I added the bureaucrats to it because those are among the ever-shrinking number of people who fit any economic/financial definition of a “middle class.”
To me, the middle class gained in prosperity, through much of our history—until we were cursed with the Clinton/Bush/Obama scourge;—but it is not just an economic concept. It is basically those above subsistence farming & unskilled or very little skilled urbanites, but still below the great Plantation owners in the old South, or the Cabots & Lodges of Massachusetts, or the Rosevelts & Vanderbilts in New York; but those who have developed skills, at least some accumulated assets, who save & accumulate wealth at a lower level than the foregoing—but maintain an independence from Government, as they climb the ladder of success. (I know that is a bit garbled but I got interrupted.)