The outage in this thread is just a perfect example of how every social media site ends up being a rage bait echo chamber.
If you retired today on a million dollars, you’d have income of 40k and that’s before taking into account future inflation. Nothing about that screams rich or wealthy. 2.5-3M will net you what you need to retire middle class in the US.
Everyone in here screeching angrily that the middle class is being squeezed but they used millionaires so fuck em right?
The comment sections under certain articles couldn’t be more predictable here. People know their audience and therefore know exactly what to say to receive the maximum number of pats on the back. Apparently we’re so devoid of meaning and purpose that even online hate clubs start seeming like something worth becoming a part of. Bonding over shared interests and goals is out, and sharing a mutual hatred of the other is in. That’s the glue holding this group together.
I feel like millionaire might be too broad a term here but I can’t really think of a better phrasing. There is a pretty big difference between an accomplished neurosurgeon or something retiring at 65 with a few million and some asshat CEO retiring at 40 with 500+ million.
The most money I have even seen is 18k, and in my community I’m the wealthy philanthropist people come to when their shit breaks down. Can you see how owning a home and having one million dollars handy might be perceived as unimaginable wealth from here? Or how your retirement income calculations might sound to someone who will never retire?
I think people are just having issue with the title, mostly.
Also, I wouldn’t really count an IRA having a million dollars as being a millionaire with the rules regarding distribution. Even a Roth (at least in the US) can have penalties if withdrawn before the beneficiary is 59.5 years old. I’d more consider the title of a millionaire as having at least a million dollars in liquidity, usually more.
The title, is accurate, and meaningful. The top 10% of the planet is feeling squeezed out.
I disagree with the second part. In my experiences I’ve come to believe most of my peers who range in between 150ish -400 + rsu mostly think about when can they retire and maintain their life styles. And for most of my peers live pretty upper middle class lives. Living well but not particularly lavishly.
And we/they know that. We’re near the top, we have it best, but it certainly doesn’t feel wealthy. More like, not fighting for literal survival.
Yeah, I don’t disagree with it being accurate. More just that it’s a very sensitive pain-point for a lot of people and the way it’s worded, at first glance, can make people who are legitimately struggling feel forgotten.
A bit hyperbolic, but it can be something like, “Jeff is trying to make ends meet by skipping meals. Fred is feeling the pressure of the economy and decides to forgo the avocado toast. Let’s focus on Fred.”
Again, it’s a sensitive subject and as such wording of headlines starts to become more and more important. Something like, “In today’s economy, even owning a million dollars is meaning less and less,” could be a bit more neutral.
There are ways to get money out of an IRA without penalties (72T rule), but the article talks about “net worth millionaires” which includes home value (the article mentions this), and that’s hard to get value out of unless you do something crazy like a reverse mortgage.
This headline is offensive
Easily fixed. Spend a few months living on minimum wage and then you’ll feel like a fucken king when you go back to your millions.
Won’t someone think of the poor millionaires?
The word millionaire has been associated with wealth for decades. However, $1,000,000 today has the same buying power as $400,000 in 1990. I know we’d all like to be millionaires, but it doesn’t have the same meaning that it used to.
A million today may not be worth as much as a million 35 years ago, but a million still undeniably makes you wealthy even today. Heck… even 400k in 2025 would make you decently wealthy. You can live a quite comfortable life with that kind of money
I’m not exactly a fan of pretending that millionaires are somehow struggling, and if they don’t “feel wealthy” they should take a good hard look at the lives of people in the middle class or lower.
Edit: This all feels very similar to that claim I’ve been seeing going around recently that somehow an income of 100k per year would be a poverty wage, even though it’s twice the mean income of US housholds.
If you can’t make ends meet with 100k per month in income or one million in the bank, you might just need to spend a little less lavishly. Your life will still be comfortable, I promise.
a million still undeniably makes you wealthy even today
Not really, no. Look at this: https://www.annuity.org/annuities/rates/
An annuity is a good estimate of the lowest-risk rate of return on a given sum. You can only do better by increasing your risk profile. If you need a reliable source of income over the long-term, increasing the risk is a bad idea.
Assuming the annuity is tax-free (a big if), your rate of return on a million would be $60k/year. But that’s ignoring the fact that you need to live somewhere. Assuming you live in a non-shithole urban area, you’re not going to find much that’s under $500k that’s worth living in. If you use $500k on property instead of taking on a mortgage, you’re down to an annuity of $30k. And a sizeable chunk of that will go on property tax and health insurance.
$30k is nice, but not life-changing. Having $1M in net worth is somewhere in the middle of middle-class. It’ll help you retire without having to live on pet food, but you’d still better be maxed out on your Social Security contributions if you want to live semi-comfortably.
Source: I’m retiring soon and have done lots of planning, and have had my plans reviewed and validated by financial planners. It takes more than $1M in net assets to live in a decent house, have some discretionary income, and keep some reserves to cover possible long-term care, car replacement and other contingencies.
Having said all that, you’ll never hear me whine about my financial situation. I’m in my present bourgeois position due to a combination of hard work, deferred gratification and luck, and few of my peers have been as fortunate. An unexpected layoff, a divorce, or a health crisis in our family, could have left me far worse off.
“Non-bourgoise feel same stress at everyone else in their class but don’t realize it’s for the same reason”
Awwww fucking dimmums.
