>> I did not want to be doing that when I was 50. So I worked hard, put myself through school, earned my BSCS and now I have a better life. And I am not an old rich white guy. I do not think that it is so dumb to work harder and get a better job. That is exactly what I did.

When did you get your degree? Education inflation exceeds even medical inflation and puts degrees out of reach of many a part-time bartender these days unless s/he did everything right in school and got a scholarship, whereas somebody lucky enough to be in this position in the 1980s now could pay off their debt on a credit card. Even if today's bartender does have a scholarship and/or manages to scrimp through school, s/he should not develop Middle Class expectations if you review stats like this: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/26/business/economy/middle-class-shrinks-further-as-more-fall-out-instead-of-climbing-up.html :

In recent years, the fastest-growing component of the new middle class has been households headed by people 65 and older. Today’s seniors have better retirement benefits than previous generations. Also, older Americans are increasingly working past traditional retirement age. More than eight million, or 19 percent, were in the labor force in 2013, nearly twice as many as in 2000...
As a result, while median household income, on average, has fallen 9 percent since the turn of the century, it has jumped 14 percent among households headed by older adults...
The growing prominence of older people in the middle class reflects, in part, the way Social Security and Medicare — originally set up as safety nets to protect seniors from falling into poverty after retirement — have provided a substantial cushion for them against hard times...
According to a New York Times poll in December, 60 percent of people who call themselves middle class think that if they work hard they will get rich. But the evidence suggests that goal is increasingly out of reach. When middle class people look up, they see the rich getting richer while they spin their wheels.,,