I don't think you can just swap out the word "survival" with "middle class". Survival is a really powerful word, "the state or fact of continuing to live or exi

I don't think you can just swap out the word "survival" with "middle class". Survival is a really powerful word, "the state or fact of continuing to live or exist, typically in spite of an accident, ordeal, or difficult circumstances." So the claim is that you need $85k in King County in order to continue to live. This isn't pedantry. If people are scraping by in that area with less family income, then this metric is flawed and either the numbers should be revised or it should be renamed.