this post was submitted on 12 May 2025
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Net worth is what you own - what you owe, including your pension fund if you have one.
Also top 10% is people making 40k/year if we want to use that metric instead. If you're not part of that either it's probable that's it's just because you're too young to have a career yet.
I know what net worth means. That's why I said "sitting on 130k. The threshold is 130k. The mean net worth is something like 15k globally. And I'm a 34 year old man. I make 48k/yr and that's the most I've ever made. No savings. Just cashed out all 5k of my 401k to pay rent for a couple of months. I'm just an average dude who grew up in Southern California on food stamps and state healthcare. I just couldn't afford college, so a "career" isn't really an option for me.
You don't need to be sitting on 130k, you but a house, once your mortgage is worth 130k less than the value of the house you're worth 130k or more.
Also, you're in the top 10% based on income instead of worth, you're part of the statistics mentioned in the OP.
I find it HIGHLY unlikely that I will ever buy a house. The amount of money needed for a down payment, inspection, closing, etc. just seems astronomical to me. There's no way I'm buying a house, let alone getting 130k worth of equity out of it.
In terms of wages, I AM slightly above that 10% line, but that's like literally within the last month, so I'm not really sure what you're point is. I swear you must work in tech. Tech bros seem to be allergic to the idea that they aren't the lowest of the low
75% of Americans own their home (or are on track by their retirement) and I think it's just a tad lower for the EU.
While we can do better, many the term you used, is incredibly inaccurate and lacks precision.
My point is that people see "the 10%" and they can't imagine that if they live in a first world country, chances are that on a global scale they are the 10%, if they're not they're the 20% unless they live on the streets. People in third world and developing countries represent the vast majority of the world and those in rich countries live like freaking royalty in comparison to them and it reflects on their environmental impact as well.
I don't think anybody's disputing that. That's kind of the whole point of the post, right? Everybody here gets that.
What everybody here DOESN'T get is that this kind of poverty is also present right here in the USA. I've encountered quite a few people who seem to believe that if you live in the U.S. AT ALL, then you're automatically lumped into that 10%, when that isn't actually the case.