[MuffinFlavored]

> You can be rich, but live paycheck to paycheck. Even be superbly in debt. Lots of upper middle class lives this way.

Are they actually upper middle class (by definition) if they have a low net worth?

[Swizec]

Imho middle class means you work for a living, upper class means you can live on wealth.

You might also be surprised to learn that a $166,000/year household income puts you in the top 5% of US households. Definitely upper middle class but still pretty easy to burn your whole paycheck every month.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_middle_class

[sys_64738]

> Imho middle class means you work for a living

I thought that's what working class meant.

[Swizec]

I thought that was blue collar?

Would you call a software engineer making $150,000/year working class? What about a lawyer somewhere in midwest scraping by on $50,000/year?

Now what about an independent plumber making $200,000/year? Working class or not?

[war1025]

I always viewed the working class a subset of the middle class, defined by the fact that they did some sort of physical labor for pay. I.e. as opposed to office work.