I can’t read the article, but I hope their definition of upper middle class adjusts for the steep inflation in housing. If my family knew how much I made, approximately the top 1% of incomes, they’d think I live a fantastically luxurious lifestyle. In reality, I live in the same kind of 3 bed 2 bath house I grew up because houses are now 5x more expensive.

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bayarearefugee 15 hours ago | parent [-]

> I can’t read the article

https://archive.ph/2026.04.05-025428/https://www.wsj.com/eco...

"Upper middle class" for a family is $133k according to them.

Things look very rosy for our economy as long as you're using 1963 numbers as your poverty baseline and extrapolating from there.

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laughing_man 13 hours ago | parent [-]

$133k is upper middle class. It just doesn't feel like upper middle class if you're living in NYC or San Francisco.

	▲	pharaohgeek 7 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It doesn't feel like it if you're living in MOST places. I bought my first house 6 months after graduating from college (2000). It cost me roughly 3x my salary at the time. I know what I pay new grads right now, and it's way more than I made back then. There's no way they can afford a house like that at 3x their salary. It's closer to 4-5x, and we are nowhere near as expensive in this area as NYC, SF, DC, etc.
	▲	bayarearefugee 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		133k for a family of 3 is effectively poverty wages in NYC or SF. In less HCOL areas it is getting by, but possibly never owning a house. Hardly the upper middle class lifestyle one imagines being lived by doctors, lawyers, etc in times past.