Middle Class

If you ask just about anybody in the US how rich they are, you'll get the same answer -- middle class. If pressed for more, you may get "working class" or "upper-middle class." Of course, we all like to think we're in the middle. Almost nobody considers themselves rich, because they still feel a crunch at to pay their bills, be it the apartment rent or the mortgage to the summer home. Nobody wants to consider themselves poor, because it's an unpleasant idea and are aware of those poorer than themselves. But what does it mean to be middle class?

Median income in the United States in 2005 was $46,326 per household (not individual). That essentially means that for every family of living off of $65,000, there was a family living off of $25,000. One percent of all individuals make over $290,000 per year.(1)
Now, there's dozens of papers out there insisting that there is no such thing as a middle class in the US -- that half of the nation's families makes $65,000 and up, and half make $25,000 below, and almost no family makes between $25,000 and ·$65,000. But that's not what I want to talk about.

I want to talk about where the United States' "middle class" figures in on a larger scale. While one may even be average for the United States, who cares? That means you're average among less than 4% of the world's population. Even a millionaire may be in the "middle class" if he only compares himself to other millionaires. According to the United Nations Development Programme, a "middle class" person in the world makes approximately $5,800(2).

Now, to be fair, things cost a lot less in the United States. I admit I just ate a tiny bag of Cheetos priced at the equivilant of US$0.15. Luckily, lots of folks have gone out and studied what each income really buys. Essentially they go to each country to ask people how much they make, and how many each year they can buy of bags of cheetos , a pound of chicken, a house with three rooms, a tank of propane, etc. They figure out, that a guy making $40,000 in the US may be able to buy as much as if he was making $20,000 in Brazil, or whatever.

One of these lovely studies came up with the second graph. It shows the country, how much a "midddle class" person spend per year on consumibles (in US$), and how much they spend on several different products. It's a much more sensible way to look at how much you make. It doesn't matter how many zeroes are on your paycheck, it matters how often you can afford to eat steak (or anything, for that matter).

So, look at the graph. It says that the average American uses about $21,000 a year for consumption (the rest invested in things like housing or stocks or paid to Uncle Sam). a lot of that goes to buying fish, meat, cereals, and paper. Fish: Of the selected countries, we buy less fish than a Chinese, Japanese, or Singaporean. No shocker. Despite the fact we don't consider ourselves big fish eaters, We still eat more per person than a Bangladeshi, Nigerian, and an Indian put together (all coastal nations).

Hmm, meat. Of course we're the most carniverous, but how carniverous is that? Well, put a steak in front of a Zambian, a Nigerian, a Bangladeshi, an Indian, a Chinese, an Indonesian, and a Turk, and they'll split the bill. Put the same steak in front of us, and we'll ask for seconds the size of what the Turk ate. Yes, we like meat more than most. But I asked a college-educated Guatemalan what rich meant recently. You know what she said? "Eating meat every day," the same way we say, "owning a summer home in the Hamptons."



What's the moral of the story? Not that we're big, fat, selfish Americans (despite one in three of us being obese). That when we call ourselves "middle class," we would do well to compare ourselves to everyody, not just our fellow Americans. Otherwise we're just acting like the millionaires jealous of the billionaires.

1. US Census Bureau. (Census Home Page)
2. Income and Poverty 2005 [pdf]. World Bank: United Nations Development Programme. Found at HyperTextbook.

Long Distance Relationships and Peace Corps

The most common reason to leave Peace Corps is because of a significant other (SO). I remember well taking the train to NYC to have my Peace Corps interview and having to fill out a special form to explain my relationship with my girlfriend and how we plan on managing living in separate nations, cultures, and lives. Since Laura and I had already managed along-distance relationship, I believe that we had a head start. Nonetheless, visits are few and far between.

During any long distance relationship, one has to learn how to maintain contact in a way that at least allows the relationship to be paused. That means letters or phone calls that communicate not just like the letters you send at Christmas, including the major events. You need to have a way to maintain contact on the mundane in your life -- how tired you are of the heat, the color of your washing detergent, letting your SO know when you're happy or unhappy.

Long distance relationships can truly take two forms:

• Relationships are maintained, but problems are solved only when the two see each other, as a plant without sunlight.
  
• Relationships grow around the distance, as a vine grows on fence.

There's advantages to both. When one adapts a relationship where a phone call every two weeks or even every week can maintain a relationship for a long time, no one can really have a relationship. At best it keeps you both waiting for the next time you see each other. The advantage of this type of relationship is that it takes much less work and can maintain a relationship where you're used to seeing each other. Also, after the stint apart, things will "return to normal" afterwards.

The other type, where a relationship works well at long distances, means frequent phone-calls, long discussions about feelings about very minute things, and a partial detachment from wherever you live, as part of your identity is connected solely over phone lines and letters. The advantage is that when fights and problems pop up, you already know how to discuss your emotions with the other person. You have incorporated the distance into how your relationship works, and therefore you see a long distance relationship as a sufficient reward to maintain it. At the same time, once you return, your relationship has to adjust to the idea of seeing the other person on a daily basis, and you have to learn how "normal" relationships work.

If you're about to join Peace Corps or be very far away from your SO, you need to ask yourself some things:

• What parts of the relationship will you lose?
• Physical?
• Social Groups?
• Emotional Props?
• Sense of Identity?
  

• What parts of the relationship are you going to maintain?
  
• How often do you plan on communicating? Will that be enough to tell daily activities, or just major changes in life?
• What are your communication options in your host country? Internet? Phone? Mail?
  
• What does your SO expect? partial separation for two years? daily phone calls?
• What kinds of problems may erupt while you're apart? Infidelity? Arguments? Long-term Decision-making? Falling in love with another? How will you deal with that, short of quitting and running home?
• How do you expect your time apart to change you? Who do you expect to be when you return, and how do you think your SO will deal with it?
• How often do you plan to visit? every 6 months? Never? Every 4 months?

Questions about your new host country:

• How many time zones are you apart?
• Can you own a telephone? Can you afford it?
• Can you mail physical letters and packages? How much does it cost?
  
• Is Internet present? Where?
• Can you Skype? Can you bring a digital camera to your Host Country?
• Do you want to use your vacation time to see your SO, or to go travel?
• When is the first time you plan to see your SO after leaving the United States?

I was lucky. Living in Guatemala, plane tickets are under $600 to go back to visit my SO and she can afford to visit me. On top of that, phone calls to the US from Central America are under $0.20 per minute, and sometimes as little as US$0.05. We arranged to see each other every four months. We originally spoke weekly, and, as I understood my finances and access to Internet, we began to speak nearly daily. My girlfriend and I learned how to be very explicit about what we needed from each other, what made us uncomfortable, what made us happy, and how to avoid arguments over the phone. No matter how good the signal, emotions, especially anger, just can't translate over telephone calls. If you don't explain your feelings patiently, you'll never communicate what problems exist, let alone solve them.

Before coming to PC and maintaining a relationship:

• Find out Internet options, bring Microphone and Web Camera if possible
• Don't expect much contact for the initial months: you won't know your mediums of communication, so just count on a few letters.
• Consider going to a"middle income" country, such as a Latin American one, Kenya, S. Africa, or Eastern Europe. Your communication and travel options will be much easier.
  
• Have long talks with SO on what you expect and don't expect from them.
  
• Discuss ugly hypothetical problems until you're sick of it -- falling in love with somebody else, hookups, lies, and mistakes.
  
• Take a few memorable photos together.
• Think of activities you can do "together" while still apart -- watch a movie, play a board game, listening to a CD, and what you need. Playing monopoly over the phone, costing $1.00 a minute, may be worth it in the end.
• Talk about who can afford to make trips, and who can't

While abroad, remember this:

• Unforeseen issues come up, making scheduled communication sometimes can't happen: international wires stop working, mailmen lose letters, the Internet can go down in an entire country for days. rem
  
• These are the hardest times the relationship will have: difficulty isn't a good reason to end a relationship.
• Be patient and clear when you're disagreeing. Tones of voice, body language, loud sighs, and facial expressions don't work in long-distance relationships. You have to spell everything out, and not blame the other person for not understanding. Likewise, you can't blame a person for not being able to communicate their frustrations easily.
  
• Many Peace Corps Volunteers reinvent themselves in their host country and forget entirely about their life in the US. You never will, and that's okay. Your experience will be much more grounded than theirs.

If you want to talk about this subject more, I encourage you to contact me through this blog or my e-mail.

Update:
This post still seems to get a lot of hits, so it merits an update. I have since settled down with the person I was dating in the Peace Corps: we still often talk about how happy we are that we stayed together during the Peace Corps, as it made our relationship stronger.  Also, I still think it was a good idea to enter the Peace Corps despite being in a serious relationship. When I entered the Peace Corps, about 10 in my cohort were in long distance relationships. Upon my return two years later, I was the only one.  However, take a any group of people in their early twenties, and you won't see many relationships that last two years. In most cases, I don't think Peace Corps ends good relationships: it serves as a stress test for them. Good relationships can survive, and bad relationships quickly become apparent.

I no longer check comments here, but it may help you find others in the same situation. If you have any questions, my email address is still  (written backwards for security):
moc.liamg@cilbup+yelbmert.werdna