If her the has a six figure job and she's such a thieving, manipulative, penny pinching bitch, they could indeed be wealthy. It depends on whether she's saving more money that she screws out of people than she spends on Home Shopping Network.

And on note: when are we going to stop calling rich people "upper middle class"? The very long tail on income distributions, the 0.1 percent of people stringing along the right side of the graph who make and/or hold tens of millions every year, lends itself to a deception too many people readily accept: everyone pretends they're not rich until they're undeniably filthy.

This does huge disservice to debates about income and inequality. Making just a flat $102,000/yr puts you in the 80th percentile. Making $186,000 puts you in the 95th, and yet most of those making at least $186k, along with most of those above and beneath them, agree that such earners are still part of some "middle"? People into the top 5% all think they're simply on the upper cusp of the average joes? A great majority of those are still working class in the literal sense, they go out and work full-time jobs to get their subsistence by wages, rather than existing on investment income, but they're hardly "middle" income or class in any statistically legitimate way.

That kind of mathematically absurd thinking does huge damage in all kinds of ways you don't notice easily. Think about the objections from wealthy conservatives when raising top tax rates and closing tax deductions skewed towards the wealthy became a big national conversation a few years ago. "Even taking all the current wealth of the top 1% would barely solve 1/3 of the national debt, or could balance the projected deficit for maybe the next ten years." "Even raising rates on the entire top 5% by 10 points could only solve 1/3 of the deficit; you have to slash spending well into the double-digits or its mathematically impossible to balance the budget." And on and on.

Except again, they're talking about the top 1% or 5% or 10% when the top 21 percent or so make at least $100,000/yr. They're focusing on only the obscenely rich as potential sources of tax revenue, and drawing the irrational (even under their flawed paradigm) conclusion that therefore raising taxes is a hopeless idea. Except it's not. Look at the income distributions across the whole spectrum, like the data points I showed you.

If we agreed taxes must rise significantly, even most of the 70-some percentiles can easily afford another 1% in taxes. The 80th can afford 1-2%, the 85th could afford 3-5%, the 90th could afford at least 5%, and above the 95th as much as 15% more isn't totally ridiculous.

Remember that I said if we agreed taxes should rise to balance things and even potentially spend more on government. I'm not here to talk about whether we should do that, I'm just here to point out how inaccurate perceptions are exploited for misleading mathematical soundbites to derail legitimate debates.