Remember, a retiree that owns a home that appreciated in value up to $1 million or more is a millionaire. That’s a very middle class thing to have when retiring, at least for now. In a major city that’s a Craftsman 3-4-bedroom bungalow. And this is before accounting for the retirement account middle class people need to have in order to avoid having to sell off their home in order to survive.

It’s nice to have those things and many people don’t have them, but they are exactly what you got with a working wage about a standard deviation above median.

Segment the data by age and you’d have something to talk about.