[Sohcahtoa82]

Depends on location.

In the Bay area? Sure.

I live in suburbs outside Portland, OR. My wife and I together make about $150k/year. We both own cars less than 3 years old. We only own 1 house, but we take a 2-week vacation a 1-week vacation every year.

[thatfrenchguy]

Sounds like middle class to me

[Sohcahtoa82]

Oh yeah, absolutely. I consider myself the quintessential middle class.

My point was that kidsnow said $200-500k is middle class, but it really depends on location. It often feels that the majority of people on Hacker News are living in a Silicon Valley bubble. They talk as if $1,000,000 for a 1500 sq ft house is normal, as if $150k is decent entry-level wage, and...you get the idea.

$200-500k is middle class for Silicon Valley, but the higher end of that range is definitely upper class where I live.

[caro_douglos]

the SEC uses income thresholds of 200k for an individual and 300k for joint (two years in a row). Should people in the middle class be able to invest?

https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/retrieveECFR?gp=&SID=8edfd12967...

[Sohcahtoa82]

Certainly, but they'll be working in trades of a couple thousand or tens of thousands.

If you have an investment account (That isn't a 401(k), 403(b), Roth IRA etc.) with hundreds of thousands that didn't happen from a single lucky investment (Like buying Apple or Amazon 10+ years ago), then you're probably more upper class.

Myself, outside my 401(k), I don't have any investments, mainly because I'm more concerned with eliminating my debts than taking on risks beyond my retirement account. But my wife and I make "only" $150k. If we made 300k, I might have some investments.

Again, though, we need to stop focusing on specific dollar amounts, since cost of living varies so wildly around the country. Get out of the SF Bay bubble.

[zeckalpha]

Income is not wealth