Link is incorrect
As a retiree, I am OK with a high income and low expenses. If you are a married couple with young children living in an expensive area, yes, you might need a lot of money. But once you have a paid-for house, and only yourself to take care of, you can do quite well.
If I recall correctly the vast majority of Americans over decades have considered themselves “middle class” even if they were technically poor or fairly rich. It’s probably why Marxist eventually switched to race batting since class warfare wasn’t as successful as they hoped
” Rich Americans Claiming Middle Class Status Amid Soaring Inflation.”
What a coincidence. A lot of the folks who use to identify as middle class are now in the poor class thanks to Bidenomics. That was the Democrats plan from the start.
I think this is correct. My salary is a solid six figures, but has not kept pace with inflation. Many of the things I rely on have doubled or tripled in price over the last few years. Things like groceries, transportation, utilities, health care and taxes have skyrocketed. I have always bought new cars, but have balked at paying over $40K for a car.
It does help that I have a low interest rate mortgage, my kids have moved out and interest rates on CDs have improved. But I have given up on the idea of early retirement. Once I starting taking money out of my 401K, I’m going to lose about a third of it to taxes right off the bat.
I know quite a few people younger than me who are in, what I would call, desperate straits. However, they do not see it that way and have come to regard what they are doing as routine (even though it is not).
Basically, they are relying on credit cards to make ends meet. Their primary strategy is to constantly shift balances from one card to another (to keep interest rates manageable). I have to tried explain to them this is not a good long term strategy. However, I just get blank looks from them.
In some parts of the country, you might maybe just possibly barely be considered “upper middle class”, but with bidenflation you won’t even be that in another week or 2.