But you are denying them the incentive to work harder. If a 2 nurses work 3 extra shifts, they can easily make a combine of about $250k. These people who you considered middle class profession are not financially middle by your definition, because they work 2x as hard as their peers. Should you punish their drive by increasing their taxes? If company take cost of living into consideration when determining one’s salary, why is it so far fetch for the government to consider that as well when taxing those salary. $250k here is upper middle class in my opinion, but upper middle class are just middle class people who work harder either through education or longer work hours than the middle and lower middle class. They’re far from what you’d consider upper class. If by your definition of living here is a choice, so pay up, even though cost of living already eat up a lot of the take home, then we should abolish welfare in this state as well. If they’re too poor to live here, they have a choice to move to a cheaper city, right?