Yahoo Finance reprints a SmartAsset article entitled "The Surprisingly High Cost of Being a Middle-Class American." Hat tip to the other DrC for the link. Here is a key passage.
The Pew Research Center describes the middle class as an individual who generates between two-thirds and doubles the median U.S. household income, which was $65,000 in 2021, according to the most recent numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau. Using those numbers, a middle-class income would be any household that makes approximately $43,350 to $130,000.
I'd add to that financial yardstick another measure. To a substantial degree being middle class in the U.S. means accepting a middle class set of values, attitudes, and behaviors. I haven't seen an up-to-date set of these listed, but at one time whether or not one swore and casually shared racist humor or stereotypes could distinguish lower from middle class membership.
I'll give you a humorous example from a long ago sociology class. I can still remember the prof smirking as he said it.
If two married couples go out for an evening and take one car, you can tell their social class by their seating pattern. If the men sit in front and the women in back they are lower class. If each couple sits together, one in front, the other in rear, they are middle class. If each man sits with other's wife they are upper class.
All of this a result of the middle class being historically the most moral and concerned with appearances of the three classes.
