The fact is that many of those middle class people are now poor but just don't want to accept it.
I'd always define myself as working class because while I have a STEM Masters degree I am entirely dependent upon my salary (which isn't that high, we don't have US level salaries in tech here in Southern Europe) and I have no other sources of income or wealth (real estate, investments etc.)
I think the insistence of many people that they aren't "working class" is bad as it prevents them from seeing what is really in their best interests.
Class B is a different species. If they stop working, their money will still go up, indefinitely due to passive investments. The idea of getting to $0 is ridiculous because they get richer every day by doing nothing. Class B’s lifestyle is totally different than Class A.
Class A people like to invent all these other sub-classes to distance themselves from others in Class A: middle class. Upper middle class. Lower middle class. Middle upper middle class. It’s all pretty silly. We all have much more in common with each other than we do with people who get richer every day simply by existing.
Um, did you accidentally mix those two up? I think you meant Class B controls Class A. No?
The typically discussed classes in the US are lower, middle, upper which I always took to be one std below the mean income (lower) and one std above mean income (upper). Perhaps if we used mean days until $0 dollars in the bank if you stopped working it would be more useful.
However in the classic socialist sense of the world, or in other parts of the world, "working class" often just means "work for someone else."
And in that definition even I, an overpaid Google employee, am "working class"
Without connections like that, and especially that one, certain periods of my life would have been a lot harder. With all the long term impacts that has.
These sort of time luxury, magnitude of free/disposable income, and free cognitive load (less stress, etc.) aspects are all too frequently overlooked when shunning the working poor and now, even many working middle class Americans.
I remember the sort of stress I had first starting out simply keeping up with utility bill payment schedules to avoid late fees. I had the luxury of enough assets and steady income that I quickly setup autopayments on my credit card and never had to think about it again.
I had relatives and friends who couldn't setup autopayment because they were never sure if they'd have enough in their account or ability to pay their credit card and had to strategically optimize when and what they'd pay. The amount of cognative load folks endure juggling many of these artificial constructs makes it difficult for them to pursue and seize opportunity when it arises to get ahead.
Arguments could be made as to why some should or should not be in such situations but this is just one example. I often think about how difficult it is to fit certain necessary things in my schedule and then remember I don't ride the bus in the work which dramatically reduces my commute time.
There are many such aspects people deal with daily and it can be daunting. If you're very wealthy, a lot of these problems you can throw relatively marginal money at and the problem is solved while focusing on furthering yourself.