per capita income for the city was $21,223. 32.7% of the population living below the poverty line.

Middle class means slightly above the poverty line?

[Cindy Hamilton]

The poverty line in Ohio is $23,020 for a family of three.

I think the article was written by an AI. It make me wonder if the paper edition of the Daily Mail is printed on TP. That certainly would be convenient.

"That data also indicated that it was the most difficult to become middle class in those cities - with six-figure incomes required whereas households in most cities across the country needed five-figure incomes as low as $30,000."

Last time I checked, $21,223 was lower than $30,000.

I tried to dive down into the Daily Mail's sources and gave up when I hit a dead link. This might be the source:

They (and Pew Research, at least) define middle class as a range around the median income. That certainly gives a range for "middle income", but whether it equates to "middle class" is debatable. We can argue all day long about the definition of "middle class"; plenty of statisticians do exactly that.

I am gratified to see that Detroit is doing a little better than Cleveland. It brings a tear to my eye that my birthplace sucks a little less.

[Scott Lurndal]

The sources for your "news" are not particularly reliable. The daily news is a tabloid (so take every story with a shaker of salt). The other sources you use (pundit) are complete fake news or (bee) parody.

[rbowman]

It's all relative... Even in the '70s when I flew into Cleveland it, er, wasn't quite what I expected.

In the '80s I went up to Detroit mainly for the Ford museums. I had supper in Greektown and took a walk down to the RenCen afterwards. I was impressed by the helicopters with searchlights flying along the river. It looked very Blade Runnerish.

The last time was making a connection at the airport. Of course the arrival gate and departure gate were as far apart as possible. The constant reminders not to leave your luggage unintended in 23 languages I don't speak added to the ambiance. The Skytrain People Mover thing wasn't moving, of course.