Maybe a regional thing then? Or as you hinted you're talking about a different sort of middle class. I grew up in a large family with a single government income

Maybe a regional thing then? Or as you hinted you're talking about a different sort of middle class. I grew up in a large family with a single government income, went to school with a lot of kids that were poorer than me (and some richer of course), and so on, and I can't remember a situation where it was just "ok" to talk about anything that made someone's finances explicit.