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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   14847 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 15, 2026

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The ringleaders, though, are doing just fine -- Bernie has several houses and a net worth of about $3M, whereas Warren's net worth is estimated at $12M.

Bernie has several houses and a net worth of about $3M

He's also 84. Shockingly a lifetime of working and saving does eventually cause you to have substantial amounts of wealth. I think my 65 year old parents probably have about the same levels of net worth from a lifetime of dual-income working.

Average net worth is much less than $2M for any age. Median is even lower. Bernie is doing well, and Warren even better.

Bernie's money mostly comes not from his salary but from selling books to other commies. Warren's comes from book sales and also her and her husband's legal consulting fees.

Bernie never really worked—just was a gadfly in the senate

I mean if you want to make linguistic judgements on the "definition" of "work" its a free country. He collected a paycheck from being a senator, senatorial aid, whatever. And has done so for awhile. Assuming normal middle class habits around saving and spending, then at 84 I would expect a low 7 figure net worth. It probably also helps that he hasn't retired like most of his peers at 65 meaning he probably still has neutral-ish spending.

This is a level of pedantry that borders on obnoxious.

Which is upper-middle-class wealth in a country as rich as America. I don't think there is anything surprising about, or wrong with a successful politician being upper-middle-class.

Taking Warren's $12 million net worth estimate at face value, this website calculates her wealth as being in the 98.5th American percentile. I guess she can still reasonably claim to be fighting against "the 1%"

Donald Trump was (probably - it is hard to be sure given how much he lies about his financial status) a billionaire when he announced he was going to fight against elites on behalf of the common man. I find his claim about as plausible as Warren's, but the target audience eat it up in both cases.

FWIW, the anti-super-rich lefties I see have stopped talking about "the 1%" and now talk about "the billionaires" which is a much smaller group. Too many upper-middle-class lefties are worried about the leopards eating their faces, I suppose.

$12M is close to top 1% in wealth. $3M is 94th percentile. This is not the upper middle class.

Does this include her congressional pension?

"Close to, but not in, the top 1%" is precisely what upper middle class means.

Also, wealth tends to accumulate over time. So "upper middle class wealth" for a 76-year-old like Warren is a higher dollar amount than it would be for us.

With that kind of money you can draw $400K a year indefinitely. If you can make that kind of money passively, you're outright rich.

The only people who think that the upper class starts at 99% are people between 90%-99% who don't want to face the reality that they aren't middle class. "No officer, you don't understand, I'm only at 98.5%ile."

British usage assumes a pyramidal society, so there are more working class people than middle-class people and more lower middle than upper middle. To be considered upper class you traditionally needed to have a social network that includes hereditary peers, so upper-middle class stretches a long way up the income scale. A big 4/MBB/Magic Circle partner would definitely be considered upper-middle class, not upper (unless they were upper for family reasons).

In America, everyone except the underclass and the super-rich considers themselves middle-class. Americans don't generally use the term upper-middle class, but the term middle-class is used by both the people themselves and politicians appealing them to cover everyone from a plumber to a HENRY, and upper-middle class refers to the top echelon of that huge group. Paul Fussell's Class (published 1982 so somewhat out of date, but I am not aware of any book since which attempted to define upper-middle class in the US context) gives doctors, lawyers, small town real estate developers and middle-to-VP level managers at large companies as paradigmatically upper-middle class. Warren's $12 million accumulated over a successful career would be well within the achievable range for those professions, though probably above average.

The only time I have seen the words upper-middle class used seriously in an American political context was to describe the people on incomes of $250k-400k who might or might not benefit from Obama's partial extension of the Bush tax cuts, which is also close to but not in the top 1% and given the rising stock market since the Obama era seems consistent with a net worth reaching $3-12 million today.

The algorithm I use that works in any rich country:

  • If you consider doctors the help, you are upper class
  • If you consider doctors peers, you are upper-middle class
  • If you consider doctors to be social superiors, you are middle-middle or below.

By non-income class, both Bernie and Warren are senatorial class, which is pretty darned high.

Agreed. That is why I don't think them enjoying the material standard of living of an eques should be scandalous.

The idea that successful politicians should live a lower-middle class lifestyle is pernicious - both because it creates a political economy of junketing, and because it means only people who love political power enough to take a large paycut will go into politics.

I have no objection per se to Bernie and Warren having money; Bernie came by his fairly honestly, and the legitimacy of Warren's kinda depends on how skanky the legal consulting field is. My objection is first to their objectionable views (basically that they should take away other people's money because those other people have 'too much') and secondly to their utter hypocrisy (holding said views while having 'too much' according to their previous statements).

Paul Fussell's Class

Was not about how much money you made but about your taste and proclivities. We can argue about Warren's taste, if you like, but your original comment was about net worth.

If you consider doctors the help, you are upper class

It's quite clear that even the lowliest senator considers doctors to be the help.

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