re: What minimum salary would be required to be part of the middle class?

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The cold, hard reality of being middle class in the US today is a two-income household, unless you were gifted with an early inheritance, free house, or started working at a very young age.

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I was born in early 80s and have a sister that is 4 years younger than me. We lived in a decent neighborhood in the suburbs - nothing spectacular, but I never felt unsafe. Parents have a HS education. Mom never worked until I was a junior in HS and my sister was in 7th grade. We both went to Catholic schools 1st - 12th grades. Dad worked a physically demanding job - I doubt he ever made more than 30K in the 80s and maybe 40K in the 90s.

Yet, we owned our house, had a car (dad had a work truck owned by the company). We took something of a vacation each year - even if it was just to Biloxi for a few days. We always had food on the table. We had a life. I know my parents didn't save a dime for retirement outside of pension and social security, but we were able to live.

Fast forward to today. I simply cannot imagine my wife not working, unless I was making significantly more than I make now. This is a world where housing, education, medical care, etc, has increased in cost significantly higher than wage growth. After 20-30 years of that, it's not hard to see why my wife has to work. Especially if we ever want to do anything halfway nice.