A $100,000 salary, once a sign of success, is now just the baseline for a comfortable life with two kids. The speaker warns the traditional middle class could vanish in five to ten years, but points to unprecedented income mobility and low barriers to starting businesses as paths to real wealth.
Questions this video answers
Five to ten years.
$100,000 a year.
$100,000 a year.
Chapters
The middle class, like, as we know it today probably isn't going to exist in the next five or ten years. Like, if you think about it, 100 grand a year used to be like the gold standard for the average everyday person working a 9 to 5 job. Like, if you're making 100 grand a year, you made it. Now, though, 100 grand a year is like the bare minimum to live a decent, like, comfortable life if you got two kids. But this is the thing people aren't talking about is income mobility has never been higher. Sure, the salary for the average person isn't growing the way we'd like to see it growing, but the ability the average person has to work exceptionally hard and make an exceptional amount of money has never been greater. It used to be to start a business, you'd have to take out a loan or you'd have to use your house as collateral. And then if that business failed, it's like, that was your one shot. Now, like, you can start a business with basically zero money. You just reinvest what you make over time. And I know plenty of people making outlandish amounts of money who they never had money in their family. They didn't grow up rich. It's just that they found some unique opportunity that they could work exceptionally hard on and get really, really good at.
