this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2025
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80K 30 years ago is is 175K today, probaby more if you think about purchasing power.
you were upper middle class dude.
but also where you live matters. 6 figures is nothing in a major city. it's a lot in a rural area or minor city. six figures in nyc/sf/boston/seattle is a necessity for a studio apartment. if you make like 60-80K you need roommates.
my dad made like 25K a year so we had to live 2-2.5 hours from a major city in order to afford a basic life. when he retired at 66 he was only making 50K a year in 2004, and we still lived 1.5 hours from a major city even though we had 'upgraded' from the crappy rural town to a exurb.
But wages haven't mixed to match. I'd be very surprised if pipe fitters are making anything close to 175k.
100k and up is still frequently thought of as being a well paying job.
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=80000&year1=199511&year2=202509
You were pretty close.