i’m not sure i’m following your points. My point was to argue that even the long-term prospect of grossing 63k per year by any metric is beyond the reach of a lot of specialized workers. Add to that, the fact that that’s an evenly divided number. It would be more realistic that the income would need to be even higher closer to retirement if the initial young professional started out grossing less than 63k per year.
I don’t think anybody should be arguing that it should be acceptable to pay people less simply because they don’t want to have kids. Family planning decisions are often guided by household economics.
I’m not making an argument about the current state of wages. I’m just saying 4.4 million isn’t as unattainable as people think. And household income gets murky when you include single income households. And the definition for this article of American Dream includes 2 kids, so if kids aren’t in your planning the 4.4 million mark is probably 1 million less if you still want to attain those other things. I think some folks see that number and think “OMG I’m never going to have that much money.” You are right, you will never have that much money all at once, but over a lifetime you may have earned and/or spent that much without ever leaving the sort of “middle” income range in America.
i’m not sure i’m following your points. My point was to argue that even the long-term prospect of grossing 63k per year by any metric is beyond the reach of a lot of specialized workers. Add to that, the fact that that’s an evenly divided number. It would be more realistic that the income would need to be even higher closer to retirement if the initial young professional started out grossing less than 63k per year.
I don’t think anybody should be arguing that it should be acceptable to pay people less simply because they don’t want to have kids. Family planning decisions are often guided by household economics.
I’m not making an argument about the current state of wages. I’m just saying 4.4 million isn’t as unattainable as people think. And household income gets murky when you include single income households. And the definition for this article of American Dream includes 2 kids, so if kids aren’t in your planning the 4.4 million mark is probably 1 million less if you still want to attain those other things. I think some folks see that number and think “OMG I’m never going to have that much money.” You are right, you will never have that much money all at once, but over a lifetime you may have earned and/or spent that much without ever leaving the sort of “middle” income range in America.