Middle Class Memes for Normal People (October 13, 2026)

Emmy Pratt • Senior Editor

Oct 13, 2026 6:00 AM EDT

I'm middle class, just like everyone else!

Everyone has a different idea of "middle class," which makes it hard to define in conversations about salary, money, and poverty. The ASPE published findings that someone earning $15,960 per year lives in poverty. A family of four is living in poverty if they're only making $33,000 per year. I don't know if I'd consider a family of four making $45,000 per year to be "middle class," even though objectively, they're not living in poverty. Their middle-class status depends on many factors. If they live in a high-cost-of-living place like San Francisco, they're probably financially drowning. If they live in a rural area where housing and the general cost of living are dirt cheap, a $45,000 income might make them middle class.

What drives me crazy about discussing financial classes is when people exaggerate how much money someone needs to make to be considered "middle class." Anyone who claims that you need to make $300K to be above the poverty line in New York City is a pretty delusional person, and yet people claim outlandish things like this all the time! That might be true if you think "living in New York City" means living in the most expensive neighborhood in Manhattan, but for most of the NYC population, it doesn't! Middle-class people live with their partner, roommates, or in a studio in a neighborhood that takes 45 minutes to get to Manhattan, and they figure it out! I think rich people claim that $300K per year in NYC doesn't make you middle class because they don't want to accept that they're high earners, live beyond their means, and that their money doesn't go as far in NYC as it does anywhere else.

I think being a meme editor is one of the most middle-class professions a person can have, and as one, I feel wholly qualified to present you with these middle-class memes. They're cheaper entertainment than watching Netflix!

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via @fwaevon
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via politicsinthewild
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via corporatepranks
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via ethandressen
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via beanexplains
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via @im_ayanna
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via @tailopez
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via ekzmarketing
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via literallymecats
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via @StanFritz & @bluecouch4sale
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via memetides
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via @King_Sukunaaa
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via s*****puffin
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via u/ChaoticGamer200
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via kluchit
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via @iamchiomaa_
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via beanexplains
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via grandtiermemes
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via dustycohen
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via @0ba0sama

Maybe this is the line that distinguishes being poor from being middle class. If you've regularly eaten a bowl of cereal or a ham sandwich for dinner because you didn't have anything else to eat, you're middle class. Suppose you've regularly gone to bed without dinner because you didn't have enough food in the house; then you're poor. If you've done a combination of the two, perhaps you're lower middle class. I don't know! I don't make the rules of who is in which economic class.
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via mooselicious_memes
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via @globeandmail & @Belas_ghost
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via jdubnix
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via @spencedyor
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via middleclassfancy

Middle-class people should buy those boots because they last for so many years. Ask me how I know.
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via @erichustls
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via stolenwieners

I've heard others say that the biggest difference between our generation and our grandparents' generation is that their needs were cheap, but their wants were expensive. Our needs are expensive, and our wants are cheap. That's why they spent next to nothing on a house, but didn't go out to eat more than once a year. Meanwhile, Gen Z and millennials go out to eat multiple times a week, but can't afford a house.
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via 9gag
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via daveyboyyyyyy
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via middleclassfancy