I'm not sure about the definition, I suspect colloquial thought about "upper middle class" differs from being in the 60 to 80 range for household income when th

I'm not sure about the definition, I suspect colloquial thought about "upper middle class" differs from being in the 60 to 80 range for household income when the 60 is within 10k of median household income. +~$7.5k to median should yield significant benefits long term, like a couple more easily maxing IRAs every year, but shouldn't be a giant leap in class, especially when distribution of wealth places average household income squarely in middle of the 60 - 80 band. That said, the example person they used isn't really paying for insane overextension - especially assuming rates are fixed and pre-rate-hike. He's paying because his living margins and costs are more impacted by inflation than his real-estate costs and now the cost of living margin he expected to be relatively stable is going away.