I don't think you have that many middle-class friends, judging by your opinion here. I could be totally off base on that presumption but I don't understand how you can hold that view if you do. That would be my failing then.

Middle-class isn't a month vacation every year anywhere they want. It isn't even retiring early. It's not getting the best version of everything. It still comes with cares concerns worries stresses challenges and a host of other afflictions that can almost always be solved by more money, just like everyone who is not as well off as the middle class.

It's a certain amount of comfortable survival, enough to also do more than a few things just because you want to and you have the means, but it's not a place that has no view of a higher place, it's just not always having your feet in the muck. Water waiting to drown you with a higher tide than usual or a moment of loss of vigilance and diligence to do the things you MUST do just to keep your head above water

At least that's been what I've come to given my life's windings