[xyzelement]

Making over 600k is great but you are probably not wealthy.

First, once you make over like 150k, your federal tax bracket goes into 30%+ and closer to 40%. And you probably live in NY or CA so it's more like 50% with state and local. So it may look like someone makes 200k more than you do (or whatever) but half of that difference right away goes to taxes.

Second, making that much money generally allows you to live in a nicer area but not not have an extravagant life in that area. Case in point, a small 4 bedroom house in the suburbs of NY is like 1.5 mil nowadays. The same house in a suburb of Cleveland might be like 250k. 6x difference in housing cost. So it doesn't make sense to compare the 600k to the 140k and say "wow that's so much above the average middle class" because they don't face the same costs.

And by the way you end up paying like 35k in taxes on that house in NY.

Don't get me wrong, 600k is a great income for a household and especially an individual. Just that most people who make that still live what looks like a middle class life just slightly nicer, in a better area and hopefully with some savings.