Before we declare that the sky is falling, let's point out that my ass, with my '95 Dodge Stealth, Afghani daycare provider and wife with $200k in student loans is considered "upper class" by their calculation. Fuck yeah we'd be living like kings in Chillicothe OH but we don't. We moved back to a place where a 1300sqft rambler from 1952 sells for $350k, which saved us a lot of money because our former next-door neighbors spent $850k on an 1100sqft 3BR so their three kids could have two bedrooms and a postage-stamp-sized yard across a 4-lane road from a cemetery. They're schoolteachers. Fuckin' living wage in Los Angeles County for a family of 3 is $49k a year. According to Pew that's $8k into middle-class. According to MIT that's the bare minimum to avoid food stamps. I think Pew can fuck off.