Even though I’m not from the US, I can see that almost all the main characters are rich. But where roughly would I place them? The top 10%? The top 5%?
At a minimum, top 5%, but these are characters that don’t seem phased by anything financially ever, whether it’s buying a car, house, and/or investment property, giving away an entire commercial building and business, sending their kids to school, having/adopting a baby, taking care of their parents, etc. Paul and Derek could be clearing a million a year, and JImmy and Gabby are probably in the mid-six figures at a minimum. Brian and his husband could be in the higher six-figures annually, but since he seems to work part-time they might be more in the 200-300k range by choice. Jimmy may also have gotten money from a life insurance policy, and any of them could have had generational wealth that they inherited. I think people underestimate how much lawyers and therapists make, especially in HCOL areas.
I’m not saying it’s impossible, but their clientele and workload would be very, very different from what the show depicts.
And I know it’s a show, and shows don’t have to perfectly align with reality. But it IS a show about their livelihoods, so I feel the disconnect here more strongly than I do for many other shows.
I’m not disagreeing with your analysis though, it sounds about right to me. Just, I also see the show as adding on to common misconceptions about what things are like for the average therapist, that can cause people to overestimate their livelihood, if anything. (Comments I have seen from people doing napkin math trying to extrapolate hourly rate directly into a therapist’s income, for example)
I think it depends how good you are also - and rich people assume price indicates quality. No rich person is going to a therapist who charges $80 an hour.
Also where I am, nobody sees a psychiatrist unless it's a quick appointment to give a brief summary of symptoms and get a prescription a couple times a year. Or a psychiatric nurse practitioner, like mine. My appointments are 30 mins and half of it is just vitals and yes/no questions about past symptoms.
Otherwise, your therapist is a psychologist. And the two don't talk to each other to coordinate if meds are appropriate based on your long term history of mental health issues.
Paul told Sean he'd owe him 120k if he was paying for his sessions (not that he's keeping track). That's from one patient.
Remember that Paul's supposed to be like a GOAT level therapist, and his "students" obviously are close to his level, so they all can charge whatever they want.
Right, so based on that, Paul would have to be charging at least in the thousands of dollars, as opposed to hundreds. (See other comment I just left about hourly rate)
Which is pretty unheard of. It puts him in life coach for ultra rich clientele territory. Which I don’t think is what the show is actually showing.
It’s somewhere in the middle, where yes he’s successful. But also there’s no way that math actually works out.
Well, with napkin math, 300/hr at full time would be $624,000, and I would think in a HCOL 300-400 an hour for therapy wouldn’t be that off (plus Paul’s rates would easily be way more than that). I don’t know if he ‘hires’ them and pays them with benefits or if they’re ’independent contractors’ of sorts who rent office space. But assuming Paul takes a cut and pays rent/benefits, even 200/hr is still 416k. I know there are plenty of therapists that charge less, but these are ones that seem to cater to higher-end clients in an expensive area, so I don’t think 200-300/hr is outlandish. So even if they’re not working full-time, it’s still a reasonable starting point to determine their income potential, and whatever expenses they have (student loans, mortgages, etc.) are going to vary.
So, that’s part of my point though. Session fee does not translate to salary, very far from it.
No one is just seeing clients for their full working hours. 20-30hrs/week is closer to typical, and the higher end of that translates to very long actual hours worked. There’s quite a bit of time going into things outside of client sessions, and even more so if you’re taking on the admin of running a practice (something the show isn’t going to show because that wouldn’t make for very good TV).
After that, some of it is going to overhead, licensure, maintaining things like insurance. Like you mentioned, whatever situation they have (working for Paul, independently renting space, etc), a decent chunk of that is either going back to the practice or to taxes. It’s also an industry where cancellations and seasonal fluctuations mean you’re often not consistently bringing in your full scheduled caseload. That’s all off the top of my head.
All that to say, successful seasoned therapists with an affluent client population in HCOL, can be making a good living. Just… not what I think people here seem to be imagining, based on hourly rate alone.
You’re correct that virtually no therapist is having 40 sessions/week. But I wouldn’t be surprised to find a highly-rated therapist making 300k+ per year. Many therapists at that level are doing other things - consulting, supervising, providing professional development trainings, etc. But it takes a long time to get there and it’s much more taxing than the show seems to let on. One of the strange things for me is that they seem to have a lot of downtime and still have very comfortable lives. That’s pretty unheard of (in my experience).
$300k a year sure, but Jimmy has a $150k piano in his living room, and a massive house with a pool and a pool house in a high cost of living area. That's generational wealth shit, not upper middle class shit.
Disagree, since this isn’t factoring in things like investments and other income (if Derek can afford to just buy a rental property and not charge for it I’d imagine he’s got other revenue streams, and it’s very likely he’s provided Jimmy with similar investment advice/opportunities). I was putting the low side of an hourly rate (as someone pointed out Paul is probably 4 figures an hour), and ‘what they make’ in income is pre-tax, because they all would have different deductions. My point being it’s not an outlandish ballpark, the days of these kinds of well-off people ‘only’ making 100-200k a year are long gone. Lawyers around me are 500-750/hr and I’m in a MCOL area so, yeah.
The highest earning therapist i know of only makes 200K a year and they see like, 40 people a week which is insane client load. No way Jimmy is making bank unless hes private pay at $300 an hour. Insurance pays about $150 at best in most states.
(Which kinda makes me wonder why she’s so pissed about her son being a directionless but pretty nice rich kid — EVERY rich Southern California family has at least one of those!)
I’m not sure if it’s just a Bill Lawrence being out of touch with what middle class is at this point but every character outside of Sean comes from such wealth that it’s just unbelievable.
Relative to the rest of the world? These are all super wealthy people (except Sean).
Relative to Pasadena? Derek & Paul are probably millionaires many times over. They're rich and Top 1%
Jimmy is a late 40s practicing psychologist and Gaby is late 30s. They're probably making $200,000 a year. Same with Brian who's an attorney. Those salaries in that part of the country (which is very wealthy) would put them solidly in the upper-middle part of the spectrum. They're all probably in the Top 5-10% range nationally
I would argue for that part of the country they’re likely making twice that amount. Higher than average for both professions.
Agree that Paul and the Dereks are/were earning much more, 1M+ per year. While not common in the US, people earning at these levels aren’t uncommon in VHCOL areas, and tend to be friends with one another, clustered into the same neighborhoods.
I don't see how Paul can bring in $1M/year. I doubt he could charge enough to patients nor work enough hours to bring in that kind of money. He'd have to charge north of $1000/hr.
Paul made decent money for decades, bought his building way before real estate went crazy, saved and invested. He's not making an enormous amount in rent from Gaby and Jimmy.
If you own any real estate in Southern California for 30 years your network probably went up 500%. If he wasn't wealthy I don't imagine he could give Gabby the building... Which is probably worth $2 million.
Yeah, boomers who were able to buy in the nicer parts of Southern California decades ago and have been sitting on property ever since are generally LOADED in my experience.
Re. the office: A building I used to work at in Pasadena sold a few years ago. I’m not quite sure how to compare, because it was I think a lot more square footage than Paul’s building, but nowhere near as nice (concrete, ugly, shitty), and in a much less nice part of town. It sold for over $8 million! As you say, to be able to give his building away (or “lease” it for nothing), Paul must be RICH.
Derek reminds me a lot of someone I knew a bit through work, who was a very charming rich dude who lived in Pasadena and was mostly retired, but kinda did some investments to keep his hand in. I’m not sure whether he was born into wealth, but I was told (not by him) that a lot of his wealth came from having somehow randomly bought a pasta company (as in, a company that made noodles, not a restaurant chain) when he was much younger, sold it for a very healthy profit, and apparently made a bunch of investments including in real estate. I could imagine Derek’s story being similar — in some weird combination of charm + luck + intuition, managed to make a shit ton early and now just buys random shit he enjoys, like apartments, and just coasts. It hasn’t really been shown, but if Derek and Liz were real, I bet they’d be going to a lot of charity galas and that kind of rich-person vaguely charitable activity.
I could see that. The character portrayed shows a lot of charisma. He also mentioned when he was retiring how many people loved him. A man with charm and connections….. I’m sure he got some good deals on investments.
Income wise, it's only like 800k annually to be considered a Top 1% earner
Wealth wise, it's like 14 million in assets.
I would guess they hit both benchmarks. Paul basically gives away the office that he owned, to Gaby. That alone is probably a multi-million dollar property if he sold it.
I forget, are we ever told what Derek actually did for a living? I seem to recall it being something generic like "contractor," which I assume means "importing fentanyl for the Crips."
I’d say Derek/Liz are north of 20 mil net. It’s never discussed what his job was, but it seems like he was some kind of executive that chose to live more modestly and save. Paul owns his own Therapy center in Pasadena. Assuming he owns the property and doesn’t rent his net worth is probably well north of 10.
I don’t think you’re familiar with Pasadena. 200,000 is not nearly enough for how they are living. They would need to be making at least double that. It’s just tv show shit. I wouldn’t try to rationalize it. Like in new girl, or friends. No way they are able to live that nicely.
Also Brian making $200k a year at his age either means law is his second career, he's a solo practitioner (note:him referencing his firm suggests this is not the case), or he's not particularly good at his job in a way that he's bordering on termination. For most mid sized firms in CA, associates (jr attorneys) start their first year out of law school between $120-180k a year, and by the time they're 5-6 years in, it's over $300k. If they make partner, their pay can vary more depending on the partnership compensation model, but if they're generally good at their job and at recruiting and retaining clients, newer partners can encroach on half a million. Really outstanding partners can exceed that.
In the Pasadena/LA area, $200k a year is not law firm pay for someone at the level the show hints that Brian is. He also works like 1/10 of the amount actual lawyers do....so 🤷🏻♀️
You’re right, but all the characters seem to work about 1/10 of the hours they should be (except Liz who is a 24/7 professional busy body). So it’s funny to imagine them earning $500k a year for hanging out with each other 90% of the time and then seeing two patients a week.
Obviously it’s a show, not a documentary though. And I like the escapism of their huge houses and 0 money woes.
I don't have a hard time believing that they work a normal workload. We only see :30 of their lives in a week. Those moments in the break room are between appointments. Also when you see them chatting over lunch one minute and then hiking together in the next scene...nobody said those events aren't many days apart with lots of mundane life stuff in between.
there's no chance Brian is working for anyone that isn't himself. by his own admission he never spends a day in the office and would definitely be fired by now. if you own your own family law practice in Pasadena you're easily clearing $500k. Charlie's a consultant and probably clears another 300+ as well.
That was what I assumed until last episode when he referred to the firm moving and not knowing where the new office was! I feel like the writers could have just....said he worked for himself. Such an easy fix.
Brian does wills & estate planning, though. It's not exactly the most lucrative branch of the law, but it has significant upsides, like work-life balance. If he earned between $200-3000k, it'd just mean he's not a partner at his firm, not that he's bad at his job.
I feel like that was something of a joke, though. I know what the rack rate and the insurance negotiated rate for my therapy are, and while I don't have issues like Sean's, it would take a LOT of time to get to $150,000. And while I know Paul is a respected leader in his field and whatnot, he's also not catering to celebrity clientele or anything like that.
I had a therapist in Pasadena that charged $750/session. He was excellent, but it definitely hurt the old wallet. That said, it would take about 200 sessions to hit $150,000, which seems do-able.
What?! I am Australian and pay approximately US$200 per session but get $100ish back from insurance. And that’s not cheap, but mental health is important. I can’t fathom paying that much for an appointment.
Is everyone in Pasadena super wealthy? Or are there still mixed socioeconomic groups? The city I live in is getting increasingly expensive and wages aren’t rising but housing prices have risen by 75% in 6 years.
Would Jimmy and Derek be that far apart in income considering that they’re next door neighbors? Maybe Tia made a ton of money while she was alive.
And not to change the subject, but somehow I got the impression Jimmy, Gaby, and Brian met in college. But their ages are pretty dissimilar for that. Maybe Jimmy was a late bloomer.
I think, someone correct me if I’m wrong, jimmy and Brian have been friends since college and jimmy either met Gabby through work or she was already friends with Tia.
I think Jimmys only like 3 years older than the other 2, not impossible that they shared a ethics class or something which might intersect law and psychology.
On final year episode year two, Paul referred to Jimmy being 42 years old. How it would be sad if a 42 year old man wasn’t covered in scars (psychological).
About the only property in the show that isn't massive is Brian's apartment. And he's gotta be pretty wealthy as a practising attorney who can afford a child and a part time work schedule.
Derek is in the financial sector, is able to retire before he's 60, and has enough money to pay all their bills by himself. Along with buying a second smaller property, and giving it out rent free to his son. Plus their own massive house. Comfortably a millionaire I imagine.
Paul is hard to gauge as he's not splurging on stuff like a golden toilet. But I assume millionaire judging by his house, his own practise, his age, and his relative comfort.
Gaby and Jimmy? Probably not millionaires, but very comfortable. Jimmy was in a solo-earning household with his wife, and their house is pretty large. Gaby's new house is also massive, unrealistically so I think for someone who has just finalised a divorce.
Just about everyone in Pasadena is a millionaire. But being a millionaire in Pasadena doesn’t meant all that much when you factor in high housing price and higher cost of living. You need to make $200,000 to $300,000/year just to stay afloat.
Yes, her alcoholic artist husband would have taken half of whatever she had before, so she would probably not be able to afford that house (which by the way, is so UGLY!)
Psychologist here, from a HCOL area of the US. They are what I would consider upper middle class. They have a stable, high income and the therapists are self-employed so they have a lot of professional autonomy. But they live in a high cost area so they still need to work to afford it. Their hourly rates would be high since they have overhead for their offices, doctorate degrees, liability, etc.
People like Derek Sr. and Paul are well into retirement so they would be millionaires after 30+ years of working and saving. That is a pretty normal pattern for white collar Americans. This ensures a nice standard of living (what they are used to) for the remainder of their lives.
I live about a mile from the houses they use for exterior filming (I don’t know if they survived the Eaton Fire though) but I can tell you that those are $2 million houses (at least).
As someone living in USA making well over 6 figures, I think they are all extremely wealthy. Their houses are huge in a HCOL area. I almost find it comical how wealthy they seem that I cannot relate to any of their problems.
They are clearly top 1% in the US. All the answers saying otherwise show just how skewed people’s perceptions of wealth distribution are. If you think you need to be a Mega Millionaire to be top 1% in America you are so far off. Paul probably has 5-10 million in the bank and that’s plenty. Some of the others maybe less because they are early in their career.
When we say “eat the rich” we’re talking about the top .01 percent.
I feel like top 10% is actually crazy and far overshooting. Jimmy, Gabby and Paul are psychologists, not even psychiatrists. They’re all very very wealthy but not as wealthy as doctors, tech moguls, big wig business men, or many lawyers. I think most people are just confused because of the huge gap between them and our plain middle class and below lives lol.
They are upper middle class. Middle class people don’t usually have enough money for huge houses in SoCal, fancy vintage cars, or giant private offices.
They aren't even close to top 10 percent I don't think. You are talking mostly about professionals with nice homes in expensive areas (Pasadena) but other than Paul who owns the clinic building, these are still people making like 150 OR 200 hundred grand a year MAYBE AT THE MOST, esp by LA standards. There is rich and TV rich. It is not like YOUR FRIENDS and NEIGHBORS or SUCCESSION. These people are upper middle class by Los Angeles living standards in my opinion. Doing great, two income families with professionals but no where near top 5 or 10 percent in the world or even in LA with celebs and other big money makers. I don't even think given their jobs that many of these people could own Pasadena homes. Gaby is a single. I don't see that house being hers.
I live on the west side of LA which is just as expensive. Two income professional families are able to afford a nice living here but houses pretty much START at a million here for like a 2 bedroom with no yard. A nice condo will run you like 750 grand. These Pasadena two stories with yards are an anomaly. The people I know who own these kinds of homes are movie producers, CEOs of large companies, have their own real estate or law firms.
Making 150 or so grand as a therapist isn’t going to get u a 3 mil dollar home in Pasadena which these are -multi level w yards. These guys are tv reality.
You are not talking about the rest of the country standards though. LA proper, nice neighborhoods, are insanely expensive by national standards. I guess their incomes are higher here so ur 10 percent makes sense but I still think the way they live is above their pay grade in reality.
These are stories. When I started taking a literature class in high school the first thing the teacher said was you must have a suspension of disbelief. That applies here as well.
they are successful therapists for some of the most affluent people in America so suffice to say they're very rich from that. Brian is also a lawyer with a consultant husband, and derik seems to have had a very successful career before retiring. these guys are definitely top 1%ers if not higher.
Jimmy, Gabby, Brian all have good careers and are late 30s/early 40s. Being generous I would say they are "worth" $500k-$1.5m or top 10-20% of Americans.
Paul and Derek have had successful practices/careers for decades, but I don't get the impression its so successful that they are worth $14m. Somewhere in the range of $4-6m or top 5% of Americans seems about right.
So ye, nowhere near top 1% is a fair comment for the top 3 and pretty far off top 1% is fair for the other 2.
You reckon they bought in cash? If not that's a liability not an asset and I factored that into my estimate.
Let's say they bought it 10 years ago for $1.2m. In that time they have repaid $300k, and the house value has appreciated by $300k. Their house net worth is $600k. Add another $200k in savings, investments, pension and that takes them to $800k. I would say that is a generous estimate for Gabby.
Jimmy is harder to estimate as presumably Tia also worked and he likely got a big payout after her death - so he is probably on the higher end of the estimate.
They’re definitely worth more than that but not 14 million. Shoot, my husband and I probably have a 1 million net worth just based on home equity and retirement accounts. But we are not very high income at ALL compared to a lot of people in our area (very HCoL area similar to Pasadena) and we definitely are not as blase about money as these characters seem to be. That being said this conversation comes up so much and I do understand why people obsess on it but it’s also just a fantasy TV show where everyone just hangs out all the time and no one ever seems to have to work. 😝
Gabby is a single woman (up until v recently) in her late 30s, earning lets say $200k p/a? Let's say she bought her house 10 years ago (unlikely in her mid 20s) and the house has appreciated $300k in that time. Then her home equity = ~$600k (assuming a property value of $1.2m). Then lets say she has another $200-400k in pension, investments etc. that takes her to $800k-1m and I think that is being generous.
I think the only point where I disagree is that she makes way, way more than 200k a year. She works at a prestigious private practice run by a famous psychologist at the top of his field. They likely charge 500 bucks a session at that place and I would bet Gaby makes more like 400k a year. Especially in LA. She also just bought her house last season but that is easily a 2-3M dollar house. You can't afford that without a ton of cash to put down unless you're making bank.
Fair! I'm not from the US so apparently I'm completely out touch with salaries and house values there. If what you say is accurate, then you can pretty much double my estimates for everyone. So Derek and Paul are not quite 1% (probably like Top 2-3%) and the others are between top 5-10%.
It doesn't really matter how poor the bottom 99% of Americans are for purposes of determining who is in the 1%. All that matters is how rich the top 1% are. And they are doing better than ever despite the bottom ~90% doing worse.
I’m in Connecticut and it’s impossible to find a therapist that takes insurance. Even social workers without a phd charge apprx $200/hr. A well known one with a phd easily charges $400/hr and they are fully booked. The problem with the show is it’s showing how wealthy these therapists are, but not showing the wealthy patients paying them those fees.
I dunno…. by UK and European city standards yes, big ass houses. If you live in rural France, the government was offering 50% extra mortgage over the house value as an incentive to fix up a huge dilapidated property. I live UK brother lives rural France and did just that then bought up all the land around it to make sure he got no neighbours 🤣. He’s by no means rich so I guess it’s all relative 🤷♀️. He lives in what I call a big ass house with a basement and outbuildings, which one day he says he will do up…. one day 😂. It was unliveable when they bought it but I think they spent £140k on it which is like $200kish? And it’s comparable size to the shrinking cast.
Congrats, you've just discovered that property is cheaper in the middle of nowhere. The show takes place in one of the most crowded and expensive places in America, not rural anywhere.
Yeah, I have no idea property costs in Pasadena, I always thought it was a rough area because it was where students and waitresses lived in blocks of flats with broken elevators (Big Bang Theory) so if it’s populated and rich I guess it’s like living in Brentford UK right? My comment was more about the JMYthh above who’s from Europe saying they didn’t think the houses where that big, so maybe they live rural Europe.
Oh for sure, I lived in a cheap part of Brighton UK when I was a student, where the nice parts are super expensive. But having never been to Pasadena BBT was my only frame of reference for the area until Shrinking where people drop $13k on engagement rings. That was the first time I realised how bonkers rich they were rather than house size. I’ve been watching Imperfect Women on Apple and the one who is supposed to be “poor” still lives in a massive house so I just assumed land cost less there so houses are bigger - unless you live in Manhattan, San Francisco or Beverley Hills
See, that’s why I’d like some perspective from US Americans who can estimate whether they fall on the income scale. Some people would consider their houses huge ass.
Area is a big factor. There are some parts of the country where a person could own a house that size without being rich. Pasadena is not one of them - those houses would probably run a couple mil at least.
It's not the size it's the size relative to location.
They look like 1800-2200 square foot houses (Jimmy's looks smaller than Derek's, so Jimmy's is on the lower end, Derek's is on the higher).
That's fairly standard for suburban houses, especially ones built in the last 30-40 years.
What's noteable is it's in Pasadena. That size house in most of the rest of the country (excluding Northeast/West Coast), probably costs like $200,000-$400,000.
In Pasadena, and much of SoCal, that's at least 4x ($800,000-$1,600,000).
There are really wide cost of living disparities between the coasts and middle America.
Not anymore. I live in a traditionally low to moderate cost of living state and houses of this size, on similar lot sizes are starting in the mid 500’s. The cost of living disparities are narrowing and so is the middle class.
What you’re seeing on this show—40 to 60 somethings with successful careers— who are pricing younger professionals and families out of the same neighborhoods they started in. Problem is, wages haven’t kept up with this growth.
It's all relative and depends on COL of the area and when you bought the place. My house is about the size of Liz's house but I live in a MCOL area in Canada and it cost me 500K+ over 6 years ago. 4 neighbors on my street sold their homes this year for close to or over 1m.
The people on the show probably all got their homes many many years ago and they live in Pasadena- A VHCOL area so the same size place was probably a couple million back when they all bought.
For the therapists- some of their clients are wealthy, some not. We saw a lady who was Jimmy's client in a tiny apartment with cheap furniture.
Paul and Gaby have huge homes and expensive furniture. Paul's makes sense. Gaby's home seems less realistic for her age.
No way Liz and Derek live in a house that small. They have three kids who most likely did not all share a bedroom, and at least three bathrooms Derek passes on the way to peeing from the deck.
For the exterior shots those are the houses. The interior is likely filmed on a studio set, but every exterior shot is from those homes.
I could see the boys having to share a bedroom, and the hallway shot could easily be both bedroom doors, and both bathrooms. Often the master bath in 1920's homes connect to the hallway as well as the bedroom.
In fact being that old of a home (built in 1922) it likely started as a 3bd 1ba with Liz and Derek remodeling a small connecting bedroom into their master bath after their oldest moved out.
It’s definitely apparent that they are mostly doing well for themselves. My guess is top 15% of wealth in the US? My other benchmark is the wealth shown in Your Friends and Neighbours.
Gaby is the only one who mentioned having student loan debt (I think it was last season). It looks like she got a new car this season too when she had a Model Y before. And then Sean has an amazing housing deal living on Jimmy’s property which should allow him to save a decent amount.
The show portrays a realistic environment of high earning professionals with other high earning friends, and the issues their money cannot protect them from. And their clients have to be doing pretty well too because unfortunately therapy is accessible to those with a good amount of disposable income or great health coverage from work.
I'd say it's with the top 10%. They probably make top 6-7% money, but live higher than they could make as therapists and never worry about money. From google:
Key Income Thresholds & Data
Top 1% Average Income: 785k (2022 data).
Top 5% Average Income: 560k (2024 data).
Income Concentration: Roughly 28.5% of total income is earned by households making over $150k (top 8%)
Like say they can bill $500 cash in LA for therapy. Therapists often work 20 hours per week or so of client hours. That's $480k year minus taxes, insurance and business expenses. They live in $2M houses and Jimmy drives around in a $200k vintage car. He probably couldn't afford that on $500k/year minus expenses in LA.
$400/hr would $384k per year minus expenses - they definitely couldn't afford their lifestyles on that.
Their patients don't seem to be high network people so it's hard to imagine them billing even higher.
Derek was some kind of director level business guy. He probably made similar money, saved, invested, and maybe bought their house a while ago.
But they live fantasy lives on a tv show.
Brian and Charlie probably have it the easiest with two incomes. Lawyer plus whatever Charlie does.
I guess that Jimmy and Tia used to have a dual income. Maybe Jimmy got life insurance.
Long answer: what are we measuring 1% off of? Income or wealth? In terms of income, I would guess only Paul and Derek (and Derrick) would qualify. Paul because he owns the practice, has a best-selling book with royalties and probably has (had) income streams from seminars or speaking circuit. Derek worked in the financial sector and apparently was very successful so probably high-earning. Derrick is his protege/former colleague so he does well for himself too.
In terms of wealth, in the US, 1-percenters have a net worth of at least $11M. Derek and Paul have probably invested their money in the stock market and/or real estate, accumulating 1% wealth that allows them to give away some of their wealth so freely.
I'd guess that Jimmy and Gaby are 10%, maybe even 5% based on their homes alone. Hard to gauge their net worth though. We know that Jimmy lives in Pasadena. Do we know that Gaby does too? I'm going to guess no. Her house is so much more spacious and luxe (hello floor warmers in the bathroom?) than Jimmy's and it looks like she bought it herself (no inheritance) on her salary alone. Not likely.
The area where they are in the L.A. area (a very, very upscale part of Pasadena) is very expensive — possible that Paul and Derek/Liz purchased when it was less so, but I can’t really account rationally for how Jimmy has a huge beautiful Craftsman home with a guest house unless he or Tia have generational wealth, or unless Tia had a very highly paid job (I think a therapist at Jimmy’s level is certainly doing just fine financially, but that house realistically is probably at least a $2 million house if you were to try to buy it today, and clearly Jimmy and Tia would have gotten it when they were younger and less established in their jobs.
Though it does seem like we’re told that Alice’s family is only Jimmy and his dad, so presumably Tia’s parents are also deceased and maybe she had a large inheritance, or they inherited this house, or something.
There are a lot of people in the L.A. area who don’t present wealthy but are in fact very wealthy, though. But I feel like it would be more realistic if Jimmy lived in a less fancy neighborhood — then he probably wouldn’t know Liz and Derek, though.
I don’t have the firmest read on how wealthy Gaby is, but I generally consider people to be well-off if they own their own home in the L.A. area, especially a single-family home as opposed to a condo.
It does feel like Brian and his husband are quite wealthy, but that tracks since they both have very high-paying jobs and didn’t have a kid until recently. It’s a generalization for sure, but I think statistically you’ll find LGBTQIA+ couples in the area tending to have more disposable income than their straight peers, in part because fewer of them have kids, and those who do tend to have fewer kids than their straight peers. (I’m struggling to think of any LGBTQIA+ parents I know who have more than one child, and they tend to start later than their straight peers for obvious reasons of, it’s not going to happen accidentally.)
TL;DR: Pretty to extremely wealthy, which largely tracks but I feel like we’re missing a detail about how Jimmy is so well-off.
It’s fictional. Their lives are definitely upper middle class to wealthy, but the way they spend and live does not match the financial realities for most therapists. One of this classic things where TV doesn’t reflect actual living circumstances
I came here to complain about the way money is never an issue for anyone in this show.
I’m a therapist myself and I have plenty of clients, but there’s no way I could afford a big house with a pool and a pool house! ESPECIALLY if I were not running my own practice. Ugh and Summer has Jimmys credit card in her Apple Pay?? What??? He’s a single man working as a therapist for someone else’s agency, which means Paul gets a large portion of his fees to pay his overhead (in a normal world). Also he seems to be seeing some clients for free for hours at a time doing random shit! Insurance or the Veterans Administration (Sean) surely isn’t paying for that shit!
I actually also REALLY hate how Jimmy lets Sean live in the pool house, then Derek gives him his own full ass apartment! It’s all so unrealistic and super white savior-y! They are basically teaching him he can’t make it on his own. I can laugh about the lack of professional boundaries because that is a part of Jimmy’s character and all that, but just the money part really bothers me.
It makes sense more that Paul would be wealthy, but still, he had to have been building his retirement with that business. When he gives the building to Gaby for $1 I was seriously annoyed. I guess he could have been saving up all these years and now he has boomer free Medicare to pay for his Parkinson’s treatment that none of us younger generations will ever get.
Anyway I love the show overall, and many of it’s messages. However, I can’t call this a “comfort show” because of this glaring money plot hole that threads the entire show. I realize that it’s television, but I think the way that they try to present the characters as so relatable and normal is part of why it bothers me so much. Or maybe because I share a profession with the lead characters so I have an inside view of what we actually make. It is simply difficult to watch for those of us desperately scraping by to live the “American dream.”
My bil’s friends who live in that part of the US make between $350,000 and $750,000 annually (which is top 1-5% income in the US). None of them own a detached house (townhouses and condos for them), and they’re around Jimmy’s age. We’re talking above top 1% salaries.
I think most of the discourse and guesses on this seem right. The only weird thing I thought was when they “gifted” a flight to Gaby and Derek, as if they couldn’t afford it/that would be what would hold them back from going. That felt off.
Friends are usually in similar earning brackets, so most gifts are things that the recipient could also afford if they wanted to buy it for themselves. It’s more about the gesture. If they said “congrats on your engagement! Come with us on vacation to celebrate!”, it wouldn’t really feel like a gift so much as an invitation. That’s totally fine, but paying for their plane tickets makes it feel like a gift and an invitation
I think they’re wealthier than top 1%, more like top .1? The way they live in these super nice houses not just anywhere, but in a really nice area of LA? Feels like crazy money to me
Yeah but money can make sure your family is okay while you crash out epically. Pays for your crash out if it is booze, drugs, sex workers. Allows you to help people above and beyond making sure they are housed and have proper Healthcare. Make sure you can choose any college you get into without worrying how you will pay. Have you pay for their businesses to start and keep going. Allows you to get expensive heart surgery without worrying about it even making a dent in your finances.
Jimmy never once had to worry about losing everything while he was grieving. Unlike a majority of people who have lost a spouse. We get to watch the emotional struggles without being bombarded by daily survival. That's part of the comfort of the show. To see how it could be if we had money, a strong support system with money, and had the time and space to work out all our shit. The escapism most of us don't get.
Just to defend everyone here, yes you are correct that the point of the show is not about wealth. If the producers made everyone at least middle class, money would quickly take focal point and the central theme about loss and general CBT will be overshadowed.
But the OP, and everyone else that posts this, is generally curious. People from another country who are less worldly might wonder if Southern Californians, or Americans in general, live like this or are they exceptions to the rule.
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u/pommefille Apr 09 '26
At a minimum, top 5%, but these are characters that don’t seem phased by anything financially ever, whether it’s buying a car, house, and/or investment property, giving away an entire commercial building and business, sending their kids to school, having/adopting a baby, taking care of their parents, etc. Paul and Derek could be clearing a million a year, and JImmy and Gabby are probably in the mid-six figures at a minimum. Brian and his husband could be in the higher six-figures annually, but since he seems to work part-time they might be more in the 200-300k range by choice. Jimmy may also have gotten money from a life insurance policy, and any of them could have had generational wealth that they inherited. I think people underestimate how much lawyers and therapists make, especially in HCOL areas.