The Internet

It’s been said that most poor white Americans don’t view themselves as poor, but rather as “temporarily embarrassed millionaires”. They aren’t real poor people, because real poor people just haven’t had the work ethic or discipline to realize their American dream: they’re too cowardly to embrace their entrepreneurial spirit, to open their small business and watch it grow into an international corporation; they’re too lazy or incompetent at their jobs to climb the company ladder and collect the kind of money that’s up there waiting for them; or they’re simply too stupid to do it. And most poor white Americans view themselves as one of the special few who are only impoverished because of a string of bad luck that’s sure to end, just as soon as they get that promotion that’s right around the corner or go long enough without car trouble to save up and start the business they’ve always wanted. Of course, this is evidence enough of their misunderstanding of what a millionaire really is, and what it takes to become one.

The definition of a millionaire is ambiguous. In one case, it’s simply someone who has a million dollars, whether it came from years of saving, an inheritance, or good luck on a lottery ticket. The other millionaire is the kind whose salary is greater than a million dollars per year.

The concept of a company paying an employee a million dollars per year is scarcely anything less than ludicrous. At 40 hours per week with no vacations, this amounts to an hourly rate of $480.77 per hour. With the median salary in the U.S. currently around $36,000 per year (or around $17/hour), one would have to climb a pretty tall ladder to get that kind of pay raise! And since a four-hundred-and-sixty-three dollar raise seems unlikely, this leaves the more feasible option of starting one’s own business, but how much money can someone really make all on their own?

Let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine quitting your job and becoming a fashion designer. You take some sewing classes in your free time, develop your skills, buy a sewing machine, and start your own small clothing line. You might be able to make a shirt in two hours, and sell it for $70, a tie in one hour for $35, and so on. Assuming all of your product sells, and you work forty hours per week, that yields you nearly $73,000 a year before taxes. Congratulations! But you’re still a little short of a million.

Now, enter the American dream. You hire and train 24 full time employees to work for you at $15 per hour making your product, and you sell all the goods at a profit of twenty dollars per employee per hour. Your revenue, after deducting payroll, is just a hair short of a million dollars per year. For all intents and purposes, you did it! But let’s take this experiment just one step further.

The 24 temporarily embarrassed millionaires you employed suddenly realize they are collectively doing 100% of your work and keeping only 43% of the money for it, so they make a radical decision: they each quit their job and start selling independently, leaving you with a big warehouse full of fabric and sewing machines, and putting you back to your original $73,000 a year.

No one wants to be exploited.

Now let’s talk tech. Another method of generating a high salary is by continuously getting paid for work you’ve already finished. App developers, web designers, YouTubers, and – this may sound familiar – writers put in long hours on their product or service and continue getting paid as long as people continue to buy their product after the work is done. It’s conceivable, with several streams of continuous income such as these, to reach the millionaire milestone without becoming the very thing that we all, however discreetly, hate: greedy bastards.

The internet is more than a platform for posting political opinions and accessing the kind of content that (let’s put it politely) your dad used to hide behind the Rambo VHS tapes. It’s also a powerful tool for marketing and networking. While many millennials are starting to conclude that the reality of the American dream – go to college, get a good job, and buy a house – is something between folklore and the pages of a history book, the internet may be the last chance for the burnout generation to find their niche and earn their keep. As for the thought of being a millionaire, don’t fixate too much. Deep down, we all know that if everyone’s salary were a million dollars, we’d be paying $80 for a hamburger and $35,000 for rent. With all that in mind, work hard, do what you love, earn what you can, and don’t forget to smile!