The average worker would need to save for 52 years to claw their way out of the middle class and be classified as wealthy, research reveals
Sobering research released in October 2025 from the think tank Resolution Foundation shows that for aspirational Brits looking to move up the wealth ladder, the average worker would need to save their earnings for 52 years to raise £1.3 million ($1.7 million).
Key points
- would need to save for 70 years to unlock the American Dream As inflation squeezes workers in a cost-of-living vise, paired with a job crisis, and AI threatening to make it even worse, the salary it takes to be considered rich keeps climbing further out of reach.
- Meanwhile, separate research highlights they’d need a staggering $4.4 million to achieve the American Dream—the house in the suburbs, two children, an annual vacation, and a new car in the driveway.
- With median weekly earnings of full-time workers averaging $1,232, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it would take over 35 years of full-time work to feel rich with $2.3 million in the bank.
The exact number of years of saving it would take for the average worker to claw out of the middle-class bracket has been revealed—and it’s nearly half a century.
Additional details
- “Wealth gaps in Britain are now so large that a typical full-time employee saving all their earnings across their entire working life would still not be able to reach the top of the wealth ladder,” wrote Molly Broome, formerly a senior economist at the Resolution Foundation and the lead author of the report.
- Achieving those milestones would cost over $1 million more than most Americans will make in their lifetime, according to an Investopedia calculation.
- That’s the amount needed to move from the middle and become as wealthy as the richest 10%.
- Essentially, those who bought property and invested their money have seen their wealth balloon since 2010.
- And for those who happen to be born in the working class, the odds are increasingly stacked against them.
How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →
Advertisement
Every article behind this summary — 1 article from 1 outlet
Get stories like this in your inbox.
Subscribe — it's freeOne free email at 6am — your topics, deduplicated, five minutes. No account, no paywall.