Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking

This is a much more accurate description of the various levels of upper class from Economist Felix Dennis:

$2-4 million: The comfortable poor

$4-10 million: The comfortably off

$10-30 million: The comfortably wealthy

$30-80 million: The lesser rich

$80-150 million: The comfortably rich

$150-200 million: The rich

$200-400 million: The seriously rich

$400-800 million: The truly rich

$800 million - $1.998 billion: The filthy rich

$1.998 billion and Above: The super rich

citation: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/blog/who-is-rich

However, I'm generally in agreement with the post. I live in a relatively unfashionable neighborhood south of 280 in SF. Dumping and graffiti are common, front easements (yards) are paved over for extra parking or broken down car storage (illegally, but with extremely indifferent enforcement). Local schools aren't highly ranked in terms of test scores (though this doesn't matter all that much in SF, which is run by lottery much to the chagrin of people who live in higher performing districts). It would be very, very difficult to buy into this neighborhood in SF on $125k a year. You'd have trouble buying for much under a mil. On two incomes you can, but keep in mind, child care runs about $25k per year per kid, and even with kids in SFUSD ("free"), you have to pay extra for after care and summer camps, which will run you about 10k per kid per year even if you're doing things relatively cheaply (YMCA or SF park and rec run programs). At "upper class" incomes, you will lose the tax break for these things, so the second spouse needs to make a substantial salary before things get better financially.

Does living here "suck" by global standards of poverty? No way, not even slightly. Is it the kind of "upper class" life you'd expect for a dual income household of highly educated and skilled workers living in ground zero for a severe labor shortage for wildly profitable companies?

San Francisco is wonky, but keep in mind, the companies that say that there is a severe shortage of workers often do demand that their workers live out here, so the $125k salary really should be considered in the context of SF or NY level housing prices.

Example: in energy, technicians move up the scale and perform less physical labor than comparable (if even possible) workers thirty years ago.

The lower classes are hard up against relative diminishing returns on labor. A textile worker, say, still makes what they'd have made in the 1950s in absolute terms. This does not keep up with a general rising standard of living in the US but it works fine in PacRim countries - until it doesn't.

Class has vastly different meanings in the US or India etc. As long as the meaning was clear that should be enough for any reasonable person. Especially when it's a very common definition. Whining about it is little better than trolling.

PS: The original definition of middle class even included working class people. Working class people are not serfs and they are not aristocracy so by default they are middle class. As the US got rid of slavery, has no real aristocracy, and calling everyone middle class is pointless, so the more reasonable definition is based on income. It's even been used in that context for 100+ years.