Defining what the heck the "middle class" actually is

 So, this is a pet peeve I have with American politics, and it's the idea of the "middle class". Now, middle class should mean, well, the middle. But then when some liberals on a message board were asked to define it, they ended up describing an upper class 6 figures lifestyle based on their metrics of affordability and the American dream. And even some 6 figures makers complain about a high cost of living while living in say, New York or San Francisco. 

Obviously this is because the bourgeois democratic party is being infested with these upper class suburbanites everyone is fawning over, and they portray themselves as the "middle", when no, no, they aren't actually the middle. Not even close. The top 20% of income earners aren't middle class by definition. That's the upper class. I don't care if the difference between someone making $130k at the 80th percentile and someone making millions is radically different. You're not in the middle! The threshold to the top 1% last I checked is like $536k or something. Not even a millionaire. You can be at the 99% mark and not have millions of dollars. But that doesn't mean they're middle.

So what's a better definition of "middle class"? Well, it should be, what the median is, roughly. Or, if we want to expand beyond that, whatever, say, the 30th-70th percentile of income earnings is. That's the real "middle class" of the country. 

On an individual level, that's an income range of $26,101 to $66,017. The median is essentially $43,206 and that actually seems much higher than I've seen elsewhere. 

On the household level, that's an income of $40,348 to $109,560. The median is essentially $68,400, which is more in line with previous expectations. 

That's what the real middle class is. It's not people making 6 figures mostly, although some households may make in the very low 6 figure range. It's households that make around $70k on average. The so called "upper middle class" is really the upper class. There's no other way to put it from a statistical perspective. People have a real distorted view of what the middle class is. I've seen people making $20k a year describe themselves as middle class. People who make $200k try to make the same distinction. Neither are anywhere near the middle by any definition.

And if the middle class isn't really the middle and is just this petit bourgeois stepford wives stuff made up of the top 20% of people, what's the point? Why have 80% of people suffer so we can go on about how cheery the economy is for the top 20%. Guess that's America for you. People believe in the American dream because they have to be asleep to believe it.