The Haves, Have Nots, & Have Lots - Reformulation of the Middle Class

[Aloysius]

Was chatting with Joker about an interesting presentation my team got at work (I work for a TV Network) - it was, in broadstrokes, a look at socio-economic class dynamics, how it's changed through the years, and how that might impact marketing and content messages.

One of the takeaways had to do with "marketing to the middle class". The presenters noted that the anxieties, concerns, fears, mentality of the "Have Nots" (let's say households <$50k) were strikingly similar to the "Haves" (households >$80k but <$150k).

One driver of this phenomenon is the increase in wealth in the top 1% of the country over the past 20 years (which is now at like 18% or so IIRC now, very similar to the turn of the 20th century, compare this to the 1950s, where the Top 1% was at like 12% of the nation's wealth).

The difference today, vs. 100 years ago, with elite wealth perception and desire / envy is the very public face of this 1%. We are inundated by them.

Basically, "middle-class" as a destination is a long dead idea, and the only preferred destination is "upper class", or Have Lots.

Thought this might be an interesting concept to discuss - some questions maybe to help kick it off:

1) Are you a Have Not, Have, Have Lots?
2) How important is this to you going-forward?
3) Will this impact your decision to have a family, number of children?
4) Is your sense of what I wrote above true? Is this true only in expensive metropolitan areas?

-Al