In  addition to getting smaller and smaller, the middle class in San Francisco is getting richer and richer, according to Mayor Ed Lee.

Middle-income earners in San Francisco are those who take home “$80,000 to $150,000” a year, the mayor told Time magazine in an interview published Thursday.

Those eye-popping numbers also raise some eyebrows: the most-recent U.S. Census Bureau figures peg the median income in San Francisco at roughly $73,000. That means more than half of earners here aren’t fitting the mayor’s middle-class definition.

How could that be? It’s possible, the mayor told the magazine’s San Francisco-based correspondent, the middle class changed while we weren’t looking.
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“I don’t think we paid any attention to the middle class,” Lee said. “I think everybody assumed the middle class was moving out. We might have a broader range of defining the middle class, as compared to maybe Oakland or San Jose. I’m talking maybe $80,000 to $150,000. I don’t think we paid attention, as a city, historically, to that level of income earners. I think we missed some steps there.”

A triple-figure paycheck would have Americans in other parts of the country living pretty comfortably, but Lee may have a point.

With rents in The City now triple the national average, according to Trulia, the cost of living in San Francisco is becoming more and more out of reach for many people.