By and large I think you're on point, especially with media portrayals. I think it's hard to conceptualize the bubbles that people live in until you experience it directly. People in various demographics have, quite literally, "no idea how the other half lives".

However, I still think inequality is a massive problem. People in trades or services that work for larger conglomerate companies can't fly under the radar, don't have health benefits, and can be laid off en masse. They aren't generally "doing OK".

Also:

>every kind of engineering other than "software engineering" requires occupational licensing and has professional associations that both stick up for workers and set a bar for training and quality

Once upon a time, that was the reality. These days a lot of occupational licensing exists solely for profiteering and protectionism. Professional education/certification companies print money on the back of egregious CPE requirements, while new entrants to the field find themselves absolutely crowded out of a few entry level jobs with financially prohibitive certification and education requirements. Mind you, these grads already have a pile of debt, and no way to pay it back yet. Those groups work great if you've been in the field for 15+ years, not so much if you're just starting out.

For better or worse, software engineering is slightly more egalitarian in that regard: you can self-educate, you don't necessarily need to amass a ton of debt, and can get even an entry-level job that would make the Simpson's life "attainable".