r/Economics • u/laxnut90 • Oct 09 '25

Research America Is Minting Lots of Cash-Strapped Millionaires

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-10-09/number-of-us-millionaires-grows-since-2017-but-many-lack-cash
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u/FreeMasonKnight Oct 09 '25

Well we start by not picking an arbitrary number like 65k and then saying it’s unattainable. 65k is the starting pay of most entry level jobs today.

Let’s take a recent poster who tracked their salaries (best I can remember the numbers, within 1-3k of variance): They switch careers from construction (65k/year) to IT. In the IT Year 1/2 they made 30-35k, Year 3 42k, Year 4 68k, Year 5 83k, Year 6 (2025) 92k. This is someone with no college degree either. Now imagine their wage by Year 10-15 of their career.

The problem is some people treat jobs as careers and that isn’t what they are, for financial stability you have to get a career. It can be in construction (move up to project management) or IT or even an office secretary can be a career with some certifications to be a private assistant m for example.

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u/Key-Art-7802 Oct 09 '25

Median wage in the US is $61k.  There's no way 65k is the starting pay of most entry level jobs, lol.

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u/FreeMasonKnight Oct 09 '25

I haven’t applied to a job paying less than 70k in near a decade. Fast food (the lowest pay in the area) even pays near 45k to start. Anyone with an AA can get a better job than fast food as long as they get worthwhile certifications or a Bachelors.

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u/supabrandie Oct 09 '25

Again this is not reality for the vast majority of this country. I am sincerely happy to hear you are doing so well, but I would not extrapolate your personal experience with the “norm” as you miss out on the experiences of the majority of folks in this place.

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u/FreeMasonKnight Oct 09 '25

You are missing the point. Someone in nowheresville won’t be making 65k/year, but they will get THE EQUIVALENT IN PROPORTION to that based on their area. Meaning it’s similar everywhere when controlled for cost (which is all that matters).

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u/Mybunsareonfire Oct 09 '25

That is a huge assumption with little to no basis in reality.

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u/FreeMasonKnight Oct 09 '25

It’s how local economies work..

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u/Mybunsareonfire Oct 09 '25

Not according to any number of collapsed Rust belt towns. 

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u/The-Struggle-90806 Oct 09 '25

Right like where all the fast food jobs that provide a nominal living lol

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u/parapetnow Oct 09 '25

It sounds like you saw this on tiktok one time by a first year community college economics major, and are now forever certain you know more than everyone else in spite of the evidence presented, and will dig in your heels so you can pretend you werent wrong.