[throwawaymath]

> You seem to be saying: unless you're sickly and starving in some unloved corner of Ethiopia, then you're not "scraping by"?

Nope! I'm not saying that. Read my reply to a sibling comment here, I think it largely responds to the point you're making. I'll reiterate again: being unable to afford all the luxuries you'd like is not equivalent to any reasonable definition of "scraping by."

As an aside, I find it funny in a meta sort of way that while we're talking about hyperbole, you interpreted my point to be literally about starving people in Africa.

[lhorie]

Is it that much different though? You're saying "X is not scraping by, look at Z for proof"; I just happened to pick a Z for which your argument becomes weak: I could have picked single moms w/ kids w/ cerebral palsy too, but the point is that we're cherrypicking a sob story that isn't all that relevant to the demographic being discussed. The non-literal interpretation of the OP is more along the lines of what I said earlier: "Bay Area middle class is shittier than middle class elsewhere"