Why Do Some Rich Families Feel So Middle Class?
The debate over who should qualify for a stimulus check raises questions about where the middle of the U.S. income spectrum really sits.
It takes a lot of money to be middle class in Silicon Valley.
Photographer: Michael Short/BloombergBack in 1972, New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael was incorrectly quoted as saying she couldn’t understand how Richard Nixon had won a 49-state landslide since she didn’t know anyone who’d voted for him. The anecdote is often trotted out as an example of liberal snobbery and indifference to “ordinary” Americans. Kael’s actual quote was more self-aware: “I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.”
Nevertheless, the debate over President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan certainly appears to have exposed a pronounced cluelessness among some urban elites. As Congress haggled for weeks over who exactly should be eligible for assistance, some high-earning households argued that they, too, should qualify as “middle class” and receive full stimulus checks.