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Mass. just became the most expensive place to be middle class. Do you qualify?
The Bay State overtook New Jersey as the priciest place to achieve middle class status, according to SmartAsset.
Achieving middle class status was once the personification of the American dream. Unfortunately, it seems that these days the middle class in Massachusetts is a lot less “middle” than it was back in the 1950s.
According to a new study by financial technology company SmartAsset, Massachusetts is now the most expensive state in the country for middle-class living, overtaking New Jersey. (Of all places.)
According to the study, as of 2023 a Massachusetts household needed income between $66,565 and $199,716 to be considered middle class — that’s up from $62,986 to $188,976 the year before. By comparison, if you were to live in the least expensive place in the country to be middle class — Mississippi — you’d only need to make between $36,132 to $108,406. But you’d have to live in Mississippi.
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Boston fared a little better in terms of middle class aspirations: It’s the 13th most expensive city in which to be middle class, according to SmartAsset, and you can achieve that status for a tiny bit less than it takes in the state as a whole, between $64,614 and $193,862. That’s a bargain compared to Arlington, Virginia, where you’d need to make a whopping $93,470 to $280,438.
On the other end of the city spectrum is Detroit, where you can declare yourself middle class with an income as low as $25,384 (and a high end of $76,160).
SmartAsset applied “a variation of the Pew Research definition of middle-income households” — that’s the one that defines a middle class salary range as two-thirds to double the median U.S. salary. The study applied that formula to the particular data from 100 of the largest U.S. cities, as well as all 50 states.
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But of course, middle class is more than an income, it’s a state of mind. Which raises the question: Do you actually feel middle class, even if you’re within the salary range? What does it even mean to be middle class in Massachusetts?
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