Poor. Choices.

I saw this chart recently:

I’m sure you had the same reaction I had when looking at that tall column labeled Millennial: “That’s it?!”

How could anyone be happy with just a half million dollar salary?

Just kidding.

This chart made absolutely no sense to me at first. So I looked up the methodology. Surely it’s just software engineers living in Silicon Valley or financial bankers living in Manhattan that responded.

But no!

According to their website, “the Empower “Financial Happiness” study is based on online survey responses from 2,034 Americans ages 18+ fielded by The Harris Poll from August 7 to August 14, 2023, and using data from the Empower Personal Dashboard™. The survey is weighted to be nationally representative on the following dimensions: age, gender, education, race, region, income, size of household, marital and employment status. For this study, the sample data is accurate to within + 2.9 percentage points using a 95% confidence level.”

I did a poll of my own with a few friends. After they answered, I showed them the chart. Most agreed it was way too high, but the numbers they gave me for their happiness surprised me.

Not a single person told me anything less than 6 figures.

A few theories on what’s going on here:

Social media is to blame.

I dislike social media.

It’s our century’s version of cigarettes. I’ve been saying this for years and so has everyone else. Literally no one has ever earnestly told me they love social media. But most people use some form of it and we Millennials have been doing so for the longest.

I won’t rehash all the old arguments against social media but I do think that it could be to blame for such lofty expectations on the level of salary it takes to be happy.

Humans are designed to compare. And comparison is the thief of joy.

If we spend all day subconsciously internalizing the idea that we need a mansion, annual tropical vacations, and designer handbags thanks to algorithms, we’re going to think we need a big salary.

It’s no longer just our neighbors we compare ourselves to. It’s everyone in the world.

Rich parents are to blame.

With the middle class in America slowly disappearing, the bifurcation of the haves and the have-nots is more pronounced than ever.

And who’s filling out a survey about their financial well-being? It’s probably not the single mom working two jobs to care for her kids. It’s someone who has the time and interest to sit around filling out surveys about money.

But back up.

Many baby boomers went to college and bought houses when they were at their cheapest, and then realized incredible asset price inflation.

They then encouraged their kids and gave them the resources to go to good universities and get high paying jobs like accountants, engineers, and salespeople.

And these jobs pay excellent, but they don’t pay enough to have a 3,000 square foot house in California, a Tesla, and the ability to travel every other month. Especially not while funding a retirement plan, paying for student loans or buying diapers.

So, now there are a bunch of us millennials watching Instagram reels and TikToks all day of people with nice houses in perfect climates and thinking we need that to be happy.

And since half of us didn’t need to struggle too much to get where we are thanks to financially stable parents, it’s hard to be grateful for anything less than perfection.

Happiness is the difference between where we started and where we are.

I think most people simply forget to look around and be grateful for all their shit, or they’ve had a high level of affluence their whole life so they truly aren’t grateful for it and need even more to be satisfied.

2021 is to blame.

During COVID, everyone was told to stay home 24/7 when most millennials had small apartments or starter houses with very little space so the desire to move into a new place ramped up right when housing prices skyrocketed. Not to mention we were checking Zillow and watching HGTV just for fun.

We also love traveling (so we can share the proof online) and vacation spending boomed once the world opened back up.

We never dealt with high inflation until recently.

We were just savvy enough to know how to invest in stocks and had just enough money to feel pain if we lost it (which many did) when the 2021 bubble popped.

We watched our friends jump jobs 3 times and get a $30k raise with each one in 2022.

We got a taste of not paying student loan payments during the freeze and forgot how much they were going to hurt once they resumed.

We finally have kids and they are damn expensive.

With housing prices hitting record highs every month, vacations costing more than ever, student loan payments resuming, paychecks not keeping pace with inflation, kids on the way in our prime family forming years, and the painful memories of losing money on meme stocks, of course we feel like we need $525k a year just to be happy.

How do we fix this?

Gen Z haven’t started earning or spending much yet. Gen X will be retiring soon. And Baby Boomers are all retired with paid off mortgages.

Naturally, Millennials are the ones who need the most money.

None of this is our fault. But our reaction to it is.

A few solutions:

• Get off social media.
• Recognize our privilege.
• Take one less vacation each year.
• Buy a house in a smaller city.
• Stop leasing brand new cars and phones every few years.
• Only dine out for special occasions.
• Rob a bank.
• Get furniture off Facebook Marketplace.
• Cuddle with our animals.
• Use those coupons the grocery store keeps sending us in the mail.
• Cancel one streaming service.
• Do the other 50 hard things it takes to get your finances and priorities in order.

With a lot of small actions over time and a few shifts in perspective, it should become more obvious that we do not, in fact, need $525,000 per year to be happy.

How out of touch am I?

Let me know in the comments or just subscribe to my monthly newsletter to hate-read my bad takes.