If someone is making 400k a year through investments, they are well beyond middle class because the amount of capital you need to do 400k year over year is significantly out of reach to the working class.

If your gross income is 400k a year, you’re doing pretty good, but if it’s the result of the work you’re doing, the reason people don’t “just stop working” is because they wouldn’t be making 400k a year anymore.

Is it possible that you just absolutely butchered what you intended to say in your original comment? That maybe you forgot some words or left something ambiguous that people are misunderstanding? I think people are pretty comfortable with the concept of growing wealth via investments, but for it to be enough to make “not working” an option (as your original comment seems to suggest) for the middle class is… Obviously not the case.