Overall, I feel like I have no room to complain about my situation. By your standard, I’m upper middle class although it doesn’t really feel like it in my HCOL area. I make $175k working in tech and have a partner who as an attorney was making slightly less than me prior to quitting his job (he’s currently job hunting for opportunities in the $100k-$150k range). We are in our 20s, so we could easily have a household income in the $350k-$450k range in the next decade. We were able to purchase a pretty nice townhome and generally don’t worry about money despite having student loans (and now one income). We also both fully support student loan forgiveness and decreased and/or free college tuition.

With that being said, I think the higher incomes make up for (or at least balance out) the debt we took on and the tuition we have paid so I’m not going to be mad that we will have to pay back the loans we took out, although it would be amazing if we didn’t have to take on that debt. My same job in Amsterdam or London might pay $60k-$75k according to salaries I’ve seen on Blind. So I am making nearly 3x what I would be making in Europe, and that gives me a lot of freedom despite my student loan payments. However, my experience doesn’t detract from those who took out a large amount of student loans to get a degree in an industry that does not pay well. I truly feel for those individuals, including some of my friend s who are in that boat.

I am happy to pay my fair share of taxes. I do come from generational wealth, and my dad has an 8 figure net worth (although again, I still have student loans and will for the most part not see the benefits of that wealth until he passes because we wants me to be self sufficient). There have been years when he owed $50k-$100k in federal income taxes alone at tax time despite also paying income tax throughout the year and donating tens of thousands of dollars to reduce his tax burden. Not all wealthy people are solely or even mainly paying capital gains taxes, although plenty are.