Millennials Lower Bar on Amount Needed to Be Considered Wealthy, Survey Says They’ll Settle For $100 and Free Avocado Toast

Maybe you could have guessed it just by looking around, but it turns out that, compared to previous generations, Millennials have seriously lowered the bar on what it takes to be deemed wealthy. Which is pretty ironic considering 20 years ago there were only 360 billionaires in the entire world and today there are close to 3,000.

In fact, in 2020 alone, while Millennials were busy lowering the bar on net worth (and self-worth), 660 new people joined the billionaires club. Needless to say, with one arrow pointing up and another pointing down, it’s a helluva time to talk about the perception of wealth.

With over half of Americans financially impacted last year due to Covid, the magic number it takes to be considered rich dropped from $2.6 million to $1.9 million. We say generally because Baby Boomers – a segment of the population whose employment rates actually increased over the past decade – were a little less willing to budge, maintaining a $2.5 million threshold of wealth perception. So where does that leave Millennials?

Turns out the much-shat upon 24-to-39-year-old demographic believes $1.4 million is enough moolah to be considered rich. All things being equal (which we can assure they are not) this number sounds kinda low. Even taking into account that the unemployment-to-population ratio for Millennials is the worst the country has seen in decades with no end in sight. The only folks who have it worse off than Millennials are Gen Z. (Feels good to not be last).

On the bright side, Millennials hold four times less wealth than Baby Boomers did at their age. So if anything, the average Millennial’s perception of wealth is actually optimistic as all hell. And optimism is a quality we’ll need if we’re ever going to succeed in lowering the bar on wealth until a roll of quarters looks just as fancy as a diamond-encrusted chihuahua wearing signed Air Jordan 12s. Welcome to the new American dream, baby.

Cover Photo: nicoletaionescu (Getty Images)

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