Well, this question was brought on by a convergence of two things: First, was the arrival of Andrew here at Queercents (a big welcome to him!) and second, I was trying to catch up on some reading… specifically The Economist magazine.

Someone had mentioned previous to Andrew’s debut that those of us who wrote for Queercents all seemed to be middle and upper class and that we needed more input from people like Andrew who were living more “on the edge” so to speak.

It just so happens I was reading the February 14th issue and the Special Report section is titled “Burgeoning Bourgeoisie: A special report on the new middle class in emerging markets.” You can read it at www.economist.com/specialreports if you’re interested.

One of the segments dealt with trying to define what middle class is. Of course, there are several different ways to define them. But the one that seemed to make the most sense to me is one developed by Diana Farrell, a member of the National Economic Council who worked for a consulting company called McKinsey that extensively studied the middle class. It’s called the “One Third Rule” which can be applied across the board pretty much to any country.

The rule is that middle class, as a group,   roughly begins at the point where people have approximately one third of their income left for discretionary spending after covering the costs of basic food and shelter.

While the rule makes sense to me; it did shock me a bit. I would not have put the percentage that high (33%). If asked to make a judgment based on the same premise about food and shelter I would have probably said 20% for the discretionary amount… I guess I would have promulgated the “One Fifth Rule”.

So if you look at your own finances where do you fit in?

After you pay for basic food and shelter do you have one third or more of your pay left to buy goods and services and things that might improve your life like more education?

Or do you fall below the one third mark? And if you do, being American or from the “First World” with all the privilege it entails, do you actually feel deprived because you fall into that particular definition of “poverty”?

And being of the frugal sort that doesn’t like to spend its discretionary income unless you have to does it matter where you fall in the rule?

Photo credit: stock.xchng.