Comment by dalyons
15 hours ago
90% of the 10% will be doomed. The remainder, the 1% overall lives off capital not labor, they’ll be fine.
15 hours ago
90% of the 10% will be doomed. The remainder, the 1% overall lives off capital not labor, they’ll be fine.
that is incorrect, the 0.1% (>50m) live purely off capital. the 1% are still mostly highly paid specialized labor and despite high savings their capital would not sustain their lifestyle outside a brief retirement.
In the US, 99th percentile household wealth is ~$14M, which at historical rates of return is enough to live opulently indefinitely. (Of course although we're discussing a scenario where capital holds most of the cards, who knows if those returns would be dependable.)
if you dig into whats actual safe to distribute after inflation and taxes, or conservative FIRE mid-life recommendations, its around 1-2% of principal per year . From 14m, 10-20k/month, about the budget of the white collar household in a major metro. Which is nice but hardly opulent. Rent, healthcare, and kids (or some expensive hobbies) eat that up in hurry.