That's fair. My parents left the collapsing USSR with nothing and ended up in Australia. Materially poor with no support network or generational wealth, but well educated and with a clear path to the middle class. I still think I/we were very fortunate and didn't mean to offend anyone by saying we were poor. I am well aware there are/were many people less fortunate than us.

It's not fair.

This is one problem with socio-economic class: When somebody's 'socio' doesn't match their 'economic', things get weird. I'm a first generation college student who has 3 great-grandparents with college degrees.

It makes it easier to dig yourself out, but depending on the circumstances it can also cause its own issues. For example, my mother ran away from an abusive but well-off home, so I was regaled with tales of upper-middle and well-off hypocrisy and all their problems, which makes it really hard to want to fit in/keep my mouth shut in spaces that I share with those people.

There's a reason Fussell puts college professors as a kind of appendix on the side of his "Upper-Middle", and not down in classes that tend to be closer to their income level (Middle, or even Prole).

Still, I'm not sure how much difference that upper-middle-adjacent socialization makes when it comes to poverty thinking.

No, poor is poor. Please don't move or re-label goal posts.