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

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.

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.