Is building wealth in America as easy as everyone makes it out to be?
I'm a Europoor, so looking for some context.
Have seen basically even middle office employees (e.g. Bank SWEs) getting 6 figures a few years into their career, with a lot having decent lateral opportunities to FinTech / maybe FAANG or something that also pays well.
I've heard COL is higher, but generally this rewards those with a higher saving rate when income is adjusted. Also I can't tell if this is serious. For example, seen lots of Brits on here complaining about how they can't save anything, yet have the dumbest expenses / personal finance management ever. Is it true $100,000 per annum is not enough in the US?
When did anyone make it seem like building wealth is ever easy anywhere?
It is significantly easier than building wealth in the EU, however it is not easy
If you can obtain a professional job with strong earnings in a low COL area then you can save solid amounts.
however it is common for people to have significant student loans, high rents, and cost prohibitive housing prices preventing significant savings
huh?
I think they meant it is still not easy
Building wealth in the EU is incredibly more difficult. Source, dozens of friends of mine who grew up in the EU zone from dozens of different countries. They all live in the US now for this exact reason.
The problem is most low COL/non urban areas have zero professional jobs. And for the ones that exist, 'company culture' actually matters a lot since it is much more difficult to switch jobs without moving. And this company culture tends to be shit, lots of old boy networks, tyrannical HR, etc.
Could be relatively easier in the US to make money compared to other parts of the world but definitely not easy by any means.
If you look at income distribution, fewer than 5% of people make more than 180k per year, and working a field continuously that pays that much or more is usually very difficult
In some ways yes, in some ways no. Execution is the hardest part but it's a hill a lot of people can get over by just working hard and being relatively right time/right place, the latter of which is I'd argue much more likely in the US than anywhere else. Even if you map out a path to success that just takes some marginal personal sacrifice though a good chunk of people won't do it e.g. go to gym 4x/week, don't eat all the extra junk food for no reason, study harder for that test, etc. Dana White said "if you are even remotely a savage you will run these people over", which when you consider how many people in the US just want to live in a state of easyness and not challenge themselves, he's totally right.
$100k is not much in NYC / LA. But people who are 22-23 years old in front office finance tend to make $150-$180k. Based on what I’ve read about finance salaries in england… yeah it’s easier to build wealth in the US
Coming to USA I think it requires a lot of hard work, perseverance, knowledge and other factors for doing well here. Not easy anywhere
But what other countries in world can average person have ability to make high income, and in what countries can an immigrant who move here with nothing can have a better chance to make money than USA?
Salaries might be higher in the US but most Americans are also deep in student debt, which is a phenomenon you generally don't find in Europe.
(Except London which has the worst of all worlds, European-level salaries and taxes with US-level student debt and housing costs)
You want to be rich/build something big, the US is great.
If you want to coast along comfortably, stay in Europe.
There’s nowhere on earth better to be rich than the US.
So why give up the wife's citizenship? Seems like a hard no.
Hard disagree on the "nowhere better to be rich than the US" part.
Many smart people leave for countries in Europe or other developed first-world nations after attaining "real wealth" (however you personally define that).
If you are "US rich", the quality of life in most developed first-world countries around the world is SIGNIFICANTLY better than in the US.
Think: more parks/green spaces, walking culture vs. driving culture, affordable healthcare, more social harmony/less social discord, homogenous and harmonious populations, lack of gun violence, cleaner food/ more wholesome food sources, more "social safety nets" resulting in happier population, the list can go on and on.....
The US is where people come to make generational money. If you're smart, you fuck off afterward.
What insanely rich person in the US has moved out of the US to a European country as their primary residence?
Kind of disagree being rich in the us is fun and you don't care about healthcare etc since you're rich. I do agree I'd spend summers in southern Europe etc but to argue living in nyc or Miami or in the hills in la isn't great is a bit nuts
Most first gen entrepreneurs with an exit do not want to stop working.
All of my friends with 8 and 9 figure exits love the game too much.
The only place to play the game is the US.
....interesting
Agreed wholeheartedly. The US is where my parents and I came to make our wealth, now that it's mostly made we're headed back to a mix of our origin country + rotating through UAE/Singapore/Europe/SE Asia.
What america has going for it is the economics, tech, and power of an empire. Culturally? Lol No hard pass, better places to have a civilized lifestyle. This country is best done as a hustling immigrant, or between the ages of 16-35. I can't believe the people who actually stay here, while not saving, while not actually building. North America (both CAN and US) are the most isolating, lonely places on the planet, and the only people who don't see it are those who've never lived differently.
This is only true if you're from a country where family legacy is important though. I've met plenty of plane jane austrians and canadians opt to stay in america even after making money, then again they wouldn't know what a elite lifestyle would look like even if it stared them right in the face.
Though I want to preface, before the monkey shit comes in, that its far more important to move vertically than horizontally. It isn't country vs country, its social class vs social class. Your best life is where you rank the highest on the socioeconomic pyramid. Wealthy people can have amazing lives in Argentina and Portugal, but its a middling existence for the regular man.
Given the chance to be profitably unemployed most people will gladly choose EU over US.
As others have said about debt in America, will also add that America has a consumer culture that is unrivaled compared to many other countries. What you drive , size of your house, what your job is, etc. So while it is easier to build wealth it's also easier to just spend your money on crap.
Dont buy the 'America sucks' stuff you see online or on loser deadbeat sites like Reddit. If you have any ambition whatsoever and at least an average IQ then building wealth and access of opportunities in America is unparalleled. There is less of a safety net and out lifestyle is designed a bit to make life hell if you are poor, much due to corporate interests, but like that video in this thread said just show up and you will crush competition
I’d say using software engineering as an example is cherry picking by definition. The top 4 most common jobs in the USA are retail salesperson, home health aide, cashier, and fast food worker.
Yea if you have >100 iq and some basic ability to defer gratification (second probably more important) then yes
US is a great country for high paying jobs and entrepreneurship, one would have to put in significant work to see results. Curious how do people make substantial earnings in countries like Finland or the Netherlands where there’s more income equality?
In America you almost HAVE TO be trying to get rich in order to live decently. Not so in EU where there's more to life.
As an Immigrant, it's my biggest complaint of the US. Hustling is the only real cultural value. It's what I came here for so not complaining, but I have a hard and tight as steel immigrant support network to bring me up when I need to, can't imagine being a multigen anglo in america honestly lol, especially one that grew up/is poor.
this lol underrated comment
Why not? Just curious.
Maybe 20-35 years ago. A lot of white collar professionals made a ton of money in the 90s and heavily invested in the stock market. At one point, my parents had (in today's money) a 7 figure stock portfolio before the tech bubble burst. One of my childhood friends parents had a startup that was worth ~$30M and went to 0 fairly quickly after the bubble burst. Another example is my parents almost bought a home in the mid 90s in an area where home prices skyrocketed due to being huge property lots and would have netted probably how much they've made in their careers if they just kept the house and sold it in the late 2010s (mid 7 figures).
Parents ended up making great investments when the market crashed in 2008-2009 and bounced back from the tech bubble fiasco. The 1990s was literally a faucet of wealth creation for white collar professionals. Many stock portfolio millionaires and getting a solid paying job back then in the late 90s as a college graduate was quite easy.
Without working another day in my life, I technically will become a millionaire via inheritance. So I'm blessed but honestly realized in college that I grew up in an upper middle class / rich part of the States where that financial situation was fairly common amongst people I grew up around. I don't consider my family rich compared to others I'm aware of.
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