This is a better way to phrase it. $200k in the Midwest means a pretty good house in the best area public school district, two cars, some decent but not extrava

This is a better way to phrase it. $200k in the Midwest means a pretty good house in the best area public school district, two cars, some decent but not extravagant vacations, and you might be able to retire comfortably by your mid-sixties assuming nobody gets too sick in the meantime. It doesn’t mean living in the nicest parts of the city, which have bad schools because everyone in the nice houses there sends their kids to a good private school, and the public schools are attended only by kids from the slums. It doesn’t mean a lake house (maybe a small lake fishing cabin, on a kinda-bad lake, but not a lake house. Maybe a tacky pontoon boat and a slip rental). It doesn’t mean annual long ski vacations and summering. It’s not upper middle class, in other words.