Median individual income in the Bay Area is around $50k.

So you're saying $120k is "close to" $50k?

A middle-class family could live in San Francisco on 150-180k

Median family income is around $78k.

Are you sure, then, that you don't see anything wrong with the logic in the argument you're making?

It's a bit fuzzy. But not that fuzzy.

They're arguing its based on affordability markers.

That's not my reading of what "they" are saying (aside from the fact which posters here, aside from the one a few up from here, that you're referring to is more than a bit unclear).

But more to they point -- they're welcome to "argue" that point if they like. But if they do, it doesn't seem to have much to do with the commonly accepted notion of "middle class":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_class

For which "median income" might not be an exact equivalent -- but is good enough, to a first-order approximation.

"Median affordability in the most expensive large-scale real estate market in the U.S.", in comparison -- just doesn't make very much sense.

At this point Poe's law is ringing. You must be trolling.

It would obviously be difficult to describe someone with an income of $120,000 as 'upper class' – especially in the Bay area, where the cost of living is so high. That kind of leaves 'middle class' as the realistic descriptive.

No -- everything that's been "pointed out" in this sub-thread thus far seems to conflate household with individual income figures. Which is of course a non-starter, basic logic-wise. So that's where about 80% of the noise in this thread seems to come from.

The other 20% comes from a hidden circularity: In that people are now basically saying that "median incomes in a city that has become affordable only to the upper-middle, and higher classes in very recent years, are uh, you know, middle class for that city." Which you can buy into, if you want. But it completely circumnavigates the question of whether things haven't drastically changed in the city in the past 20 years -- when it actually was much more of middle class city than it is now.

But then again, if one has no recollection of the former SF at all -- like, fairly stated, your average tech worker filing into the city, these days -- then I suppose that kind reasoning might make a lot of sense.

(Parenthetically: I'll acknowledge that there's some jitter between "median income" and "middle class," even restricted to a particular geographic area. But compared to the disconnect that started this whole sub-thread -- someone basically saying that tech worker salaries are "middle class"; and other people using personal and household income figures interchangably -- it's fairly negligible).

That's really irrelevant. Let's assume that a household with two tech workers has a household income of $250,000, or $125,000 each, to avoid any of this 'noise'.

This figure is still below that which is required to buy the media property in San Francisco! (http://www.businessinsider.com/san-franciscos-epic-housing-c...) The median house price in SF is in excess of $1.3M!

I find it difficult to agree that a household who cannot afford to buy a house can realistically be considered 'upper class'. Upper-middle, maybe. That's not a 'hidden circularity' – the price increase in housing has reduced the affordability of the area, meaning that people do not fall into the same economic class that they might were they to live elsewhere. How else does one define economic class, if not in terms of the affordability of their environment?

I absolutely believe that SF has changed dramatically since it became the foremost global tech hub. I don't doubt that large tech salaries have played a part in that. But it doesn't magically make people who receive those salaries 'upper class'.

It amounts to a 50% noise factor, across the board. Which means arguments based on this fudge factor basically don't make any sense, in my view.

But if you want to to a different route and consider this disconnect "irrelevant", hey, that's fine.

As to the "circularity" part of what you're saying:

If one defines the "middle-upper" distinction in terms of affordability within the current SF real estate bubble then your argument would be a lot more sensible.

But I don't buy that definition; I don't think it's tenable; and I don't think it jibes would how most people (who aren't disgruntled SF tech workers) would define that distinction. I think it's fundamentally flawed, in other words (and quite obviously so).

Again though, that's just me -- and basically everyone I've come in contact with in regard to the whole inequality / affordability debate since long before it became the huge, glaring thing that it is now. You can of course define it however you like.