Originally Posted by HowlerKarma
I found the term "rich" when applied to a two-income household making 165K fairly inflammatory, myself. In many urban parts of the country, that income is solidly middle-class, and only in a few places would it be "wealthy" as far as I can tell.

If a person chooses to live in a place where $165k/year can barely pay for housing, that's the choice they've made. We all know that those choices come with significant other advantages that don't exist in places where such a person could pay cash for a nice home in a peaceful neighborhood, particularly in the quality of government services (police, fire, education, transport, etc.). But to call that "middle class" is just insulting.