Are rich people harder workers than poor people as a whole?
08.06.2025 06:42
The issue is that the middle class gets most of their income from salary, and wages have unfortunately not tracked with inflation!
Both rich and poor people are more protected from inflation. Both investment income and government assistance programs ride the wave of inflation. Wages do not.
And low-paying menial jobs tend to be in high supply, so while poor people will need to work more than rich people, the jobs at least are easy to obtain.
But that’s not most poor people either. Most poor people may not be content being poor, but they have accepted it as a reality, and have given up most hope of changing that situation.
Life sucks if you’re poor, but it’s fairly easy to maintain that sucky life. A key factor is that welfare and government assistance programs track fairly well with inflation. So long as those programs don’t get cut, poor people do not have to work harder to maintain their current lifestyle. Medicaid gives you free health insurance. Food stamps ensure you don’t starve to death. Section 8 housing ensures that you have affordable places to live.
But the biggest reason most rich people do not have to work hard is passive income. If they’re not a total moron, they can easily invest their money in some inflation-proof but low risk investments and live off the interest. Real estate. Stock market. Turn-key businesses. Licensing deals. Whatever. There are so many options. They don’t even have to do it themselves. They can easily hire someone to manage their assets for them.
But that’s NOT most rich people!
So if you’re from a middle class family, you will have to work harder than your parents to maintain the same quality of life.
Note, I’m not saying poor people have a nice life, but without a doubt, it’s better to be poor in 2024 than 1950.
To make up for inflation, you will need to take a higher-paying job than your parents had, which will be higher stress and require you to work more hours. Also where as your parents likely were fine with a single-parent income, you will most likely need a two-parent income to support your family.
And quality of life for poor people has improved over time. There was a time when most poor people couldn’t afford a TV. Now, most poor people not only have televisions but also video game consoles. Mass production means there is a lot of cheap junk that poor people can now afford. It also means that there is a lot of cheap processed food they can buy. Not healthy, but not famine conditions either. Finally, it’s much easier for poor people to live off debt than it once was, since they can get credit cards and car loans. These are things that used to be reserved for rich people.
But if you’re middle class, to have what your parents had, you will have to work much harder. The middle class is ultimately getting squeezed the most.
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The only saving grace is you may have less children than your parents did. Fewer kids means less economic burden. That, in my opinion, is the main reason there aren’t a ton of people dropping out of the middle class.
It’s important to understand all the advantages that rich people have. First, rich people have an easy time networking with other rich people. That increases the chances that they will marry into another rich family. And it often gives them access to cozy jobs that normal people would have a much harder time getting. I knew someone whose family was rich and played lacrosse (a popular sport for rich WASPy types), and he was hired into a cozy high-paying executive job as a bribe to play lacrosse for a local team.
Most rich people are born into wealth. People like Gates’ daughter live a fairly easy life. She’ll never make even a small fraction of her dad’s wealth in her lifetime, and she’s okay with that. Because she has a nice easy life and a semi-rich husband. Her father may not be showering her with his money, but I guarantee he has made sure that she will never have to work if she doesn’t want to.
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Now let me explain why the middle class has to work the hardest.
Now, let’s talk about poor folks. Obviously, a poor person who is really pushing themselves to no longer be poor may be working really hard.
People like that work harder than most people of any socioeconomic bracket.
First, to be clear, anyone who has significantly increased their wealth had to work very hard to do that. So people like Elon Musk and Bill Gates worked extremely hard to get where they are. Yes, they had some advantages. So of course, if they had started off dirt poor, it would be even more impressive what they achieved. But despite the advantages they started with, they still could attain that level of financial success without working really hard.
Not really. I would say that on average, the middle class works harder than most rich or poor people, as I will explain. It has to do with inflation…
Obviously, if they are stupid, they could completely lose all their money. And that does happen. As goes the old saying, “A fool and their money are soon parted.” But avoiding that scenario just requires a little bit of common sense and some self-control. What it does not require is hard work. So most people who are wealthy get the majority of their earnings from passive income, and hence may not even have to work at all!