> Most middle aged peole who live in Claifornia west of the I5 and own a house probably have a net worth > $700k. Well, yeah, there are lots of wealthy people

> Most middle aged peole who live in Claifornia west of the I5 and own a house probably have a net worth > $700k. Well, yeah, there are lots of wealthy people in California. It seems like you're saying "it's so normal to be wealthy in California, so they aren't really wealthy". Sure, maybe you aren't relatively wealthy compared to your neighbours, but that doesn't change the fact that you're wealthier than 99% of the world. > you can have that net worth and just be getting by Only if you define "just getting by" by "having a normal lifestyle compared to your peers". But then most of the people in any range will be "getting by", by definition, including the 0.1%. There's no need to confuse "these people are wealthy" (for some arbitrary but quite reasonable definition of "wealthy") with "these people are privileged" or "these people should feel guilty" (both of which involves all sorts of value judgement)