$400K income in Silicon Valley is still middle-class

A house price-to-income of 1.5x - 3x was long considered normal, and is still obtainable in middle America, the south, upstate NY and much of the NE, etc. But certainly not out west.

Meanwhile on the west coast, price-to-income is routinely in the realm of 10x - 20x, with the upper end being the norm in Silicon Valley.

Consider Palo Alto, where median household income is $137,000 a year and median housing currently is $3,000,000, making price-to-income 21x.

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/paloaltocitycal...

https://www.zillow.com/palo-alto-ca/home-values/

Now if you really want to ponder how far things have gone awry, consider what the typical middle class lifestyle of 1960s America was then, and what that same lifestyle would cost today, as this article does:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/are-you-real...

Put simply, you need to earn more than you think, and if you want a typical "middle class" lifestyle on a regular income, you should probably not live on the west coast.