[king_jester]

You can be middle class and live paycheck-to-paycheck. There is nothing about that arrangement that prevents some folks from having assets, there is a reason the term "house poor" exists and there is a reason why foreclosure rates shot up for middle class people in the 2009 housing collapse.

[ef4]

Someone who is house poor has liabilities nearly as big as their assets, so their net assets are still nearly zero.

Nobody who actually owned their house free and clear got foreclosed on.

Again, if your existence is so tenuous, you are not middle class. At least not if the word still means what it meant for the past several hundred years.