They say max out your 401k.
The limit is $23,000/year.
Median household income in America: $74,580.
After taxes that's roughly $58,000-$60,000 take-home.
You'd have to put 38-40% of your take-home income into retirement just to "max it out."
meanwhile rent, food, car, insurance, and utilities exist.
The advice isn't wrong.
It's just built for people operating in a completely different financial reality than the one most Americans are actually living in.
The Starbucks CEO made $97 million in 2024.
The median Starbucks barista made $14,674.
That's a 6,666/1 ratio.
a barista would have to have started working 4,643 years before Jesus was born to earn what the CEO made in a single year.
@jeremyct And then boomers will be like “yeah so? What are you a wuss? Can’t expect everything to be given to you” while our founding fathers roll over in their graves. Thriving should be the minimum in a proper capitalist economy
The life of a millennial:
- Graduated straight into a recession
- “Entry level” jobs required years of experience
- Pensions replaced by the 401k
- Promoted at work meant a 2% raise & 200% more responsibility
- finally felt stable… then a pandemic hit
- Highest inflation in 50 years deleted pay raises
- home prices doubled, renting became permanent
- Childcare costs feels like another rent
- Juggling aging parents, young kids, burnout from work & the cost to live
- AI causing mass layoffs during peak earning years
Hey MAGA: Things you didn't get.
A wall.
The swamp drained.
Affordable health care.
Infrastructure built.
National Debt lowered.
Hillary Clinton locked up.
Epstein Files full disclosure.
$5000 DOGE checks.
$2000 Tariff checks.
Lowered gas and groceries.
No more wars (Iran).
Wars ended in 24 hours.
Energy prices cut in half.
Affordable home prices.
Amerca First.
But, WE WARNED YOU.
@SenJohnKennedy It has nothing to do with housing supply haha it has to do with mega corporations buying up real estate and selling it at 10x the value, locking people into 50 year mortgages at insane interest, all for astronomical profit
@Andrew669631@TrpstrLeonOG This is what we will have in America in 50 years if we don’t change things now. This is like saying sure you’re on fire but at least you aren’t completely burned!
There is no reason a full-time worker should need:
a roommate
parental help
side hustles
a cosigner
just to afford a basic one-bedroom in the city they work in.
At that point the economy is not “challenging.”
It’s broken.
This man says, “let me get this straight.
When White people move into an area, it’s called “colonizing” or “gentrification”,
which is bad.
But if people of a high melanin count move into an area, that’s “cultural enrichment” and “diversity is our strength”,
which is good.
But then if those same White people don’t want any more “cultural enrichment” or are tired of “diversity” being their strength, that’s called “White Flight”,
which is bad.
So they don’t want White people to come or to go.
It’s almost as if they don’t want them (whites) to exist at all.”
He’s figuring it out.
The average new car payment in America is now $735/month.
Insurance averages $150-$200/month.
Gas: another $200.
Maintenance/registration:~ $100/month averaged out.
You're at $1,200-$1,235/month just to own the car you need to get to the job that pays for the car.
That's $14,820/year.
For a lot of Americans, that's 25-30% of their take-home income.
Gone. Before rent. Before food. Before anything.
The American dream used to be owning a home.
Now we're just trying to afford the commute to afford the rent.
So, a quick recap of Trump's new "ballroom."
We went from $200 million & privately funded, to $300 million privately funded, to $400 million with taxpayer supplementation, to $1 BILLION, COMPLETELY taxpayer funded.
Politely fuck off if you support this. 🖕