Originally Posted by lazyplane

Just to insert an opinion piece into this concept of “middle class” or “non middle” class in Singapore with relation to income.
The concept of lower / middle /upper class by virtue is a concept of social stratification.
Social stratification can occur in 3 key distinct forms ie by wealth , power and prestige.
Inherent in a stratification is that the higher in the structure , the more access or power or prestige you have over those below. As it is a social “categorisation” structure, I think there will never be a fixed consensus over what is “working class” , “upper class” or in our context of this discussion, “middle class” . This social categorization will always be moving within the context of its discussion.
Eg : One can argue that middle class means literally the medium (50 percentile) as per household income. But that may not be the only definition as per above, this is a “social” categorisation process and people will perceive differently based on the environment, interactions that surrounds that household/individual.
(In my humble opinion), it is with this in mind, that SG government also produce statistics of average household income BY DWELLING.

See extract below : [://.singstat.gov.sg/docs/default-source/default-document-library/publications/publications_and_papers/household_income_and_expenditure/pp-s22t.xls[/
From the data above, one can sense that a high “household income earner” ie top 10% of household income (>$20 per month) can easily be highly dissatisfied if this household current main dwelling is in a landed property .
So what can we conclude from all this ?
Many poster in this forum are asking if they are middle or upper class etc . I don’t know if it is a real question by many individuals or by a single individual that keeps repeating this question. If it is former, I think we must start to ask why so there is such a strong need to upgrade ourselves from our perceived social stratification classification. And if it is really just for pride and prestige, will one ever reach a level of contentment ?

Something to laze and mull about over the day ?