As someone who has been in that lower income bracket and is now comfortably upper-middle/lower-upper class, yeah its' definitely way easier now than when I was working a factory job. It's certainly not easy. I can't buy a Tesla and don't make 200K, but we're not worrying most months about putting food on the table like we were when we had nothing. I don't know that I would call anyone who still has to work to make ends meet rich, we'd lose everything with a few months of me being unemployed because we still haven't made enough to pay off our pre-existing debt. Is that still rich in your eyes? I've never made 200k myself, but I do pretty well for the area I'm in.