The Middle Class (中産階級)

Today I learned about the different tax brackets not NCAA brackets this time! and how much the gap is between each one (about 3 percent, which is like thousands of dollars each year if you fall into the wrong one!)
I  realized I am squarely in the middle class of Americans (possibly on the higher end of middle class, but definitely not on the lower end of high class, or the vaunted 1%), which is actually not where you want to be in terms of social benefits, tax benefits, etc. Those below the poverty life live a poor life, but theoretically they don't have to work much, don't get taxed much, and qualify for low income benefits like Medicare. The higher class, well, they have so much money it doesn't matter, and they benefit from the other classes' misfortune! The middle class has the distinction of being taxed the most and getting the least out of it. I don't make THAT much money, but taxed like I do. It's like middle class quicksand, and I'm stuck in it. 

In the middle of Downtown Los Angeles is a Panda Express, an extension built as part of the Los Angeles Public Library. Its location occupies prime location, being steps away from the US Bank Tower, about 75 floors of business and commerce happening at once and plenty of white collar workers. There's nothing too special about this Panda: it's got the 2 item special, the honey walnut shrimp if you pay an extra dollar. Its employees seem very busy at lunchtime, scrambling to get all of its customers through the line quickly. And it's price is always constant: 7 bucks and change for an adequate lunchtime meal. Its specialty is it attracts the middle class.
There are plenty of homeless people on downtown Los Angeles, but they don't eat at Panda Express. There are plenty of high level business executives and wealthy partners of law firms and architecture firms in downtown, but they don't eat at Panda Express. It's the middle class that eats there.The white collar works with work attire on, business casual but not suits or expensive Italian leather, just ordinary gear to get by through the day and go through the 9-to-5 office life. They get by well enough to go out to eat and splurge for the extra $1 honey walnut shrimp (delicious, don't blame them) but not for the expensive $30/person lunch special at a fancy downtown restaurant too often without being able to put it on the firm's bill (which many of the high class do so they don't actually pay for it, hence evoking images of wealthy fatcats getting a literal free lunch......Do I sound bitter?) These middle class guys go through the line patiently understanding the plight of the Panda employees acknowledging each other's fate as a cog in the corporate machine just to make a living, consider giving a small tip or donating $1 to whatever charity is being offered, but decide against it because of the mounting bills at home that need to be attended to, foremost a mortgage that eats into every paycheck mercilessly, then pay their usual amount and hurry back to the office lest their alloted 30 hour lunch break gets extended resulting in leaving work late and getting stuck in rush hour traffic. 
Sound familiar? That Panda Express in downtown LA could be any metropolitan area or business district in America, and I've worked in quite a lot of them. The food court in the basement of a prominent building.....maybe the most depressing place on Earth for someone lamenting eternal confinement in middle class land. That is the plight of the middle class, and I know most responsible adults fully understand the concept, but Panda Express is the epitome of the social structure that I and many of the middle class live in: involved enough in society to know how it works and to see how the higher end live and be so close you can taste it, but not be able to engage in such a high class lifestyle due to the many financial and social restraints but on one as a member of the middle class, represented neatly each March/April when people fill out their tax forms and see how much their budget has been stretched and how much the federal government contributes that stretching their taxation. 


Thank goodness the threshold for tax brackets gets more lenient after you get married. Thank you future wife!

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan