Business Insider: Earning 6 figures isn't enough to buy the American Dream anymore

 This article is crushing my dream although I recently just decided to chase this dream.

But 70 years later, America's middle class is shrinking thanks to an increasing cost of living for everything from college tuition to healthcare. Income increases simply have not kept up with the exponential increase in living costs, and the pandemic has thrown job loss and pay cuts into the mix.

It means the six-figure salary just isn't what it used to be. Buying a house, paying for college, and having kids is barely attainable now, even on $100,000 a year.

. . .

Now, a six-figure salary is quite the range. A worker earning $100,000 annually probably has a more difficult time affording things like a house than someone raking in $900,000 a year. It would be unfair to generalize that the American Dream is out of reach for the entire six-figure club.

The American Dream also wasn't always attainable for everyone. Larry Samuel, author of "The American Dream: A Cultural History,"previously told Insider that while it used to be relatively easy for white citizens to realize that version of the American Dream, the country's dark legacy of segregation locked out Black Americans and other people of color from it.

And the dream continues to remain out of reach: 40% of high earners feel like they're living paycheck to paycheck, particularly 60% of high-earning millennials.

Life became more expensive after the Great Recession and even more so due to pandemic-related inflation and shortages of goods, services, and workers.