Geez who were they surveying, people living in San Francisco? These numbers seem ridiculously high. $2 million they say it would take to feel rich?! Wtf… I have a feeling the people surveyed are what I would already consider rich. But it’s all relative isn’t it? I think when you’re able to start saving enough each month to easily cover rent or mortgage for the next month, you are raking it in and should be in that comfortable group.
The reality is that 64% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and aren’t making any actual savings. Meanwhile, median deb is around $67,000 and 37% of the population is working two full time jobs now. This situation is only getting worse as the rates rise and people have to allocate increasingly higher percentage of their income towards servicing their debts. A very small percentage of the population is in the comfortable group now.
Here’s the survey
The more money Americans make, the higher the income they report needing to earn — both for feeling financially comfortable and rich.
Why do Americans have a higher bar for comfortability, the more money they make? One reason: They may be adjusting their standard of living along with their salary.
And MarketWatch pointed out an interesting statistic
Americans have a long way to go to meet either of those goals. Full-time workers earned on average $75,203 in 2021. The median salary — the midpoint between the highest and lowest — was $53,888, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Taken together, a bunch of people who make very little money want to make a lot of money for a higher standard of living. I suspect that if these Americans ended up earning $233K, they’d still financially insecure because their lifestyle would inflate with their incomes. That’s why it’s so high in the first place, not because $233K per year will lead to financial security. You could, and I do, feel secure with much less.
75k might be the average salary, but almost no one makes that
And how far 75k goes also depends on where people live. Not exactly going to get you far in a place like New York for example.
I always find articles like this very odd because the cost of living can be so drastically different in different areas of the US.
Like, this headline makes sense to me if they only interviewed people living in California or another state that is pretty expensive to live in.
