How Much Does It Take To Be Rich?
A fascinating report from Gallup, and commentary from the New York Times, was published last week on what Americans regarded as being ‘rich’. The median answer was $150,000 a year. In other words, a household that would fall into the top ten percentile of the country would be regarded rich. Here are some further thoughts on the issues that survey raised.
The Breakdown
The trends revealed by the survey were illuminating. Men and women varied dramatically, with men citing $150,000 as the necessary figure and women citing $100,000. College graduates felt that rich meant $200,000, double the figure of people who had not graduated from college. People living in urban centres felt that rich was a greater figure than those living rurally or in towns. Not without reason, people with children under 18 felt they would need more money to be considered ‘rich’ than those who did not have young children or teenagers to support.
The Meaning Of Rich
Crucially, for me, people who earned $50,000 or less a year suggested they would consider themselves rich if they earnt $100,000 a year. For people who earnt over $50,000 that figure doubled to $200.000. So, irregardless of how much money you made, the concept of rich was still very far away. I don’t want to get wishy washy here; having an adequate amount of money is certainly necessary for achieving a quality of living and gaining the things we need. But how much of the concept of ‘rich’ lives in our own minds? Especially as an idea about what the universal Other; someone else is rich, because it’s never us no matter how much money we earn.
How To Be Rich
What this survey says to me is that the opportunity to be ‘rich’ is completely within our grasp and it’s got less to do with raising the amount on our bank statement than it is about changing how we approach money. What one person regards as rich could be thought of as obscenely wealthy by another. So let’s start changing how we view wealth, and start to recentre it around our needs and not our wants. If I have enough to cover my needs, then I should certainly be happy with my financial situation as opposed to constantly thinking of everything else I want. Perhaps it’s a better approach to start looking at being ‘rich’ as our freedom to pursue our financial goals. I no longer live from paycheck to paycheck, which was a big forward step for me financially. Now, my goal is to pay off my credit card in full and start setting aside money for a house deposit. My freedom to do both those things and to take responsibility of my own financial security is a great thing. The reality is, I’ll probably never $150,000 a year. 90% of us won’t. So it’s not a bad idea to reset the parameters of wealth, refocusing on the freedom to achieve our financial goals, and not on our ability to hit some magical number in the misty future.
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