Haley Butler
You can earn a six figure salary and still be poorer than someone making half as much, and the main question is why income alone fails to predict financial security. The answer lies in what happens to that money after it lands in your bank account: how much debt you carry, how much you have saved, and whether you're living paycheck to paycheck despite a healthy paycheck.
Pew Research Center pegs the American middle class, for a household of three, at an annual income between $56,600 and $169,800. Anyone earning above that range gets filed under upper income. But a label based purely on earnings misses the debt, the missing retirement account, and the spending habits that can quietly hollow out a household's finances no matter what the pay stub says.
Why Net Worth Tells a Truer Story Than a Paycheck
Net worth, meaning assets minus liabilities, gives a far more honest snapshot of financial health than income does. Someone earning a solid six figure salary but juggling a five figure mortgage payment, several car loans, and credit card balances they can never quite pay off may have a lower net worth than a middle income earner who owns their home outright and carries zero revolving debt.
Summer Broadhead, a CPA and CFP at Everthrive Financial Group, points out that net worth is not a fixed sentence.
Richard Carr
Albert Adams
