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Comment by johnisgood | Hacker News Reader

It truly is. I am not sure how one can be so detached from reality. To many people one million a year is a LOT. In the US many jobs pay 16 USD per hour or less, and you may not even work every day of the week.

Let us assume that you earn 16 USD per hour and you work 8 hours a day for 5 days a week, you would earn 33280 USD per year before taxes and deducations. Nowhere near a damn million.

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I agree with what you're saying, but I think there's been a misunderstanding. The people in the thread who are saying a million or a couple million isn't a lot are talking about dollars of total savings. You're talking about dollars of yearly earnings. Those are very different things.

Perhaps, but I think a million USD in total savings is a lot of money, too, and I do not think the majority has that amount in total savings. Are there any statistics on this?

there are many stats from many sources, probably with varying accuracy. And please keep in mind since it's financial, many of them will be trying to sell you things.

There's also a difference between retirement savings and net worth. I'd guess there was a jump in "house poor" millionaires over the last few years.

The Fed has a Survey of Consumer Finances which can graph net worth broken down by perentile. You're right that even $1M net worth is not the majority, but top 25%ile:

https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scfindex.htm?mod=arti...

https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scf/dataviz/scf/chart...

Probably more millionaires in the last few years with inflation though.

This is all US-centric; the author, Richard, is in Japan; I'm not sure how net worth, savings, retirement, or taxes are in Japan.

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