What is middle class anxiety? How much monthly income is worthy of middle class?

Pseudo-middle class anxiety 7 years ago

In the past two days, an article entitled "Overburden: Letting More and More Middle-income People Become" Pseudo-Middle Class "" caught my attention.

This is the earliest and only article I can find in a public journal article, and it is the only one named under the name of "pseudo-middle class." And this article was actually published in 2012, which was unexpectedIt turned out that the concept of a pseudo-middle class had already appeared 7 years ago. Thinking about that time, the tofu milk was still wearing open crotch pants and clamoring for sweets in my hometown in Shandong.

In fact, the genre of this article is not a paper, but a summary of interviews by a reporter with several city residents. But I believe many people will have deep sympathy for the heroes in this article.

The first person to be interviewed was a female white-collar worker in a foreign company in Beijing :

"Salary is her main source of income. After deducting various insurance and income taxes every month, she got about 9300 yuan. Fortunately, the tax collection point increased last year, and she paid 500 less each month.The income seems not low, but the wages cannot keep up with prices, and the company is strictly shielded from the assessment every year. Only with a high rating can the salary increase exceed 10%. After the child is born, there are no months.She also lost a lot of work. Moreover, when the A-shares surged in 2007, she entered the market with a large amount. The investment of 100,000 yuan has now shrunk by half. "

The pseudo-middle class anxiety shown by this woman has been very typical to this day. There is a single income channel, rising bottlenecks, female childcare costs, and investment in leeks. Anyone who reads it is sad.

This is still 2012. The aftermath of the 4 trillion yuan of water release has not passed yet. The era of the rapid expansion of the Internet giants, many middle-tier companies that are now 25 and 6 are mixed at this time. But the more the outside world is cooking, The more depressed the person who fails to break the bottleneck, the more reasonable.

This corresponds to income anxiety.

The second interviewee is a pharmaceutical sales in Harbin :

"After graduating from a well-known university in Harbin in 2008 with a major in food engineering, I entered a food company to do quality inspections and tested oils, acidity, and peroxide values ​​every day. The days were mediocre, and the treatment was mediocre. I changed jobs for several times, and earned income.It has always been around 2000, and ca n’t learn new knowledge. After graduation, there is no growth. After that, he returned to Harbin to do pharmaceutical sales. His income reached 3000. He felt that he could grow and accumulate every day. He looked forward to entering the middle class as soon as possible."

The experience of this guy in the Northeast makes me want to warn you once again, do n’t be a student of environmental materials, and do n’t do related work after graduation. The counterparts do laboratory tests every day, they ca n’t learn new things, and they have become the company ’s grassroots.A tool man is very normal in these industries. His original anxiety is also common today. The middle class engaged in transactional work seems to have a high education and stable work, but you don't know what such a boring job is.It ’s a head, and I do n’t think I can learn anything at all.

This corresponds to rising anxiety.

The third interviewee is a massage shop owner in Haikou :

"It is not easy to do individual business. On average, you can earn more than 7,000 a month. The business is very unstable. Until now, it was only done by one person. The monthly cost is not small, except for the rent and the equipment in the shop., As well as the living expenses of themselves, their parents, their wives and children, there are very few leftovers each month. Now that the parents are old, if there is a major illness or minor disaster, it will be a headache to find money for treatment. "

This massage boss is not yet Haikou, but the way to “Sea Drift” from outside, it makes people have reason to suspect that he is a Northeast. In a later interview, he also talked about the housing prices in Haikou and felt that he was a foreigner like him.It is impossible for a migrant worker to buy a house in Haikou. Buying a house may be a distant fantasy for him, and more realistic anxiety stems from a sense of weakness in the family's possible change.

This corresponds to risk anxiety.

2012 was also the most successful year on the surface of the post-80s successor. The same person was born, the life situation is often so different.

What middle class is worth anxiety

? From 2012 to the present, Chinese people's understanding of pseudo-middle class anxiety is becoming clearer. I think this is a good thing, because only if the basic disk of pseudo-middle class is large enough, they will be clearer by society.To portray and understand.

But there has never been a clear standard about what exactly is a middle class.

According to the 2017 standard of the National Bureau of Statistics, people with an annual income of more than 32,000 yuan are regarded as the middle class, claiming that the middle class accounts for 40% of the total number of residents in the country. However, the establishment of this standard is to average the Chinese people according to their income.There are 5 groups 20% each. The top two groups are regarded as high and middle income. Even if they are middle class, the proportion will always be 40%. It will not change for a hundred years, and it has no reference significance.

The standards of the World Bank and Credit Suisse Institute are much stricter. The Chinese people ’s income is converted into world wealth standards at the exchange rate, and 22% and 28% of Chinese people are middle-class, respectively.

But I still think that the conclusions of the two international agencies look like they are cheering on foreign companies that are planning to come to China for consumption upgrade.

Because they return their standard to RMB, the approximate range is the annual household income between 100,000 and 900,000. First of all, this huge span is very confusing, and secondly, this lower limit is also suspicious.

A family with an annual income of 100,000 in the mountain area may say that it is a village tyrant in fact, it may not be the case, and it may be better than a subsistence allowance in a first-tier city. Their anxiety is mainly focused on how to make the meter go backwards.I really want to upgrade my consumption.

△ Data source: Hurun Report of the Rich List, Yakult

The people are always the most ruthless towards themselves. The same new middle-class standard, a report circulating in the field for 15 years, has become: monthly income of more than 45,000 yuan according to the source of the research seems to be aNortheast Asia Revenue Report, Tier 1 cities have cars and houses no loans, 1.5 million liquid assets ...

This middle-class standard is said to have laughed at a lot of people, but ten of them laughed and nine of them cried, and one was crying wildly, because at this time they could understand that they didn't even deserve middle-class anxiety.

However, once this standard is reached, I would like to call it a real middle class. In addition, without the pressure of mortgage loans and car loans, there are still more than 1 million current assets. Even the most conservative private equity financing can still haveThe annualized rate of return is about 8%, which is 80,000 a year, and it is about to reach the World Bank's definition of middle class.

Eggs are considered middle-class, do chickens still cry?

In addition, in such a good mobility situation, even if the family encounters sudden changes, it is not so easy to return to poverty overnight. The situation is still benign. According to my observation, the anxiety of such people is completely different from the so-called middle-class anxiety., Mainly focused on how to keep house prices from falling, how to participate in investment estates and rationally allocate insurance. From this perspective, they can even be said to be people who create pseudo-middle class anxiety, although the wealth of these people is more than that of real estate.Still a lot worse.

Roadin said that the sculpture is naturally hidden in the marble, and the task of the sculptor is to cut off the excess.

Similarly, when we ca n’t define what anxiety and middle class is, we cut off the part that should n’t be included, and then look at what is left, and we know :

annual income of more than 200,000 to 300,000, no house or car or high leverage purchase, poor family fund liquidity ...

This kind of person really deserves anxiety. The uncertainty of the future will always make people feel weak and helpless, and then think about it randomly.

Zhu once in reality

I've recently been hooked on Zhu Yiyi's little video, and I have a boring expression pack on tofu milk every day, which causes him to ask me every day whether it is tide zibo saying "stupid".

Before the production of Zhu once this IP, they had done a similar workplace series, but interpreted all the stories between employees, the rich are just a background. However, the dozens of episodes have been updated, the market response has been flat, onceLet the director doubt his own life.

Later, the director dragged the real boss Zhu Xi into the water to play the boss, and also made a loud stage name "Zhu Once".

The same people, the same story, just changed the perspective, the video suddenly burst into flames, and also rescued the MCN company under the name of Zhu Xi.

This is not without reason. When the audience reexamines their daily life from the perspective of Zhu once a rich and identified person, many things become interesting. He can fire the top ten employees at will, or he canSending your friend's younger brother to Africa, you can also exchange the ranks of the subordinates. The reason for all the changes may be that Zhu once did not have a good night's sleep.

The boss's inadvertent behavior can completely change a person's destiny, and you are not even qualified to say no. The absurdity of life seems extremely real at this moment, and everyone lives in this irresistibleAbsurd.

I particularly liked to read Camus's novels as a student. Although his philosophical level is not as good as Sartre's, he can use literary works to shape a weak individual in an absurd environment every time, which is fatal to a college student who has nothing.Attractive. And this is very similar to the philosophical perspective that Zhu once wanted to convey, and I also believe that this team is intentionally conveying such ideas.

The sense of powerlessness controlled by ridiculousness is also the source of anxiety for many social animals struggling in the middle line.

You may think that once Zhu's company is still too small and it is a drama arrangement, only the top ten employees will be fired directly by him. In fact, similar situations abound in the current job market.

Recently read this book and called it "Overtime", deconstructing the current Internet company from a sociological perspective. There is such a case from Shenzhen :

An internet company not named, has been steadily engaged for 12 years, achieved an industry-leading position, and has also cultivated a number of middle-level backbones of the company. It can also recruit fresh graduates from Tsinghua University, which proves that the attraction is indeed good.Already.

But one day, the company CEO suddenly felt stimulated by something, and proposed to pursue a "wolf culture" this is really not Huawei, and to eliminate "petty capital" in the company.

After an intensive high-level meeting, they set a petty bourgeois standard: have a good family background, can speak fluent English, be in the middle of the company, have a stable cash flow, and have a richer part-time life. Among the employeesIn the uproar, all these people were fired by the company ...

Tragic and comedy on earth is often more clueless than the plot of a small video.

As a bystander, we are happy to see that this company has also paid a heavy price for the sudden wolf rectification.

After dismissing this group of key employees, this company has only new interns and middle and high-level cadres. The entire management system is severely disconnected and cannot be bridged within a short period of time. The boss proposed to enhance efficiency, strengthen evaluation, and strengthen elimination.The strategy is also invisible in the flexible operation of the new middle-level cadres. Some employees even said, "The boss wants a wolf, and I pretend to be a wolf."

But no matter how the company mixes up later, those middle-aged people who have been fired face real anxiety about unemployment and have achieved it without warning.

Someone can gain certainty

Uncertainty is a torture for all animals, not just humans, but even birds with relatively simple heads.

The Americans did an experiment of uncertainty: they kept the pigeons in a cage and fed them regularly every day to let the pigeons get used to it. Then they stopped feeding for a while and the hungry pigeons began to feed.Pacing anxiously, the experimenter threw the feed into his mouth. The pigeon thought it was the effect of the circling on its own. After that, as long as it was hungry, it would circulate in situ, regardless of whether the breeder responded to its prayers or not.Keep developing this habit.

Zoologists can call it Paplov reflection, sociologists find inspiration for the origin of religion. From a certain point of view, the behavior of pigeons is nothing more than to make themselves in a fickle world.Find some certainty.

At this level, there is not much difference between humans and pigeons. Anxiety in the middle class is often criticized for anxiety, and it is from this.

Let's say education.

Anxiety and middle class education investment can be divided into two parts: one is to educate yourself and the other is to educate children.

The most typical way to educate yourself is to buy online lessons. It is so beautiful that in order to find more possibilities in an environment where you may be unemployed at any time. But for people who are already trapped in middle-class anxiety, this possibilityHigh probability can only be called a "trust", because what you are learning, there are already people who have already met, novice beginners have no competitive advantage. Jumping around with new skills that they are proud of., The ending is just a tool person in different organizations, and it will hardly help the career growth.

Don't believe in the myth of a slash youth. A person is 24 hours a day. Where can so many bars give you slashes? The more bars, the lower his correction in each bar. The youth is so mediocre., At the age of 35, it also slashes, which is about the same as a casual man.

As for the level of online courses, it is even more confusing. If a person has already practiced a practical technique to a high level, he will definitely apply this technique to his position to make money and earn spit. Why would there be time to go to class?To put it another way, those who have spare time to prepare for the class certainly do not intend to make good use of his technology, but intend to achieve financial freedom by selling the class.

As for whether you really sell money to sell lessons or sell your own blockchain coins during the lessons, it's hard to say.

Look at teaching children again.

The phenomenon of middle-aged chicken baby, the bean curd is the most hated, and more than one article has been criticized for the increasing pressure of education but no improvement, which is the theater effect of East Asian education.

He grew up in a relatively relaxed environment since he was a child. Later, his schooling experience was smooth sailing, and it turned out that baby can be learned well without chickens. So he really wondered why parents have toPut your child to death?

But if you compare anxious parents to pigeons, the situation may be easier to understand. The cultivation of children is a long process of up to 20 years. Before that, no one knows what the outcome will be, nor will the feeding mouth exactlyWill not spit out delicious feed. But parents know that more educated children have better stability in obtaining high-quality feed, and carrying children to and from major educational institutions is just a way for them to pray in circles.

Maybe no one really expects this kind of circle to bring feed, but if you don't, you will always be empty.

Isn't this still the cause of uncertainty?

Educational institutions have gained certainty in this. Some industry research reports have shouted the slogan of “3 trillion market”, which is only one trillion less than flooding. I do n’t know how much I can feed.Teacher.

History of Middle Class Extinction

I am full of sympathy and understanding for the life of anxiety and middle class. But this does not mean that I think the anxiety and middle class worry is reasonable. On the contrary, I think middle class anxiety is an anxiety based on nothingness.

Because the middle class group naturally has no stability. Not to mention future generations, it is difficult to say if the last person can keep the name for the rest of his life.

Let's look at two negative cases of middle class dissolution first: US and Japan

The demise of the middle class in the United States is a century-long history. The era of Ford's making cars was the earliest era when the United States began to propose the concept of expanding the middle class. At that time, the definition of the middle class was also very simple: workers who could afford Ford carsIt can be called the middle class. This standard is not unreasonable today. Young people floating in big cities in China really can't afford their own cars, so they are not middle class.

After the 1940s, the war-prone United States began to focus on cultivating its own middle class from the government level. In the 1970s, the post-40s baby boomers became the backbone of society, and the "olive" social income structureShaping, along with the word "olive" has also become the standard definition of middle-class society.

However, when the post-80s generation reaches the age of 40 that is, today, less than half of the people whose income, excluding the inflation factor, can surpass their parents of the same age, it can be said that the middle class of that year completely collapsed in terms of intergenerational transmission.The center of the "olive" is falling down, becoming an eccentric olive.

Japan finishes this history faster, it only takes less than half a century. Older readers may remember the concept of "100 million middle class" 100 million middle class put forward by Japan that year. This is not a blowIn the 1980s, 90% of the Japanese urban population felt that they were middle class and their happiness was much higher than today's Chinese middle class.

As a result, the Plaza Agreement, the collapse of the Japanese bubble economy, and no one with a total of 100 million in the middle class were mentioned anymore. "Low desire society", "inferior society", and "M-type society" have become popular words in Japan.

Another typical example is Germany, where many Chinese people come to talk about when they talk about manufacturing. Many people even some scholars and decision-makers feel that maintaining the advantages of manufacturing for a long time, respecting the vocational education stream, and maintaining the European economyGermany, at its core, is doing a good job maintaining the middle class structure.

But the reality is cruel. Based on my experience in the past three years in Germany, the country ’s differentiation is quietly progressing. With Industry 4.0, the manufacturing industry casing, which is actually an information industry strategy, Germany ’s core cities are attractingPower and capital appeal are overwhelming their 100-year-old tradition. The German middle class is dying.

Here is an authoritative title from Xinhua News Agency :

You see, all the recognized mature and advanced advanced economies have had huge middle-class groups. However, they do not even need to undergo too many drastic changes such as Japan, which is more urgent, and Germany has even experienced the unification of Germany and Germany.Bonus period, the middle class will die.

If you take a closer look, what are the middle-class cultivation in these countries?

The American middle class is immersed in the wealth of warfare, the Japanese middle class has participated in the restructuring of the industrial system, and the German middle class has built its own industrial system from scratch. No country's middle class was shaped during the steady development period, and they enjoyed it.Both are dividends of the country's rapid growth, and after the dividends ended, they failed to keep their place.

Because of the benefits of the middle class, when it comes to the end, Zhu once eats the remaining soup of the meat. The soup continues to be slower and slower, once the Zhu eats the soup with the meat, the middle class can only lick the oiled rape seeds occasionally.

The demise of the middle class is often so simple and boring.

End of this time