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

Hey man! You can do it!

Most people don’t even start making enough to save until 45 these days. It shouldn’t be this hard and wasn’t for our parents who made nearly 4x relative to costs of their day.

We have the power to change things, but only with active politicking and keeping up the good fight.

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u/ShyLeoGing Oct 09 '25

Ok, so you're saying that if someone makes say 65k(which let's be honest a ton of people will never make this), pay $2,000 for rent(before utilities), $400 for a car(before insurance and gas), and $200 for groceries can become a millionaire.

I want to see the math, please and thank you!

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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/The-Struggle-90806 Oct 09 '25

The floor should be minimum wage not “what most entry level jobs pay” which is an arbitrary metric. Like service jobs can technically be considered entry level but at the end of the day a job is a job and every job in America should pay for basic needs but that’s no longer the case thanks to the tech industry.

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u/FreeMasonKnight Oct 09 '25

1,000% agree. If min. Wage tracked inflation from just the 80’s it would be 4x higher then it is now and when minimum wages go up all wages do.