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Comment by aisengard | Hacker News Reader

Everyone who has to work a day job to pay the bills (and get health insurance) is working class. We have far more in common, financially, with each other than we do with the financially independent.

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> with each other than we do with the financially independent.

By that logic only the 0.001% is not working class. That's a little far-fetched.

You're off by at least 2 orders of magnitude. You don't need to measure your annual income in the dozens-of-millions to be "financially independent".

Exactly. 3 million and you’re set for life on interest alone.

At conservative withdrawal rates that $120,000 a year in interest income without ever touching the principle. The median US income is less than half that. Give half the people in the US $1.5 million and they can earn more off the interest than they do at their jobs right now. And that's not touching the principle, at conservative withdrawal rates.

I'd argue that unless you live in a high COL area by choice, 1-1.5 million is all you need to live without working.

4% is not conservative, it’s standard. 2% is conservative.

Will your 1 million outpace inflation? 1 million in 2050 ain’t shit.

You're right I do live in a high COL area, and you're right, half of that would work elsewhere. No need to be in the city if you have a guaranteed income.

Here's hoping remote work becomes the norm someday!

And even then, would it not help us finally achieve something than constantly bicker over where "working class" and "middle class" starts and ends?

Does it not make far more sense to finally realise that there are people who work for money, in exchange for freedom (directly that. time, freedom, agency. that is what you exchange for money) and then there are people who use the work of others to ensure they never lose their own freedom? With blatant disregard for the wellbeing of those workers?

If that is where the dividing line was, things might finally change.

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