From the outside, it can look like everyone quietly got a secret raise. The trucks are bigger, the apartments are pricier, the airport security lines are endless, and yet job boards are still full of listings paying $12 to $20 an hour. That disconnect is exactly what a 36-year-old millennial wanted to understand when he went to the r/Money subreddit with a simple question: How does everyone have so much money nowadays?
He said he remembers the 1990s and 2000s as an era when even the wealthy families he knew had to budget for the house, the car and everything else. Prices felt "decently priced and even downright cheap," and lifestyles looked more grounded.
Don't Miss:
- Fast Company Calls It a ‘Groundbreaking Step for the Creator Economy' — Investors Can Still Get In at $0.81/Share
- 7 Million Gamers Already Trust Gameflip With Their Digital Assets — Now You Can Own a Stake in the Platform
Today, though, he sees $400,000 apartments, new luxury trucks instead of basic cars, restaurants that are constantly packed and friends taking trip after trip. To him, it looks like "everyone seems to have a luxurious lifestyle now like they won lottery after covid," while almost every job posting he sees still offers just $12 to $20 an hour.
The top responses on r/Money were blunt. One commenter summed it up as, "Debt is a helluva drug." Another asked how many of the apparent high rollers would have any of it "without credit cards." Someone else called a large chunk of the crowd "posers… up to their eyeballs in debt because they just HAVE to give off an appearance of being better off than they are." Others focused on social media, arguing that feeds are engineered to show the flashiest slices of life, not the bills that come afterward.
Trending: Buffett's Secret to Wealth? Private Real Estate—Get Institutional Access Yourself
Behind those comments, the numbers point in the same direction. Americans are now carrying about $18.59 trillion in household debt, a record high and roughly $4.4 trillion more than at the end of 2019, just before the pandemic recession.
Credit card balances alone are estimated at $1.23 trillion as of the third quarter of 2025, the highest level since the New York Fed began tracking the data. The shiny trucks and crowded vacation spots the poster sees may be financed with borrowed money rather than booming wages.
Earnings tell a different story. Research on inflation-adjusted wages shows that average hourly pay for many workers has barely gained purchasing power over the last few decades once inflation is factored in. Median household income in 2024, around $83,700, is only roughly back to where it was in 2019 after inflation, not miles ahead. In other words, the typical paycheck has not exploded, even if everyday spending looks louder.
See Also: From Moxy Hotels to $12B in Real Estate — The Firm Behind NYC's Trendiest Properties Is Letting Individual Investors In.
The pandemic also distorted the picture. During lockdowns, households built up an unprecedented pile of "excess savings" from stimulus checks and reduced spending, then slowly drew it down as the economy reopened. That temporary cushion helped fuel travel, upgrades and remodels just as social media feeds became the primary window into other people's lives.
Put together, the millennial's question on r/Money taps into a very modern illusion. In the 1990s, most people only saw their own street and a few neighbours' cars. Now every scroll brings a curated highlight reel of the most expensive moments from hundreds of people, some of whom are genuinely high earners and others who are simply very comfortable with big monthly payments.
It may look like "everyone" suddenly got rich. The data suggests something less glamorous: incomes that are mostly grinding along, record levels of household debt, pandemic savings that are largely spent, and a digital stage that makes even fragile lifestyles look like a permanent upgrade.
Read Next: Bill Gates Invests Billions in Green Tech — This Tree-Free Material Could Be the Next Big Breakthrough
Image: Shutterstock
