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<p>250K is <em>not</em> upper middle class. </p>
<p>2006 CBO data: <a href=“http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2009/income_ranges.pdf[/url]”>http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2009/income_ranges.pdf</a></p>
<p>top 10%: 98,100<br>
top 5%: 134,400
top 1%: 332,300</p>
<p>Even if you add on 10% to 2006 numbers to adjust to 2010, 250K is still top 2% in income in this country. And yes, most of those will be in larger cities with higher COL as there are not too many jobs that pay that in Wyoming. I think its hard to apply term “middle class” even with ‘upper’ added, to a subset that comprises what is the tippy top in income in the country. It would be equivalent to saying Columbia (just using as an example) is a “high average” school because it’s in the top 2% of colleges in this country.</p>