Wouldn't applying for credit based on "aspirational" finances be fraud?
But (on credit card applications) I've always put a 6-figure income in when asked. Even as a college student with an income of $0.
Also, your accounts would be closed if they found out that you lied on your application. American Express, in particular, is known to conduct financial reviews and shut down accounts who can't prove their income.
Do you have a source for this? Or can you define "many" some more?
(Slightly over a quarter of households in the US have a household income over $100K as reported on tax returns. Household income for the purposes of credit application can be meaningfully higher than for adjusted gross income tax return concerns.)
it's 26.3% of households with incomes over $100K. I saw another estimate of 125 million households, so it could well be ~33 million households with >=$100K household income.
(I'm not so much quibbling with numbers as trying to get across that "it's a lot of people")
Even after you're 21 you're supposed to only include someone else's income if you have access to it. If your parents don't give you a stipend then you aren't supposed to include their income.