Affluence in the United States

Affluence in the United States refers to an individual's or household's state of being in an economically favorable position in contrast to a given reference group. While there are no precise guidelines or thresholds for what may be considered affluent, the United States Department of Commerce's Bureau of the Census does provide detailed statistical data on the economic state of America's population. Income, measured either by household or individual, is perhaps the most commonly used measure for whether or not a given entity may be considered affluent. The term's usage varies greatly depending on context and speaker. Both an upper middle class person with a personal income of $77,500 annually and a billionaire may be referred to as affluent. If the average American with a median income of roughly $32,000 ($39,000 for those employed full-time between the ages of 25 and 64) was used as a reference group, the upper middle class person with a personal income in the tenth percentile of $77,500 may indeed be referred to as affluent. If compared to an executive of the Fortune 500, however, the upper middle class person would seem anything but affluent. Currently marketing corporations and investment houses classify those with household incomes exceeding $75,000 as mass affluent, while sociologist Leonard Beeghley identifies all those with a net worth of $1 million or more as "rich." The upper class is most commonly defined as the top 1% with household incomes commonly exceeding $250,000 annually. These two figures should be seen only as guidlines based upon the top 1% of a population because net worth exceeding 1 million may be increasingly inaccurate as an upper class indicator as the value of the dollar falls and inflation along with interest and the turn of the century's real estate boom causes more and more people self-classify as millionaires.
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