Scraping By on $200,000? The Tricky Task of Establishing the Line Where Wealth Begins.

Certain magazines exist mainly to make their readers feel just insecure enough about their own status that they keep coming back for more stories about how we aren't quite there yet. The New York Times Magazine, for instance, is forever offering readers glimpses into the fabulous (and not-so-hot) lives of the ultra-rich.

While riffing about the lives of people who employ -- I kid you not -- baby-room decorators, kids' party planners, personal nutritionists and their own art conservators, the magazine commissioned a poll that asked the age-old question: How rich is rich?

The poll found that in the rarefied air of Manhattan, more than 40 percent of those surveyed said one simply must have an income of more than $500,000 to be rich, whereas in the rest of New York City, a mere $200,000 would qualify.

And the people most likely to feel poor when in the presence of "people with money" turn out to be, surprise, not the actual poor, not the striving middle class, but rather those who make north of $200,000 a year.

So how rich is rich here?

When I was getting out of college a quarter-century ago, the notion of a six-figure income was so wildly out there, so inconceivable as to be the sort of thing my friends and I assumed only the blue bloods would ever reach. Now, of course, $100,000 is the median income in Fairfax and Loudoun counties -- two of the wealthiest jurisdictions in the country.

Does $200,000 still qualify as rich in the Washington area?

Presidential candidate John Edwards, who should know, draws the wealth line at $200,000 and regularly uses that number to designate the folks he would tax much more heavily. Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley chose the same figure to mark the pivot point separating those who would get tax relief from those who would face higher levies in his plan to save the state's finances.

Nationwide, about 3 percent of families reach the $200,000 income level. But in the Washington area, that percentage at least doubles. Still, that leaves well more than 90 percent of people under that level of affluence.

Seems to me, if you're raking in more than nine in 10 of your fellow citizens, that's rich, even if you do struggle to pay your baby-room decorator and personal nutritionist. I asked readers, and they were deeply divided:

Many people wrote in to say that even those who earn big bucks can find life tight. "My husband and I live in a nice four-bedroom house," wrote a woman with a $200,000 household income. "Our cars are not fancy and were bought used. I shop at TJ Maxx and consignment shops. My point is that we're not rich. According to most people, we're rolling in dough. I'm here to tell you that if we seem better off than most, it's because we work very hard, we pay cash instead of borrowing, and we do without stupid frippery. Maybe we'd be rich in some state that isn't NoVa, but then we'd have to live someplace that just didn't offer a life worth living."

That comment elicited considerable shock from others who scoffed at the idea that anyone would have to live frugally on so much income. One reader went so far as to try to calculate the $200,000 family's taxes, writing that "she and her husband would be left with after taxes at least twice what my husband and I make even before taxes! But we've always thought we were doing fine because we can usually spend about $1,000 less than we make each month (unless the car breaks etc.) I think people's perspectives change the more they make. It's perfectly fine for people to spend their money on whatever they want, I just can't understand people acting like they are scraping by on $200,000."

For some, it's quite simple: "If you're making six figures, you're rich. Maybe not filthy rich, but you're rich. You don't have to worry about being able to buy groceries in a given month or if the power is going to be cut off."

And then there are those who take a more global perspective: "If you have clean water running in your house, if you have a working toilet, if you have a house, if you have access to clean food, if you have a steady income to support that household, if you have clothing without holes in it, then in absolute terms on this planet, you are rich."

Or as another reader put it, "I am rich beyond measure. I work my 40 hours, commute 10 minutes to work, don't work nights or weekends, and have lots of time to spend with my wife and child. We're a single income family, one working for the government. So while that means a small house and we don't try to keep up with the Joneses, we are happy and prosperous. What more could we want?"