What does it mean to have a comfortable lifestyle in the Valley? Maybe it means not worrying about the weekly grocery bill or a surprise car repair. Maybe it means fretlessly tapping that credit card for discretionary expenses like movies, concert tickets and wine tastings.
Statistically, though, one can assign numbers to those anecdotal data points. Being “upper-middle class” generally means making between 1.5 and two times the median household income for a certain area. And in the Phoenix area, the number at the end of that calculation varies widely depending on where you live.
In certain scenic neighborhoods, being upper-middle class could translate to bringing in nearly half a million dollars every year. In other Valley cities, that could mean bringing in four times less than that…