In the nation called the United States, on the planet Earth, in the prime material plane, the average office worker makes about $40K a year.
And the average rent is about $1100/mo. About a third of the office worker's income. Federal taxes are another 11% or so.
That leaves more than half of an average office worker's income for essentials like food, clothing and utilities. Entertainment is cheap these days. If you budget there's still enough left over for your 401k/IRA/etc. which goes mainly into the stock market and if you stick with that for 40 years you will do pretty well.
Always been the formula, still is.
What is this dimension where 24 year olds are running around earning almost a quarter mil and it's not good enough? Is this Valley talk again? I get that this is HN and rent in the Valley and taxes in Cali are high, but so high that this 24 year old on a quarter mil can't make ends meet? If he can't achieve what the office worker on $40K can, why is he in that job and that city?
It's more likely in my opinion that these people are worth less than they think they are, or don't know how to manage their finances, or both.