Status Symbols & Spending
There are haves and have nots. And there are have Rolexes and have not Rolexes.
By Andrew Burmon
31% Want Luxury Real Estate
13% Want Luxury Vehicles
12% Want Luxury Clothes/Accessories
12% Want to Travel More
STATUS ❧ Upper Middle Research Upper Middle ’s Status Symbol survey found that net worth is more predictive of conspicuous consumption among high-earning professionals than income, geography, or profession because wealth dictates perceived pressure to conform through achievement or indulgence .
Successful strivers want status symbols that obscure what they lack, whether that’s material comfort commensurate with their accomplishments or accomplishments commensurate with their material comfort.
This tendency to use consumption to paper over perceived shortcomings appears to be particularly true for those with a net worth between $500K and $1M, who report by far the highest pressure to conform.
This inspires that sort of algorithmic homogeneity among Loeffler Randall flats-wearing marketing VPs sitting on CB2 couches in too-small Park Slope apartments while scrolling through Insta pics of their friends posing in Taormina looking like Haim.
For tautological and cultural reasons, people want what they don't have.
More specifically, they want to own things that either render their success legible or imply success where there isn't much to speak of.
Among upper-middle class people, most of whom have some claim on success, status symbols largely serve as signs of cultural or economic capital, with the latter dominating because signs of the former are not necessarily expensive and are often embodied (having a large vocabulary, for instance, is only expensive in the sense that education is expensive).
Interestingly, as people scale the economic ladder, the desire for cultural and economic signifiers become unified, in a sense, by luxury consumption.
For those with lots of money, the goal is to own symbols that speak to both economic success and refined taste.
One is not enough.
The gap between what respondents have and what they covet reveals the true pressure points in upper-middle status anxiety.
Vacation homes and second homes dominate the list of symbols respondents don't have but want (2% each), suggesting that experiential and positional consumption—the second and third layers of status spending—remain perpetually out of reach even for those earning $200K+.
This aspiration gap persists precisely because, unlike a luxury car or designer flat, a second property can never be infinitely consumed or traded out seasonally.
Interestingly, geography was strongly predictive of whether upper-middle class consumers prioritized status symbols that spoke to cultural or financial capital.
In more rural areas, the focus was more often on luxury consumption.
Free response answers are illustrative of larger trends.
Creative professional from California, New York and New England were most likely to submit clever answers (“A muddy Subaru with Vermont plates”) were, in fact, among the most likely to report wanting luxuries and the salespeople from the Midwest and Southeast most likely to submit folksy non-answers (“Just some peace and quiet”) were, in fact, among the mo
