Higher-income people are business people. Business people are always worried, deep down, even when they won't admit it to anyone. The worst whiners I've ever met were wealthy shopkeepers and industrialists - they know it can all go in an instant.
My dads good friend was a playboy, after getting out of Vietnam he went hippie, partied hard, lived fast. Then he hit the stock jackpot, riding Intel and Microsoft, etc in the 80s and 90s and cashing out with ~$20M.
Then he retired, moved to a golf course in South Carolina and turned into an ardent conservative defender of traditional values.
I tell the story as it illustrates the transformation - face death and risk at war, come back and embrace life, accumulate wealth and return to fear… guilt about what you have been able to do, fear of losing what you have.
We’re all animals at the end of the day, it’s difficult for us humans to process what life hands to us sometimes, good and bad. Deep down, the insecure business guy knows that he is mortal, and knows that a misstep can be fatal.
It's just a very solipsistic generation culturally.
When they were in their 20's they thought everyone should pay attention to them and that their drug use and weekend music festivals were unusually profound.
When they were in their 40's they thought everyone should pay attention to their property tax bills.
When they got to their 60's and 70's they thought everything should just stay exactly the same as the way they remember it and that everyone should consider their fears and confused elderly outbursts as valid expressions of reality.
Not sure it's generalizable.
You were able to tap into the thoughts of the younger ages, but failed for the 60's and 70's.
We tend to idolize the distant past more because we’re at arms length, and we miss what’s around us because we lack perspective.
The boomer guy who will let the world burn to protect his property values is the same as the old Italian guy holdout in the declining urban neighborhoods that I grew up with in the 80s.
Also, I think it actually doesn't all go in an instant. I've worked with local businesses that are over a hundred years old and seen many market turns both positive and negative. During recessions they'll make a reduction in employees or other costs and be able to stay open on that until profits rise again... or worst case, they sell the business or real estate and pocket a huge amount of money even though it closed.
The folks that have it all go in an instant are the ones living paycheck to paycheck who get laid off at the first sign of trouble. Their losses insulate the businesses and owners.
These data define "higher-income people" as those earning more than $100k. That's a very broad spectrum.
You NEED a strong economy to stay above water on the debt — you took out $200k in college + law school loans to accelerate your career and if you can't get a high-income job in your specialty you simply can't fall back to a low-income job without being in crushing debt forever.
Given the desire and investment in project/process, we could probably take half of the $100k+ workforce and replace with automation and a dumber, cheaper workforce. Economic crises often drive those decisions.
High income people are the least safe - $300k doctors are being treated like factory workers and replaced by $125k nurse practitioners.
That's basically what i'm doing. I was at first automating a secretary's job, now i'm automating my "SRE and security manager" job. With some resistance, so i'm starting with the most boring part of his job, but my goal is to automate him away. It's my secret, secondary job description. I hope i do that within a year.