Reply to Why do people who make 500k + not "feel" rich?

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[quote=Anonymous]These threads just reflect the same fundamental difference of opinion over and over.  Do you define "rich" as "high income" or do you define it as "independently wealthy".  Many posters argue that being "rich" means you have enough wealth that you don't have to work.  So you could say that someone who has had a trust fund paying out $75K a year is rich, even if they work at a non-profit for 20K a year, and never make six figures in their life.  On the flip side, the BigLaw associate making 200K who can be fired at any moment is high income, but may not be at all rich, depending on their debts, savings rate etc.  However, obviously many people on this thread only consider HHI, or simply think that anyone with either assets of X, or income over Y, is rich.  So if you earn 200K you are rich, if you get fired tomorrow and now earn $0, you are poor, etc.
I tend to think lumping wealthy and high income together is fairly misleading.  For example, the working class kid who accumulates 300K in college/law school debt, and then starts earning 200K at a law firm, is to my mind not rich yet, and certainly not in the same category as a trust fund baby who has no debt, and never has to work a day if they don't want to.  The distinction matters, because from a policy/tax code perspective, it seems like treating those two people the same would be somewhat unfair, and make it tougher for working class/middle class to become rich.  If a presidential candidate says "we should tax the rich more" I might agree about trust fund baby, and not agree about indebted working class striver.[/quote]

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