Biggest threat I see to building a middle class reflects the threats they face in the physical world as well. I would think trying to build middle class community instead of individuals would also be the way to move forward.

Inflation. How much per week does someone even need to be earning to keep the same % of stake per week anyways? 40k-60k SP middle class today is not tomorrows middle class.

Keeping up with the joneses as they say. No matter your best efforts after a while you just no longer can keep up with all the changes going on and being “cutting edge.” There are quite a few ways to earn something here. I swear almost something new daily with different platforms coming up carrying large SP deletions with them to upvote content. You also have the automation that could simply replace those trying to working themselves to death.

Drugs usage. People dream so often of reaching trending and getting that next new high. More upvotes, more restreems, more comments, higher payout numbers. Once they buy it to get there they will have to buy even more to get even further. I’ve seen it happen with a lot of minnows on the lower end with what little scraps they have to toss at things. Once you really start to have money to toss around that will be a risk in its self.

Fraud and Theft. Besides people stealing content and earning a reward that is taking it away from the harder workers. There is always that risk of accounts getting stolen. People targeting them because of the size of their wallet and them not being able to turn down people who are “in need of help. ” Not to mention all the people wanting to come along just for easy upvotes and ride them.

Loss of a major income source. To even make it to middle income you need some big bakers here on steemit or a high paying job to have the spare income to buy in often to build. Unless they just leave auto upvoting on and don’t ever check in there a good chance over time or power down; which, is often what happens. Community that support people also raise and fall and many of them over time degrade in their own ability to help.

That is quite a lot for a single person to overcome. I think we need more middle class community’s out there supporting amazing things. If one person in them is no longer able to carry the flag they can pass it off to the next willing person who can deal with the stress, working themselves to death, and the endless heart breaks it will cause. Thinking your way out of poverty is often a team task.