Is $100,000 middle class in America?

© Heather Long/The Washington Post. Gaby Osegueda is a Lyft driver in the San Francisco Bay area. Despite the fact that she and her husband bring home almost $100,000, they had to leave the city they love to find cheaper housing. There’s a prolonged pause when I ask Lyft driver Gaby Osegueda if her family is middle class. Her smile fades as she thinks about it for a while.
“Yeah, I think so. I don’t even know what the middle class is anymore,” says Osegueda, who with her husband earns nearly $100,000 a year in the San Francisco area.
The majority of Americans — 62 percent — identify as “middle class,” according to a Gallup poll conducted in June. It’s the highest percentage of people feeling that way since 2003. But a lot of Americans are like Osegueda: They feel middle class, but they aren’t sure what it means.
Just who exactly is middle class is in the national spotlight again as President Trump and Republicans in Congress craft tax cuts for individuals and corporations that they say will primarily benefit the middle. Vice President Pence called the plan, which is still being fleshed out, a “middle class miracle” this week. But amid this discussion, the middle class has been defined in different ways. Gary Cohn, Trump’s top economic adviser, recently discussed how a “typical family” making $100,000 a year would benefit. Trump has espoused the value of the plan to truckers, who make around $41,000 a year.
So what is the middle class? In America, an income of $59,000 a year is smack dab in the middle, according to the U.S. Census. But it's not that simple.

There is no exact definition of middle class, and a deep look at the data shows a wide variety of individuals could be part of it, depending on where they live and how big their family is. The middle class in San Francisco, where Osegueda lives, is not the same as it is in Peoria, Ill.
Osegueda and her husband are in their early 30s. Both have college degrees — she also has a master’s — and launched careers in San Francisco’s booming tech industry. She worked in human resources, and he’s an engineer. They love San Francisco, but a year ago, they moved to Pacifica, a suburb, where rent is more affordable and their young son has space to play. Despite making nearly $100,000 a year, they aren’t sure they’ll ever own a home, at least not anywhere in the Bay Area.