Anyone who doesn't think $100k/yr is rich has never been poor… or even middle income. Sure, $100k/yr will only get you a small studio in Manhattan, but you're still rich. You live a life that someone who's making $30k can only imagine, you just decided to live in a relatively small place square footage wise. The closest most middle income people will ever get to the experience of being able to just walk down to the Guggenheim, or go out drinking fancy cocktails is watching someone else do it on TV. If they are lucky, they'll maybe get to experience that once in their life.
It's perplexing to me that people who are rich don't think they are just because they live in a small apartment. How you can be obtuse with respect to how he majority of people live? I see it all the time in New York and San Francisco. Single people making $100k pretending like they are somehow "middle class" because they live in a small apartment.