How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?
As someone who&#x27;s navigated their way from poor-&gt;middle class-&gt;upper middle class I can give a bit of perspective that I rarely see mentioned in these articles...<p>One of the biggest barriers to moving up in class is the people in your starter class. Family, friends, neighbors... almost all of them will start to get very aggressive with you if you seriously try to better yourself. I remember being accused of using too many &quot;five dollar words&quot;, being a nerd for spending time learning technology, being a <i>loser</i> for reading books! I found the crab bucket mentality to be very real. I tried to encourage others to have the strength to stand against it, but few did. I don&#x27;t really talk to anyone I knew from back then anymore.<p>Going from middle to upper middle was interesting as well. There you also see pressure to stay as you are but it&#x27;s less overt and more of a second order effect of trying to keep up with the Jones. The amount of debt that I saw the average middle class person bury themselves in just to achieve what they thought represented a slightly higher class than they actually lived was astounding. You can&#x27;t move up in class when you&#x27;re living paycheck to paycheck to pay for your car leases, oversized mortgage and credit cards balances that are full from paying for regular international travel.<p>Every step I&#x27;ve made has meant breaking ties with the people who weren&#x27;t happy to see me move on. Now I find myself at the glass ceiling and this time there&#x27;s very real pressure from <i>above</i> to stay where I&#x27;m at. Rich people may let you in the door occasionally but it will be on their terms. It&#x27;s up to you as a person to decide if you&#x27;re willing to contort yourself to their demands. Yes you can &quot;hit it big&quot; with a startup or something but there&#x27;s a lot of chance involved in that. At this stage you&#x27;re best off living below your means and investing since upper middle class people have a pretty meaningful revenue stream. Just not enough to call it quits and retire.