If you make $50,000 per year ....

[TBF]

127. It USED to be possible - although not all that probable

I was a small town kid who used my dad's VA benefits to go on to the state university. I had good grades and that took me to Washington DC where my salary (over a 10 year period) went from 15K a year to 60K with overtime that more than doubled it. That was the 90s so some of the jumps in salary were merit based while some were lock-step when the firms raised salaries to attract folks. Many new graduates with private or public ivy degrees (above 3.0) were going to dot coms and they needed to compete.

So, it was possible. Did it happen for a lot of folks? Other than those who worked hard (as I did with the OT) - and that often included IT dept's as well, or early stock-options from some of those dot.coms .... I would think it was a finite bunch and many of us used some of those savings in the next decade as we started getting laid off etc.

Is it possible today to have those kind of dreams? Not nearly as likely with the gap growing so wide between rich & poor and the cut-backs continuing in both the public and private sectors. I think historically folks will look back at the 90s and dot.com emergence as a bit of an anomoly.