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Do You Make $34,000 A Year? You’re Part Of The One Percent

Ditch the scarcity mindset — you’re richer than you think

Kevin Buddaeus
ILLUMINATION
Published in
7 min readMay 6, 2020

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I’ll begin this article with an uncomfortable truth…

Middle-class Americans are extremely wealthy by international standards. For context, 99% of the world’s population makes less than $34,000 per year. So, if you earn more than that amount, you are, by definition, part of the global one percent.

Billions Of People Earn Less Than $6 A Day

“Almost half the world’s population — 3.4 billion people — live on less than $5.50 a day,” per CBS News. “That’s about the cost of a Starbucks Venti Caffe Latte in New York City.”

That statistic is crazy. However, it’s not surprising to anyone who’s visited poorer countries. After all, 2 billion people around the world don’t have access to clean drinking water, per NPR.

My jaw dropped to the floor when I visited Thailand for the first time. I explored different neighborhoods around Bangkok. And, almost every day, people living in poverty recognized me as a “wealthy westerner” & asked if I had any spare cash.

I was living paycheck to paycheck back then. I only had a few hundred dollars in my bank account & needed every cent to get back…

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ILLUMINATION
ILLUMINATION

Published in ILLUMINATION

We curate and disseminate outstanding articles from diverse domains and disciplines to create fusion and synergy.

Kevin Buddaeus
Kevin Buddaeus

Written by Kevin Buddaeus

Follow me on this long journey to grow and learn together. We can make the world a better place. Connect with me via Twitter: @KBuddaeus

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