I live in California. It’s a working class wage and will make it so i have a modesto pension, but my real money will come from my investments. I should have 4.5 million saved by retirement unless everything goes belly up.

I used to make 100k a yr in 2000, and i will tell you what i was middle class then. To have the same purchasing power i would need to make 350k a year. I’ve had to cut back a lot.

I would hate to be a new person entering this economy now, it would be even worse. The average mortgage for a median house here is 4.5k a month. After taxes and living expenses making my salary would be almost impossible to start a family as a single income household. I wouldn’t call that middle class. I would call that working poor.