[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"