A newly released survey underscores that "Americans have a solid grasp of the highly unequal concentration of wealth in the United States—and they think it's rotten."
$1M equates to $40k/year income in retirement at a 4% SWR (safe withdrawal rate). In 2025, that’s not actually a lot, even if you have Social Security on top of it.
If you’re not a millionaire by the time you’re retired, you’re damn near impoverished. The only way for that to count as “middle class” (in the “close to the median income” sense) is if the middle class is destroyed (in the “existing separate and distinct from the lower class” sense).
(INB4 somebody chimes in with “it never was separate and distinct” – yeah, yeah, I know, working-class solidarity and all that. But you get my point, right?)
Middle-class people will be millionaires.
$1M equates to $40k/year income in retirement at a 4% SWR (safe withdrawal rate). In 2025, that’s not actually a lot, even if you have Social Security on top of it.
If you’re not a millionaire by the time you’re retired, you’re damn near impoverished. The only way for that to count as “middle class” (in the “close to the median income” sense) is if the middle class is destroyed (in the “existing separate and distinct from the lower class” sense).
(INB4 somebody chimes in with “it never was separate and distinct” – yeah, yeah, I know, working-class solidarity and all that. But you get my point, right?)