Middle Class Life on a Lower-Class Paycheck

As a recent college graduate (Can I still say that?), I’ve never really made much money.  I’ve had part-time jobs, summer jobs, loan money, gift money, but nothing really substantial. Money was never a problem for me, however, because in college, all my friends were in about the same situation. We had a little spending money—nothing crazy, but I never had to worry about rent and I still had a little to go out for drinks, snacks between classes, or shopping. I even had money for things like spring break trips or concert tickets.

This past year, I’ve been living on an Americorp stipend. If you know much about Americorp, you know that’s not a lot of money.  To make matters worse, I live and work in DC—it’s an expensive town!

Needless to say, my lifestyle had to change.  The hard part is, many of my friends don’t really understand just how strict my budget is. There is a huge salary discrepancy between my Americorp stipend  and some of the jobs’ of my friends, colleagues , and acquaintances here in DC.  I found myself calculating and often feeling guilty after 1 drink at 1 happy hour, or bemoaning the price of the cable when it unexpectedly went up. A friend’s birthday came around, and everyone thought it would be a nice idea to split the birthday girl’s tab. One time, my bicycle tire (the bicycle is my main transportation) went flat. These little one-time events or situations, were quite devastating to my meticulously kept,  and teeny-tiny, budget. 

In Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich  steps into the lower class and discovers that she still is not really lower class compared to many of her colleagues—just based on the fact that she had start up funds that many don’t have and the advantages that come with growing up middle class—education, health care, etc.  In this book, she surrounded herself by people living in poverty and trying to make ends meet making minimum wage in very disrespected jobs.  What she encountered were people who weren’t resting when they were sick or injured, people who weren’t eating to save money, and people who's health was in jeapordy because of the work they did.

In my own delve into poverty this year, I have still been trying to live a middle-class lifestyle. My rent, though cheap by DC standards, is well beyond what would be considered sustainable for a person of my economic disadvantage. I still take myself out shopping once in a while, I still take myself out to eat once in awhile, I still took a vacation (or two), and I still hang out with my middle-class friends, who love spending frivolous amounts of money on drinks, restaurants, leisure, and travel. Despite my income putting me squarely below the poverty line, I have been able to fake being a typical, middle-class 20-something.

How is this possible? I suppose it is because of the way I started out. Because my self-induced poverty came through Americorp, it came with advantages. Namely, they stopped my school loans for the year. They provided me health insurance. 

Coming from the middle-class helped, too. Before moving to DC, I sold my car. I had parents whom I had lived with through any transition between leases. I had been able to aquire a credit card at an early age.  Because of these factors, I came to DC with a bit of start up money and a little cushion. I also came educated enough to be able to apply for Americorp (many Americorp programs require a Bachelor’s Degree, all require high school diploma or GED)—and that’s thanks to my middle class background, where it was expected that I go and complete a 4-year degree.

But like I said, all this faking being middle class hurt. I was conscious of every dollar I spent, every time I went out, every time I went to Target for a new bottle of shampoo. My rent was eating up near all of my paycheck each month.  The people around me knew about the program and knew about the small paycheck it provided. I knew , too, going in. What I don’t think any of us born-n-raised middle-class folk knew, however, is what a huge discrepancy there is between middle class and lower. I could (and can) no longer really hang with the middle-class crowd, but what would I have in common with low-wage workers (other than our menial paychecks?) ? And where would I find them?

I read an article once about a  man living in Manhattan in his early 30’s. He had a good job at some corporation, lived in an expensive apartment in Manhattan, and smoozed with clients and business associates at New York’s poshest bars and golf courses. He still received money from his parents, who together, made less money than he did, and lived in small-town Pennsylvania. He asked money from his parents to make ends meet.   

I wanted to mention this , because I wanted to demonstrate how important status is to us. Yes, New York is expensive. This young man’s lifestyle was expensive, but he wanted to keep up with the people he was surrounded with—and this meant living in the “right” neighborhood and going out on the town—things he couldn’t do by his means alone. His parents, on the other hand, who made less money than him, were able to afford to dish out a little extra, again, because of lifestyle choices.

I have a low-income job as far as money goes, but not as far as status goes. The people I work with are not all Americorp members, and many get quite substantial paychecks. My job, though minimally-paid, does not have the same associations, and therefore I did not have the same experiences as someone working a typical low-wage job (for example, I was always treated with respect and even regarded highly on the job).  My experiences were different than Ehrenreich's in this way, as I discovered what it was like to live middle-class with a low-class paycheck. On the flip side, Ehrenreich learned not only how to live on a low income, she learned what associations are made with these jobs and what sort of treatment maids, Walmart workers, and restaurant servers get. 

It’s interesting to think about the way our economic status impacts the way we are treated and the people we associate with.  Barbara Ehrenreich learned, first hand, how the working-class poor lived and took note of their working conditions, attitudes, and struggles. My own experiences have been with living middle-class on a low-income salary; our experiences are altogether quite different, and one might see by comparing the two that lower-class status has a lot to do with where you come from  and what type of work it is, more so than the number on the paycheck.

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--Megan