Because no matter what fairy tales you want to believe in your $20 "invested" in palantir won't make you a "shareholder" lmao
Lots of middle class people have graduated into upper-middle class: https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/the-middle-clas...
Wealth inequality is still a problem. But it's not just the people at the very top benefitting.
https://images.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/9...
https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020...
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/CvQar/full.png
https://static.guim.co.uk/ni/1415721490539/Wealth_line-chart...
Upper-middle class is people making ~$200k/year.
A lot of people have moved from middle class to upper middle class over the last decade. Both those categories are outside the 1%.
The upper limit and the median of the household income quintiles as of 2022 are:[0]
Lowest: $ 30,000 / $ 16,120
Second: $ 58,020 / $ 43,850
Middle: $ 94,000 / $ 74,730
Fourth: $153,000 / $119,900
Top: - / $277,300
I think getting into the weeds on whether $80k or $100k or $120k/yr is a middle class sort of misses the point, but at least with my eyes it is hard to argue you're middle class if you're making more than about $150k at the most.Even the GP, which I directionally agree with, says "upper-middle class is people making ~$200k/yr" but you're deep into the top quintile by that point, probably top 10%. I don't know what percentile I consider "upper middle" but it's definitely lower than top 10%.
[0] https://taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/household-income-quin...