dominican middle class

crm

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May 5, 2004
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I was reading recently that the middle class in the united states consists of people with household equity between 25k and 250k. Upon reading that I tought that more Domincians than we realize would be considered middle class even by North American standards. What are your thoughts? I know that the middle class in the dr has less expendable income, however it would be safe to say that the majority of the inhabitants of urban areas are middle class. Would you agree ? You cant even buy an apartment in villa mella or other "ghetto" areas for less than 40k. I feel that this country is not the african cesspool that many try to portray it as. What income levels would you guys associate the Dominican Middle class as having ?
 

ERICKXSON

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crm said:
I was reading recently that the middle class in the united states consists of people with household equity between 25k and 250k. Upon reading that I tought that more Domincians than we realize would be considered middle class even by North American standards. What are your thoughts? I know that the middle class in the dr has less expendable income, however it would be safe to say that the majority of the inhabitants of urban areas are middle class. Would you agree ? You cant even buy an apartment in villa mella or other "ghetto" areas for less than 40k. I feel that this country is not the african cesspool that many try to portray it as. What income levels would you guys associate the Dominican Middle class as having ?

I consider myself middle class i own my business my income exceed 20K a month and drive a cheeze SUV........

most people that live in my neighborhood have Mercedes Bens and SUV galore cars with price tags hovering around 30 to 200k never see them complain about the country (((TILL THE LIGHT GOES OFF))) lol!
 

NALs

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Jan 20, 2003
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Hillbilly said:
Middle class here might be considered anyone with a steady job.

HB
It's more complicated than that!

But, for the sake of simplicity:

The poverty line is RD$ 894 per capita per month or US$ 60. Anyone making this amount or less per month is poor. The only people under such incomes are those living in extreme poverty, this means that poverty in this country is only considered such by the government when its extreme poverty only.

21.5% (or 412,599) of all households in the country fall under the poverty line.

25.8% (or 2.1 million) of the population (this includes every man, woman, and child- with children making the majority of this figure) fall under the poverty line.

These figures came from the central bank.

The upper class composes around 10% of the population of the country, according to official data. Roughly, half of these are new money based in Santo Domingo and the other half is composed of new money and old living in the rest of the country, with Santiago being a major nucleus outside SD.

This leaves approximately 64.2% of the population. One would think that these remaining 64.2% of the population would be middle class and in fact, they are counted as middle class by the government, however there is a marked distinction to be made and is sometimes left out of the details.

Roughly, 45% of those in the middle class (or 29.2% of the total population) are in reality lower class Dominicans. However, they receive remittance checks from family members living abroad which increases their incomes to those of the real middle class. Sometimes they live in cinderblock homes built by their absentee family members and other times they continue to live in wooden homes, but they are considered middle class due to the "subsidy" their family abroad supplies them with, usually on a monthly basis.

When ever you see figures claiming poverty in the DR being 25% of population or 55%, usually the latter includes lower class Dominicans receiving remittances as poor in addition to the real poor whereas that is not the case in the first case. This distinction is important for all people looking into statistics of this country, either Dominican or foreign made.

The real Dominican middle class only consist of 35% and almost all of them are professionals and/or have a degree of some sort in some specialized field. These are also known as the upper middle class.

It's important to note that illegal Haitian immigrants and those here on temporary permits are excluded from official data and thus, will not surface into official figure. If we were to include these immigrants who are mostly illegal into the figures, the percentage of poor people in official data would increase.

-NAL
 

rellosk

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Mar 18, 2002
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Nal0whs, another excellent post.

What would you estimate the income range for the 35% middle class.
 

mondongo

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Jan 1, 2002
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it's simple, really.....

the middle class is that portion that lies in the middle (median?) of the economic ladder...so if an individual makes in the neighborhood of US$120 per month....you are in the middle class......that's it....there is no mysterious subjective definition....middle means middle...it does not mean something that is not middle...if one wants to talk about something that is not middle, then one talks about something that is not middle, except that one can't then claim to talk about middle.....this, i am sure, is clear, comprehensible and irrefutable...... ;)
 

mondongo

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Jan 1, 2002
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an addendum

sometimes people talk about middle class "family unit"....under this separate discusstion, then you take the average (median?) number of people per family and multiply by the aforementioned number: X * US$120 gives you the average income of a DR familiy unit. If the number of people per family is 4, then you are average "family unit" if you have US$480 per month.
 

NALs

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Jan 20, 2003
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mondongo said:
the middle class is that portion that lies in the middle (median?) of the economic ladder...so if an individual makes in the neighborhood of US$120 per month....you are in the middle class......that's it....there is no mysterious subjective definition....middle means middle...it does not mean something that is not middle...if one wants to talk about something that is not middle, then one talks about something that is not middle, except that one can't then claim to talk about middle.....this, i am sure, is clear, comprehensible and irrefutable...... ;)
Well, not quite!

Although you are correct in your definition of middle and median, the middle class is not composed of those people who fall in the middle or average income. If that would have been the case, then Haiti would also be considered to have a middle class when in fact, Haiti is strictly divided between very rich and desperately poor.

The middle class is composed of people who earn enough to cover the basics and increase their economic well being as time passes. In other words, a person who earns x amount and that amount is enough to cover housing, food, education, transportation, and a few other things. After all those things are done, a middle class person would still have some extra money left, money that the person can spend in non-essential things or luxuries or invest or save.

A poor person struggles to cover the basics and sometimes the decision to either eat or entertain becomes a tough decision. Often times poor people don't have the money to cover the basics and thus, this results in them squatting on government land and we get those shanty towns that are so infamous of developing countries.

Remember, the poverty line amount is nothing more than the minimum amount of money needed by a family of four to buy the basics used in the "canasta familiar" used to determine the rate of inflation. The "canasta familiar" is composed of the bare minimum essentials needed for subsistance survival and then, the price of those items in the market is taken.

Thus, the basic minimum of goods (mostly food and housing) needed to survive at subsistance is RD$894 per month at the moment. Anyone earning less than this will not be able to afford the bare minimum and must sacrifice something, usually quality housing is sacrified and inferior goods are consumned. Also, and this is something that economic figures don't show, these people depend heavily on the informal sector for their day to day survival, not to mention on informal credit known locally as "fiao" and in some cases, bartering takes place.

-NAL
 

NALs

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rellosk said:
Nal0whs, another excellent post.

What would you estimate the income range for the 35% middle class.
Off the top of my head I would say RD$ 20,000 to RD$ 46,000 plus or minus for the upper middle class.

In US dollars, assuming an exchange rate of 31 to 1, the range would be $646 to $1,484 per month or $7,752 to $17,808 per year.

Keep in mind, to effectively compare the Dominican middle class to the American middle class, you have to take into consideration the average cost of living of DR and US and adjust the wages accordingly and compare. Comparing wages crudely, without taking any of this into consideration is worthless, becasue $7,000 American dollars buys more in DR than it does in US, thus a lifestyle that $7,000 would buy in DR is not the same lifestyle the $7,000 would buy in US. In order to live the same lifestyle the $7,000 buys in DR, in US the amount of money needed would be more.

-NAL
 
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Ricardo900

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Jul 12, 2004
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Nal,

What about the other factors that determines class, like:
Education (higher learning)
Lifestyle (pop culture, etc.)
Values (upper/bourgeois)

In the US, a Bus Driver (blue collar) may have a salary of $65,000 a year and he will not be considered in the same class as a Paralegal (white collar) who makes the same amount. I know a lot of well-paid city workers who live the lifestyle of lower class people, the only difference is that they have a newer car or more clothes. Economically they are middle class on paper, but when it comes to the other aspects, they are considered lower class. A Professional would spend his $65,000 totally different than a non-Professional would.
 

Chirimoya

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Dec 9, 2002
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The question was purely based on the economic definition, but I agree. There is always a lot of overlap, even more so in an economy like the DR where even at professional level wages can be terribly low.

You have university graduates, professionals who should qualify as middle class, but their salaries do not allow them to fulfil middle class aspirations, at least without going into serious debt.

Then you have the millionaires who succeeded in the "import export business" (copyright Quirino), the music and sports scene or whatever, but didn't complete secondary schooling. Economically they are upper class, but educationally/culturally they don't even qualify as 'middle'.

Every society has these anomalies, though.
 

Narcosis

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Ricardo900 said:
Nal,

What about the other factors that determines class, like:
Education (higher learning)
Lifestyle (pop culture, etc.)
Values (upper/bourgeois)

In the US, a Bus Driver (blue collar) may have a salary of $65,000 a year and he will not be considered in the same class as a Paralegal (white collar) who makes the same amount. I know a lot of well-paid city workers who live the lifestyle of lower class people, the only difference is that they have a newer car or more clothes. Economically they are middle class on paper, but when it comes to the other aspects, they are considered lower class. A Professional would spend his $65,000 totally different than a non-Professional would.

Good point, this same phenomenon is present in the Dominican economy but even more pronounced than in the US.

The middle class here carries the burden of paying most of the taxes and public services and receives an un-equal amount back from the state in comparison to the other classes.

If you take into account the hundreds of thousands maybe even millions of informal workers and/or businesses that operate under no type of regulation, taxation or control of any sort.

The middle class will own and operate small businesses, many times below profit levels of their informal counterparts, but still pay taxes and public services, while the "political designation" of being a lower class or "padre de familia" automatically exonerates the lower class from having to conform to an organized nations duty as citizens. For this we can thank political parties that feed off of this class for political gain, and will continue to perpetuate this model for as long as possible.

Being part of the Dominican middle class is also as much to do socially as it is economic. The lower class will maintain their children in public schools even if they can afford a private school, while a father that wants a better future for his children not only economically but socially, will put his kids in private school and try to exit the ghetto and move to a better area of the city placing him and his family in the "middle class".

We must keep in mind that certain parts of the city do not have to pay electricity nor do they pay taxes for their food since they buy in colmados or from street vendors or at the mercado, while the middle class will buy food at supermarkets and buy clothes and other items at stores as opposed to informal street vendors on the Duarte con Paris for example.

Many lower class people will not want to enter the middle class for other reasons not stated above such as social pressures to maintain acceptable civil and marital behavior. It is more acceptable for a lower class man to have multiple partners and/or neglect his siblings. It is also more acceptable to be intoxicated or abuse your spouse and/or children, or neglect their needs and rights.

Many middle class people really struggle to maintain this status and are continually being bombarded by more taxes and less services while the lower classes seem to get awarded for their lack of civil correctness. Don't get me wrong there are plenty of poor that if they could improve their life they would, but many of these people are in rural areas where they are restricted from upper mobility because of a true lack of opportunity.
 

Potato_Salad

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Oct 13, 2005
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Nal0whs said:
It's more complicated than that!

But, for the sake of simplicity:

The poverty line is RD$ 894 per capita per month or US$ 60. Anyone making this amount or less per month is poor. The only people under such incomes are those living in extreme poverty, this means that poverty in this country is only considered such by the government when its extreme poverty only.

21.5% (or 412,599) of all households in the country fall under the poverty line.

25.8% (or 2.1 million) of the population (this includes every man, woman, and child- with children making the majority of this figure) fall under the poverty line.

These figures came from the central bank.

The upper class composes around 10% of the population of the country, according to official data. Roughly, half of these are new money based in Santo Domingo and the other half is composed of new money and old living in the rest of the country, with Santiago being a major nucleus outside SD.

This leaves approximately 64.2% of the population. One would think that these remaining 64.2% of the population would be middle class and in fact, they are counted as middle class by the government, however there is a marked distinction to be made and is sometimes left out of the details.

Roughly, 45% of those in the middle class (or 29.2% of the total population) are in reality lower class Dominicans. However, they receive remittance checks from family members living abroad which increases their incomes to those of the real middle class. Sometimes they live in cinderblock homes built by their absentee family members and other times they continue to live in wooden homes, but they are considered middle class due to the "subsidy" their family abroad supplies them with, usually on a monthly basis.

When ever you see figures claiming poverty in the DR being 25% of population or 55%, usually the latter includes lower class Dominicans receiving remittances as poor in addition to the real poor whereas that is not the case in the first case. This distinction is important for all people looking into statistics of this country, either Dominican or foreign made.

The real Dominican middle class only consist of 35% and almost all of them are professionals and/or have a degree of some sort in some specialized field. These are also known as the upper middle class.

It's important to note that illegal Haitian immigrants and those here on temporary permits are excluded from official data and thus, will not surface into official figure. If we were to include these immigrants who are mostly illegal into the figures, the percentage of poor people in official data would increase.

-NAL


Wow that was a very well-informed post. :)

I wish I had a relative sending me money. lol
 

SweetSue

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Dec 15, 2005
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So what is the average monthly income in the D.R.? Could a gringo live well on a $1000 a month?
 

Larry

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SweetSue said:
Could a gringo live well on a $1000 a month?

Depends where you live. Most people would say no. Do a search, lots of threads on cost of living.

Larry
 

juancarlos

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Nal0whs said:
Off the top of my head I would say RD$ 20,000 to RD$ 46,000 plus or minus for the upper middle class.

In US dollars, assuming an exchange rate of 31 to 1, the range would be $646 to $1,484 per month or $7,752 to $17,808 per year

-NAL

Nal, I wonder how Dominicans manage to buy those high priced apts. they seem to be building everywhere. They go for over US$100.000 and higher. I know what they earn goes farther in DR than in the US, but still, with the interest rate on home loans being so high it is almost prohibitive, I don't know how the upper middle class gets the money to pay for them. I guess it is the rich who are buying those. So, with the money they make, where does the upper middle class live, what type of homes can they afford to buy if their average high income is $17,808 a year? Not to mention those earning only $7,752.

Also, are these figures for individuals or for families?
 

Berzin

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Nov 17, 2004
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When it comes to who can afford what in the DR, you have to take into account the vast sums of money being sent to the DR by honest working people to help their families back home from other countries and the even vaster amount of money that is accrued through the drug trade, all of it untaxed.
 

Bogey

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I myself am unsure what middle class means anymore. It used to mean that people could live a basic life, with a small amount of luxuries/ frivoloties thrown in.

Now most people I know, even people who are earning more than say 60K a year , which would put them in at least upper middle class bracket pretty much live paycheck to paycheck and many are spending more than they make, have credit card debt, etc etc

These days, the guy at the bar with the high priced suit is probably way in debt, in a **** job, whereas the guy walking around in shorts just might be an Internet millionaire. (at least in the States)

in the DR, (and Latin America) it's always "dress to impress" (whom I don't know)
 

Potato_Salad

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Bogey said:
I myself am unsure what middle class means anymore. It used to mean that people could live a basic life, with a small amount of luxuries/ frivoloties thrown in.

Now most people I know, even people who are earning more than say 60K a year , which would put them in at least upper middle class bracket pretty much live paycheck to paycheck and many are spending more than they make, have credit card debt, etc etc

These days, the guy at the bar with the high priced suit is probably way in debt, in a **** job, whereas the guy walking around in shorts just might be an Internet millionaire. (at least in the States)

in the DR, (and Latin America) it's always "dress to impress" (whom I don't know)

You are correct!

I guess people want to impress others so they tend to buy the top notch clothes, cars, etc. and then into huge debt. People need to spend money within their means.
 

billyidol

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Feb 9, 2004
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thats a fair point ie what about education does that influence one's 'class'?..........i remember being taught in university that if a person aquires tertiary education (in my country of origin) then they automatically become part of the 'middle class'! .................class definition is really decided by the particular culture but is probably most strongly defined by one's level of income and education






Ricardo900 said:
Nal,

What about the other factors that determines class, like:
Education (higher learning)
Lifestyle (pop culture, etc.)
Values (upper/bourgeois)

In the US, a Bus Driver (blue collar) may have a salary of $65,000 a year and he will not be considered in the same class as a Paralegal (white collar) who makes the same amount. I know a lot of well-paid city workers who live the lifestyle of lower class people, the only difference is that they have a newer car or more clothes. Economically they are middle class on paper, but when it comes to the other aspects, they are considered lower class. A Professional would spend his $65,000 totally different than a non-Professional would.