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How many people do you actually know well that make 6 figures?
A few dozen, off the top of my head. A lot of my college friends became lawyers and politicians - county commissioners, state reps, county clerks, like that. One makes six figures as an elected county clerk and his wife makes six figures as a psychologist. One became a professor at an elite law school.
A few dozen, off the top of my head. A lot of my college friends became lawyers and politicians - county commissioners, state reps, county clerks, like that. One makes six figures as an elected county clerk and his wife makes six figures as a psychologist.
You know them well or know of them? If you know them well and can't leverage that past a lifetime min wage job that's pretty sad
It's because in their world, everybody does make six figures. Take my Hubby as an example. He works in a highly paid industry and is surrounded by an office-full of people that mostly make over 6 figures. All the customers he works with are staffed by employees that also mostly make over six figures. All our friends have household incomes over six figures, so do his parents and so do most of our relatives. Even the relatives that don't make over six figures mostly make above the US median income. Nearly all of our neighbors make over 6 figures or they couldn't afford to live in our neighborhood. Our stores, restaurants, parks, dentist/doctor office, etc. are full of mostly people making six figures. The closest my Hubby gets on a daily basis to interacting with people who make under the US median income would be a retail clerk, wait staff and the guy holding the sign at the freeway entrance ramp. In my Hubby's world, mostly everyone does make six figures and has plenty of resources so he would have the perspective that's the norm for everyone because it's his norm.
I work with some clients that make a lot less than 100k so I do see some of the other side of it but in many well-paid professions it can be pretty easy to have little to no exposure to low income earners.
This reminds me of a wealth manager / financial planner who has a weekly local radio infomercial. He claims to have a passion for helping people "never run out of money in retirement". The first ten qualifying weekly callers get a free consultation and financial plan. To qualify you must have at least $100K saved for retirement. So yeah, he's surrounded by six-figure people but I guess he has no passion for helping average people with financial planning.
Housing is another animal entirely with people clustering in increasingly fewer metros for jobs, and often these metros have restrictive building laws that needlessly creates a housing shortage.
Not needlessly. Incumbent homeowners benefit from housing shortage. Happy homeowners vote for happy politicians. Angry renters curse at the darkness.
This reminds me of a wealth manager / financial planner who has a weekly local radio infomercial. He claims to have a passion for helping people "never run out of money in retirement". The first ten qualifying weekly callers get a free consultation and financial plan. To qualify you must have at least $100K saved for retirement. So yeah, he's surrounded by six-figure people but I guess he has no passion for helping average people with financial planning.
It doesn't have anything to do with passion; it has to do with the reality that he has to make enough money to pay his own bills. There's just not much a financial planner can do for a person who is approaching retirement age and doesn't even have $100k saved so it's pointless to solicit that type of client. He won't earn enough in fees to keep the lights on by having a client base full of people who will be making it through retirement only on social security.
It's not as if his threshold is really that high - many low income earners are able to save far more than 100k in 30 years of working. Many financial planners/wealth managers won't touch anyone with less than $250k in savings so he's actually targeting lower than most.
Last edited by patches403; 08-19-2016 at 04:03 PM..
Not needlessly. Incumbent homeowners benefit from housing shortage. Happy homeowners vote for happy politicians. Angry renters curse at the darkness.
not in these parts . 2nd year in a row no rent increases were voted in for 1/2 of all the housing in nyc and the boroughs . millions of people got no rent increases two years in a row .
Yes, and everyone that works for me and under my direct reports make over $100k. With that said, many of them are probably in worse financial shape than many on these boards because they are in debt up to their eyeballs (car loans, credit card debt, huge mortgages, etc), spending more than they make.
I'm not sure what your point is. You said that I don't understand something, but from what I can see, you're retiring in your 50s with a pension and I presume you're a teacher. Are you trying to convince me that your pension isn't enough?
Again, this is why the OP and others are so confused about reality. It's because people do this. It is quite understandable to want to cheer on blue collar workers and it is quite true that there are decent paying blue collar jobs and it is quite true that people should be encourage to take up trade work. That all being said, your post heavily encourages people to believe that hairdressers are earning six-figures. Then people like the OP reasonably wonder why, if even their hairdresser and their plumber and their mechanic are all making $100,000 incomes, the median household income is listed squarely in the five-figures. Or, alternatively, people read this and then go into these fields and get frustrated or angry if they do not make the six-figure incomes that everyone told them they made. It does nobody any good to skew people's perceptions about reality, no matter how good your intentions may be.
I think people on C-D confuse "the trades" with "business owners."
Someone who owns a roofing business may be making 100k. The roofing hand is making $14 an hour.
Someone who owns a plumbing business may be making 100k. The plumbers journeyman is making $27 an hour. A member of the crew is making $17.
Someone who owns an HVAC contracting firm may be making 100k. The median national hourly rate for an HVAC installer/tech is $21 an hour. If you get a full time schedule you can make 45-50k gross doing that. Those median hourly numbers for the trades are how we get those lower medians even though these 6-figure folks are walking around.
Six-figure people in the trades should more accurately be called businessmen or women.
A few dozen, off the top of my head. A lot of my college friends became lawyers and politicians - county commissioners, state reps, county clerks, like that. One makes six figures as an elected county clerk and his wife makes six figures as a psychologist. One became a professor at an elite law school.
By definition these people are in the elite. A psychologist - requires a PhD. County commissioners - there are only a handful of these in most counties County clerks - same. Professor at an elite law school - well my state only has a handful of law schools so being a professor at one of them put you in an elite of about 5-7 dozen in the entire state.
How many people do you actually know well that make 6 figures?
I don't really know for sure. At my workplace it's about 15-18 out of 200.... which tracks the national median proportion of how many of these people exist.
I have some co-workers that have houses/cars that I'm quite sure could not have been bought on their salaries; I suspect inheritances for some of them. Others I know got lucky from buying a house in the right place at the right time & sold it for an immense profit.
As for those around me... I don't live in a neighborhood or town for that matter that attracts a ton of high net worth people. I'm in a pretty working class town. Unless there are more stealthily wealthy types than I think I'd peg it at a similar 7-10 out of 100 people making 100k+, just judging by the houses.
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