CROWDFUNDING SYSTEMS: evaluation and government regulation in the conditions of reengineering

tative of a Negroid race who has received both secondary and higher education. The interesting thing is, that 22% of the US population supports crowdfunding projects. Among them, 30% are representatives of the population of 18–29 years old, 27% — 30–49 years old, 18% — 50–64 years old, 8% — 65+ years old, the rest did not specify their age when registering on the crowdfunding platform. Besides, the largest percentage of crowdfunding supporters are people with higher education (35%). It is also worth noting that the majority (30%) have an average annual income of $75,000 or more (Livingston, 2016). Some researchers consider it appropriate to divide the middle class into several groups depending on the type of work they do. So, the most common classification divides the middle class into 3 large subcategories: ڰ representatives of the working class: these people do not receive a stable monthly salary, their work is paid by the hour or for production; usually they are representatives of professions where you need to work with your hands. Representatives of this subcategory mostly do not have higher education; ڰ representatives of the «burgher class»: lower-level office workers with low incomes and a small amount of authority. Most of them have higher education; ڰ upper-middle class or professional class: they fill the top positions of office managers (Livingston, 2016). In Ukraine, the definition of the middle class is not so easy. The first problem that arises in the study of the middle class is a significant percentage of the shadow economy, which in 2015 reached 47% of the Ukrainian GDP. This situation does not allow us to objectively assess the financial condition of Ukrainian citizens. There are situations in Ukraine when someone with an average monthly salary of 400 dollars buys a car worth 50 thousand dollars without using loans. As a result, such a person can not be attributed to the middle class, because it is obvious that it is associated with shadow capital and business, or with corruption and crime. Another problem is availability of higher education. Ukraine is one of the five countries in the world with the largest amount of population who completed higher education. It is worth noting that the number of citizens with full higher education in countries with developed economies reaches 10–20% of the population. That is why the criterion of education does not allow you to objectively assess the middle class in Ukraine. 29