“Upper class” is defined, in most modern usages I’ve seen, as someone who does not so much work to earn money as they work to earn favor, where “favor” is the ability to access various sorts of line-of-credit drawn from wealthy people’s bank accounts because of your connection to them.

In est: the upper class are courtiers. Courtiers for investments, placements onto boards of directors, management roles of other people’s wealth, and so on. All upper-class people are inherently both grantors, and recipients, of such favor.

And once you have such favor, money becomes kind of irrelevant. You can access huge pools of other people’s money, to do whatever you want to do, so why would you need your own money? (Even if, sometimes, you do. There are such things as “starving nobles”, who have the ability to command others’ fortunes but who have no personal fortune. Usually because they’ve already put their personal fortune to work in some way.)

If you’ve ever read the Cory Doctorow book Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, the “whuffie” currency from that book is basically already reality for the upper class. (The only difference is that whuffie puts a legible number on aggregate total favor, which is intentionally made as illegible as possible in reality.)

>If you’ve ever read the Charlie Stross book Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

That's by Cory Doctorow, not Charlie Stross.

Oops! Fixed.

I would fathom a guess that you feel middle class for 2 reasons:

1. Your life doesn't fit in line with your expectations of upper class.

2. 200k a year in the Bay Area is, in its weird, sad way, middle class.

3. The feeling of "killing it" is pretty difficult to obtain when you are an ambitious person.

But you are doing well. You are probably doing better off than most people, even in the Bay Area. I hope that you can find some peace within yourself, because the only person who can make you feel successful is yourself. It seems to me that you need to learn how to set trajectories for yourself with success outcomes that resonate with you.

Can you expand on "set trajectories for yourself with success outcomes..." ?

This was wonderful. Thank you.

Congratulations!

I'm based in the Pacific Northwest and feel similarly as you. It also happens that we are the same age.

Most of my friends and family make far less then me. Aside from co-workers, I don't have many people in my life who I can confide in about my salary, income, and the future. I often attribute my confusion with a lack of feedback.

I've worked hard to get to where I am and treat my income as a finite resource. It's something that I know will change in the future. I'm also aware of the risk of having all my income come from a single source.

I think it's hard to know if we are really "killing it". It also doesn't help when we are surrounded by people who have a similar income as us.

At the end of the day, are you happy with what you are doing? Is the income you are earning worth the time you are spending every day?

Personally, I would like to reduce my time spent as a software engineer without jeopardizing my family's safety and future.

Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but I found it strange that rather than googling "middle class income range SF", you chose to post this rambling humble brag comment.

If the money you make is tied the hours you work, probably not. But once you figure out ways to divorce the two you'll probably feel more like you are "killing it."

Excellent point. Agreed. I want to start an Amazon business.

There are many definitions of middle class. You are using a definition that defines middle class as the desire for what our parents had. It seems like it was easier for them than it is for us...back then you could work for the post office and have a house in the suburbs, 2 kids, and take vacations to Orlando every year.

Now you need to be top 5% just to afford rent in some places (average rent in my city is $2371 and using the standard 30% of gross you need $94,840 annually, putting you in the top 5% nationwide).

My wife and I are "killing it" but we didn't feel that way until we made $300k combined here in Los Angeles.

It sounds like you need some perspective. You have more wealth than nearly everyone else on Earth. What more do you want?

> You have more wealth than nearly everyone else on Earth.

But huge swaths of the earth are in poverty and have entirely different costs of living.

A more relevant measure... they have more wealth than the vast majority of San Francisco itself - 80th percentile household income in SF is $190k according to https://statisticalatlas.com/place/California/San-Francisco/...

Yes. With little effort, assuming prior to your exit you had a $0 net worth, you could be financially independent in ~5 years, able to spend more than an average American every year for the rest of your life. You're killing it.

How... would I do that?

Your living in one of the most expensive areas in the world. If you moved somewhere cheaper you'd be considered the upper class. It's all relative.

Yes? You make several times what most families make and are well into the top 10%.

You probably have an easy time comparing yourself to a billionaire's lifestyle and saying "I'm not rich". You probably have a hard time visualizing and comparing yourself to the typical American lifestyle of a typical earner or even low-earner and saying "I'm incredibly rich compared to most". But that's on you. You could go and learn more about how most people live. Go and find all the people - tens of millions of them in the US - who, when they have a cavity, don't go to the dentist because they can't afford it. Say hi to them, ask them about their life.

It is possible to get away from $9 coffees and recalibrate your wealth evaluation system.

It depends how much you value material possessions. Is "winning" the rat race important to you?

Money, after a certain threshold, has very little incremental value.

I make a lot less than that and my rent is more than that now...

I’m also 10 years younger.

How exactly does a 22-year-old have a $3k+ rent?

I mean if you graduate college, get a finance job and live and work in lower manhattan i could see this happening. Might not be a very good idea but its still certainly possible.

There are plenty of 1-bedrooms in high-cost of living areas like NYC, so one way is for the 22-year-old to rent one of them? Now it may not be financially advisable, but if he's making 120k that would be both "a lot less" than 200k and possible to rent a 3k apt, since landlords usually want 40x rent as income.

Studio :/

I live in a place close to my work in Boston.

So far I think it’s worth it just in terms of my sanity but it tickles me to see people making more than me complain about rent.

Step 1: Major in computer science

Step 2: Graduate and get a programming job in SF.

So the marxist line is that you dont feel upper class because you're not! I mean by some older definitions you're not even really middle class. The "orthodox" explanation of this is that if you own land you're middle class, if you profit off of it (e.g.: if you rent anything like land or people) then you're upper class. (The terms here are petite bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie.) It's clear to me that you definitely should feel like you're killing it but i think the reason why we think that is because we grew up in a different place at a different time and the working classes have a prohibition on discussing these things in detail so we dont update our view of the world regularly enough.

“Capital” rather than “land”, Land defines the feudal upper class, capital the capitalist upper class.

But otherwise that's spot on.

You're right. The downvotes here are telling :)