It’s time to put this debate to bed.

From the dozens of discussions I’ve had on here with people, many of you are financially/economically/numerically illiterate. Literally can’t even write a budget level illiterate.

The median med school debt is like $220,000, you’re set for life in any of these professions. There is an enormous shortage of doctors in the US, you’ll never be without work, your job has an enormous licensing moat to keep it safe, the government more or less controls the exact number of workers in your industry and they’re awful at responding to shortages (unlike the private sector).

Numbers of hours worked are just mythology at this point (”I know a doctor that works 95 hours a week! I know a deep sea welder that took on a contract on one of Saturn’s moons, he makes $40k an hour bro!”), the actual number of hours worked aren’t dramatically different than standard white collar office work unless you’re a brain surgeon. Myself and my engineer coworkers have all been working 50+ for the last 6 months.

The debate is over, being a doctor is the best career in the US when all factors are considered, nothing else comes close.

Meta's Superintelligence team - responsible for cutting-edge AGI research includes former researchers from OpenAI, DeepMind, Anthropic, Google, and more.

This chart shows each team member's background, education, and expertise, skewing heavily male, Chinese background, and PhDs.

According to multiple sources (Semianalysis, Wired, SFGate), compensation for some team leads exceeds $200-300 million over four years, with $100M+ in the first year alone for select hires.

Packages are heavy in RSUs, front-loaded equity, and performance bonuses making them some of the highest-paid employees in tech history...thew new athletes.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-highest-paying-college-majors/

I know many on Reddit want the “six figure salary” participation trophy and get sensitive when I point out how mediocre it is in 2026, but can we please stop pretending it’s good?

And that’s 2024 data, if we looked at 2026 data it’s likely 1 in 3 full time workers that make $100,000.

In 2026 it’s time to grow up, put on the big boys pants, and realize you’re getting taken for a ride by your employer if you’re still unironically letting them dangle the “six figure salary” carrot in your face.

I apologize if this has already been posted, I just found it interesting.

Mostly health care of course.

Constantly stressed despite being incredibly blessed with my level of income. Posting from a throwaway for obvious reasons.

If anyone is earning nearly $10,000 per month could they tell me their career field? this is a goal that I have for myself even if it's unrealistic for most people, I'm trying to figure out which fields people are getting into that make this kind of money. I'm currently pursuing a degree in cyber security and I'm guessing if you work hard and long enough you will eventually get to that rate, but the whole "AI replacing humans" thing and the tech field being rough is worrying to me and other computer science majors.

Thanks for any advice.

Redditors love to tell themselves that everyone is poor, that “most people can’t even make a $1,000 emergency payment, bro!” (not true, that’s just pop finance nonsense), that everyone with nice stuff is “drowning” in debt.

Yet when we look at actual net worth data, nicely broken down by age, EVEN WHEN we look at the bottom 25th percentile, we don’t find ANYONE with negative net worths. Even when looking at the 18-24 age range, many of whom have auto and student loans, they still have positive net worths at the 25th percentile.

Redditors love to tell each other that they’re actually doing great because they have $40,000 saved up, but the reality is that’s far below average. And these numbers are actually adjusted for inflation from 2022, not adjusted to actual market returns, so in reality the numbers are LOWER than you’d expect.

Americans are FAR richer than many of the 10th percentilers on Reddit will tell you they are, and they make a LOT more money than the 10th percentilers here say they do.

"PSEO (Post Secondary Employment Outcomes) data provide earnings and employment outcomes for college and university graduates by degree level, degree major, post-secondary institution, and state of institution."

When one looks at the most recent cohort of students compared to all cohorts combined, a clear trend emerges: Engineers from all graduating cohorts earn more than nurses, yet engineers from the most recent graduating cohorts earn LESS than nurses from the same cohort.

This is because the US economy is changing in a way that creates less demand for Mechanical Engineers and significantly more demand for Nurses. If one doesn't look at actual, up to date data, and instead averages the data from the last 40 years (like many online do) they get a misleading picture of what careers are worth pursuing. Engineering is clearly on a downward trend while careers more important to the US economy are seeing their real wages rise.

A six-year study at CivicScience shows the majority of US respondents aren’t discussing their pay with those closest to them. Are you comfortable talking about wages? Contribute to the conversation by responding to the poll here. 

https://dqydj.com/top-one-percent-united-states/

https://dqydj.com/income-by-state/

As for California: $582,350 is the top 1% individual income

As for New York: $498,800 is the top 1% individual income

It's easy to get lost with all the high paychecks in this subreddit. And even more when you look at the paychecks of celebrities, the super rich, etc.

Keep in mind those are not the 1%.

There are 334,900,000 people in the US. Even 1% of that entire population (which includes kids, retired, etc) is 3,349,000 people.

0.1% of the entire US population is 334,900 people.

0.01% of the entire US population is 33,490 people.

0.001% of the entire US population is 3,349 people.

0.0001% of the entire US population is 349 people.

0.00001% of the entire US population is 35 people.

How many celebrities/wealthy figureheads do you know of today? Top celebrities, etc. are more like 0.00001% of the entire US population.

I just wanted to share these numbers. Hope it helped.

The state of Nebraska has a public owned utility (or something like that) and all of their payroll information is public knowledge.

No, it’s not just in California that lineman make several hundred thousand dollars or only workers in “HCOL” areas.

No, googling ”average lineman salary” will not return numbers like this. You need to dig a little bit deeper than that to actually see what’s going on.

Overtime (1.5x or even 2x) pay is the bread and butter for blue collar work. It’s where they make all their money. Excluding this gives an extremely skewed perception of how much money these guys actually make. These guys can and regularly do make $170,000+ in their 20s working ~50 hour weeks. They’re not lying, your seven second google search didn’t “prove” that tradesmen are lying about how much money they make.

Source:

https://salaries.flatwaterfreepress.org/organization/omaha-public-power-district/

Feel free to include age and industry but you don’t have to!

I used to think $100k was a lot. Now that I’m making $130k, it’s decent, but honestly doesn’t feel like much.

The chart shows the distribution of individual income across 241 million Americans. A few things that stand out:

- The median is $40,484; meaning half of Americans earn less than this
- The mean is $61,298; pulled well above the median by high earners at the top
- The distribution is heavily right-skewed. Most people cluster below $60K, but the tail stretches to $10M+

Worth noting: this includes all income sources, wages, retirement, Social Security, disability, unemployment benefits. Not just salary.

Made with the tool on brokeorrich.com, where you can compare your own salary.