My wife has been on a rom-com binge over the last year or so and something I’ve noticed when I’m vaguely paying attention or walking past is that almost every single rom-com features people who are, at the very least, middle to upper-middle class. These characters all live in gigantic houses/apartments, have beautifully sparkling brand-new cars, take month-long vacations to their beachfront properties… it’s just so unrealistic and out of line with the life that the vast majority of us lead.
I understand some concepts - large rooms are easier to film in, rich people own nice things that set a beautiful scene, it’s not interesting to discuss financial issues all the time etc. but this seems (from my anecdotal perspective) to almost be a rule of the genre.
Some more food for thought:
https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a867107/rom-coms-diversity-wealth-income/
From a showrunner perspective, you want to have a diverse set of sets, activities, and situations you can perform in. That leaves you either with wealthy characters, who can justify doing these things in these exotic places. Or poor characters who behave wealthy inexplicably.
Ie friends where people working dead end jobs had housing better than most millionaires.