Middle Class Lifeboat Blog

by Sarah Anne Edwards
co-author Middle-Class Lifeboat
“Who is the middle-class?” This is the most common question we have been asked while doing dozens of radio interviews this month. Economists answer that question by citing specific income ranges. But the ranges vary widely, anywhere from $25,000 to $250,000. So income doesn’t seem to be the key to why 60% of Americans define themselves as middle class.

Middle class is more of a state of mind than a bank balance. We define ourselves as middle class as long as we feel we’re on track to success and thereby to a happy, secure life. But just what is success?

That is the question John Izzzo, Ph.D., asked 250 people from all walks of life in writing is book Five Secrets You Must Discover before You Die. You might be surprised at the answers he got.

First, he found that 84% of people he interviewed reported that “having money beyond a basic level of comfort did not increase their personal happiness.”  Second, he found that 81% said the most important factor in career happiness was “being true to yourself.”

Psychologist and associate professor at Knox College, Tim Kasser
goes a step further in disconnecting happiness from material success. In his books, The High Price of Materialism and Psychology and Consumer Culture, The Struggle for a Good Life in a Materialistic World, Kasser summarizes extensive research to show that after reaching a basic level of comfort, continually striving for more money and more things actually works against our sense of happiness. 

In writing Middle-Class Lifeboat, we found that in choosing to pursue new lifestyles and sometimes new careers, the people we interviewed had re-defined success. It no longer meant making more money or owning more things. They were stepping out of our materialistic consumer culture and found they were HAPPIER!!

So instead of aspiring to some externally-measured, material definition of success, perhaps it’s time for us to re-evaluate what makes us happy and define that as success. What would that be for you? How would it be different from what society defines as “success?”

by Sarah Anne Edwards
co-author Middle-Class Lifeboat

A new USA Today/Gallop poll says most says Americans are deeply worried about maintaining their standard of living. 42% say the nation’s economic conditions are poor. 39% percent say it’s fair. 72% say it will be getting worse.

The greatest worry is the rising cost of gasoline and home heating prices, which concerns a whopping 57% Half of the families are worried about maintaining their standard of living. Almost as many are worried about having enough money after they retire, 47%, having to postpone their retirement, 45%, and the rising costs of health care, 43%. Other worries more than one in three people worry about include losing the value of their homes, not being able to afford college tuition or pay off college debt.

But it seems in American hope springs eternal. Although 76% of people think the economy is getting worse,  60% say that they personally will be better off this time next year. Hmm. What accounts for this? (more…)

by Sarah Anne Edwards
author, Middle-Class Lifeboat
  When John Edwards pulled out of the Presidential primary this week, analysts blamed his inability to connect with voters on his message of ending poverty in America. My response was “poverty?” Is that what John Edwards was talking about? I thought he was talking about the protecting the financial security of the everyday working middle class.
  That got me to thinking … just what is poverty these days? When I worked for the War on Poverty in the 1960’s, poverty was about those among us who went to bed hungry every night, who lived on the streets, who didn’t have jobs, or who lived in tenements and rural shacks. There are still the poor among us in this sense, but since that time millions of people in the US have risen out of that kind of poverty.
  But now millions of the non-poor folks are wondering if they’re only one illness or one lay off away from poverty. Why? (more…)