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It's illustrative of the wealth divide in our society that engineers think 96th percentile wages are middle class.

Or, it's illustrative that what used to be truly middle class lifestyle can now be afforded only by people in top income percentiles, whereas the median income probably implies a lifestyle pretty close to poverty.

This, Exactly This.

Also, cost of living needs to be applied to these numbers, 100k in the Bay Area is 65k in Florida is 45k in Georgia.

You refer to the costs of living on the coasts as just the cost of living. Most of America can't make salaries to get by in the Bay Area, so they live elsewhere. That makes living in the Bay Area a luxury good.

Affluence is about how much you can afford relative to the rest of your society. If you're only comparing yourself to San Franciscans and New Yorkers, doesn't that mean you don't consider the flyover Americans your peers? As if there were some large divide in wealth in this country?

I wonder how much of that is due to "upgrades" that don't really improve quality of life all that much. Get top tier internet access, couple that with expensive vehicles and a gaudy house, and you've got no more real saving potential than the guy four neighborhoods over who makes half your salary.

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