Maybe that’s it too. My client base is the well off. Although I do think some are just faking it too. Area is full of young new doctors due to the 3 major hospitals here.
Before I retired I had a job that had me looking at demographics of a wide variety of local areas.
One shocker was that a pattern was starting to emerge with the type of local employers.
The data is easily available on Wikipedia for any location.
The largest employers tended to be hospitals, schools, local governments.
What do these employers have in common?
They don’t actually manufacture anything.
They are “service” industries serving each other.
This will not end well.