Even in the Bay Area (which these two are NOT in), they are making DOUBLE the typical Bay-Area median household.
You can't make DOUBLE the amount of money of the median family and then claim to be "middle class". It just doesn't work that way.
And FYI: there's a reason why there's a ton of anti-gentrification going on in San Francisco. The actual middle-class, who is trying to live on ~$80k combined income in that region, is not able to find a house (let alone the lower-class, who will earn much less than the median)
My family makes significantly over 150k per year, and we still consider ourselves middle class. Class isn't about income, it's about values and culture, as numerous articles linked elsewhere in the comments explain.
$150k is a lower-estimate for this family, they probably beat the $165k to qualify for top 5% household incomes in the country.
High amount of autonomy in their work, advanced degrees (beyond college: masters degree plus continuing education), significantly higher wages than everyone else... yeah, upper-middle class.
Ok, I think we keep talking past each other, because to me, upper middle class is just a subset of middle class. I don't think it's wrong for people who belong to it to describe themselves as middle class, because if you're in the upper middle class, you have a lot more in common with the rest of the middle class, than you have with the upper class.
Even in the Bay Area (which these two are NOT in), they are making DOUBLE the typical Bay-Area median household.
You can't make DOUBLE the amount of money of the median family and then claim to be "middle class". It just doesn't work that way.
And FYI: there's a reason why there's a ton of anti-gentrification going on in San Francisco. The actual middle-class, who is trying to live on ~$80k combined income in that region, is not able to find a house (let alone the lower-class, who will earn much less than the median)