Is It Classy to be Poor?
“Wanna get food?”
“I’m so broke right now.”
The words leave my mouth, but my body continues walking towards Chipotle, and I’m already deciding whether I want guacamole or not. It wasn’t the first time, and it certainly won’t be the last time I overspend on food. We’ve all been there. A daily sweet treat before class, a late night craving for Taco Bell, a Doordash order when you’re too lazy to cook. College is exhausting, exams are brutal, time is money, and there is invaluable solace in good food.
The New York City food scene is truly unbeatable. In the city that never sleeps, it’s never too late to grab a meal. With that being said, it’s also ridiculously expensive. A chicken bowl that costs me $10.29 back home in New Jersey goes for $12.52 in the city. Even when I transitioned to cooking at home, the grocery bills still quickly piled up. And as a busy college student, the time I spent shopping and cooking was such a hassle—but anything to save a few dollars here and there. I’m only one of millions of people in New York struggling to find the balance between budgeting and time management. New York City’s affordability crisis is so widespread that there’s a dedicated segment in the New York Times that follows the different incomes and lifestyles of New Yorkers across the city to understand just how people are getting by.
One title I stumbled upon: How a Family of 3 Lives on $500,000 on the Upper West Side - The New York Times. Classic rich Upper West Side family.
“I think we’re middle class for this area,” Mr. O’Leary, a software engineer and one half of the $500K family said. “We’re doing OK.”
That line made me pause. $500K and middle class in the same sentence? I continued reading, and their list of expenses nearly made me double over with laughter. $340 on membership to Central Park Zoo and the American Museum of Natural History, $9,000 for online shipping of baby supplies, $150 on drop off laundry a month, $900 for groceries a month, $500 on eating out a month, dog care for $370, and 3,900 for rent. Oh, and an extra $10,000 that the O’Learys put aside each month for savings.
“While they make a good living, they try to be frugal and are saving money to buy an apartment,” the article explains.
Their expenses, to me, were everything but frugal. And they certainly don’t have to be. With a combined income of $500K, being frugal would be the last thing on my mind. Art memberships, laundry services, eating out, and even online shopping—to me, these are all luxuries that could easily be reduced if my goal was to budget my expenses and save up for an apartment. To be able to comfortably put aside $10,000 a month and still afford all of these expenses screams wealthy–or at the very least upper middle class. Considering that the median income for households in the Upper West Side is $155K, the O’Leary’s assertion that they’re middle class feels delusional at best and ignorant at worst.
But what truly is "middle class"? Just going off income doesn’t fully capture a person or family’s true financial status. $80K could go a long way in Oklahoma, for instance, where the median income is only $67K,. But in Los Angeles, where the median income is $90K, $80K might require a bit of budgeting to maintain. Children, health, and debt are all factors that can make the same income stretch thin for another family. In recent years, the middle class has become a social construct. Rather than being a category of financial status, being middle class is a state of mind. It’s being able to live comfortably, splurge here and there, but still feel the necessity of staying mindful of your finances. Younger adults and older adults are more likely to consider themselves middle class even with lower incomes, while middle-aged adults, despite higher incomes, are less likely to claim that label. The middle class is then further divided into lower middle class and upper middle class. Still, there is no clear distinction or cutoff between each level. This ambiguity has blurred the lines between wealth classes.
Middle class has become a shield of sorts, a defense mechanism to protect the egos of the rich. In an era where the working class chants “Eat the rich,” no one wants to be eaten. A family like the O’Learys who make $500K a year, certainly leads a completely different lifestyle than the one that Jeff Bezos enjoys, but in the same vein, their life in the Upper West Side is unfathomable to many Americans–or even many New Yorkers. While I certainly agree that the upper class and wealthy individuals can’t compare to the damage that the one percent inflict on society, their level of privilege can’t simply be ignored in face of a greater evil. Denying your wealth and rewriting the constraints of the middle class to shield yourself from a narrowed look here and there disproportionately impacts real middle class families. If 500K is the new standard for middle class in the city, how many landlords would feel justified in raising their rents and increasing deposits to reflect the high number? We become desensitized to outlandish displays of wealth and form warped understandings to what a middle class lifestyle can truly afford. Everyone wants to call themselves middle class while reaping the benefits of a clearly upper class tax bracket. This is the paradox: if everyone is middle class, then there is no middle class.
As a low income student at NYU, I’ve been completely boggled by the immense levels of wealth and privilege some of my peers enjoy. But what truly confounds me is their lack of awareness towards it. I’ve heard incessant claims that they’re “just middle class” and “comfortable” while recounting their multiple residences across the country or yearly summer vacations abroad. Calling yourself middle class is safe. Because the definition of the middle class is so varied, it leaves room for wealthy individuals to slither their way in and deflect their true status and privilege. At schools like NYU, the wealth gap is gaping. The glamorous college life in the city is only possible with mom and dad’s credit card and full installment payments for tuition.
I’ve been told multiple times how “lucky” I am to receive a full scholarship from NYU while their parents are stuck paying full tuition for them to be here. I wonder if they know what they deem lucky was a childhood of never having enough. It even bleeds into my lifestyle in the city: skipping meals to save money, skimping portions to make groceries last longer, working 2 jobs to support myself. Even eating out just once every few weeks feels like I’m bleeding my pockets dry. There’s been an overwhelming rhetoric that the financial aid system and FAFSA is unfair towards the middle class, especially regarding NYU’s financial aid and the NYU Promise. But when the median income in the US is $83K, and the NYU Promise covers tuition for families making under $100K, it’s hard for me to empathize with them. When wealthy individuals deem themselves "middle class", it centers their experiences and ignores the real struggles of the middle class. Financial aid exists to make college accessible and equitable for all students, but as upper class families push the idea that the middle class is wealthier than they really are, the true needs of the middle class are forgotten.
Families like the O’Learys are part of the problem. In an area like New York City where the wealth gap between communities is like day and night, it's a disservice to the middle class families across the city to be grouped together with a family that makes $500K a year. New York was built by the poor, by aspiring artists, hopeful immigrants, the underdog chasing a dream. Now the very people that made New York the vibrant city of dreams are being driven out by privileged elites, their neighborhoods sterilized into cookie cutter neighborhoods. The Tenement museum is cast aside to build glittering casinos in Chinatown; Greenwich Village’s legacy as the heart of the LGBT movements and haven for artists and museums are rewritten to be matcha and fancy boutiques; St. Mark’s Place, once home to the punk rock scene, is now overrun with expensive bars and uppity college students. Time and time again, New York City is hollowed out into a shell of what it once stood for. As more and more native New Yorkers flee the city’s growing cost of living, the wealthy move in and clear away their homes, their businesses, their childhood, their community for high rises and Blank Street cafes, it’s time to point a finger their way too.