@jorian I'm $150k and a net worth of around $500k give or take, $210k household but with 2 school aged kids, HCOL area, an expensive divorce (almost) behind me, child support and I guess I just feel middle class, despite it not being feasible to buy a starter home post-divorce. I just don't really associate middle class w/home ownership in my area anyway though and look more at net worth and income to determine 'class', fiscally. 65% or so of people rent here, there are a high % of high earner or high nw renters in the area, it makes little financial sense to buy in the area right now outside of it being a luxury, lifestyle choice etc. blah blah. anyone doing similarly in southern CA or HCOL area hears what I'm saying, and to the rest, I might as well be speaking Vulcan. But that's going to be a totally different story for someone who 'got in' 15 years ago. They could have bought a house for $190k thats now worth $900k and making $40k a year. By just looking at wages, that's poverty level but figure they live in an asset worth $900k, that sure changes things.. These discussions just leave out so many potential variants.
Anyway, stuck in the endless middle. There's a line in Succession where Tom says to Greg how Greg is finally "moving away from the endless middle, towards the bottom of the top". That stuck with me. What a dream to have, to be mobile in that way.
Point being, mostly it's all relative to location. Plenty of middle class homeowners in LCOL states with sub $100k net worths making $60k and I would consider that lower, lower middle class, working class or poor by the standards here. Whereas they would think $200k hh income and a $500k net worth is killing it.
I fear I will be languishing in the middle until the day I die. Oh well, could be worse?
This is an interesting stat. Tracks net worth percentiles by age in the US with and without equity. With equity, majority of people in 45-49 yr age group (late gen X), aside from 65% percentile and above are generally doing poorly WITH equity, and without it, are basically broke.
https://dqydj.com/net-worth-by-age-calculator/