They Earn $120,000 and Sell Blood Plasma to Pay the Bills

Margo Thompson and her husband earn around $120,000 per year.

They live in a rural corner of Idaho. They work hard. They pay their bills. And on paper, they have what most people would consider a solid middle-class income.

But about a year ago, they started selling blood plasma to help cover their car payment and occasional expenses such as new tires and medical bills.

I want you to think about that.

A hardworking American couple earning $120,000 per year is selling blood plasma to pay ordinary household expenses.

And they’re far from alone.

A recent national CNN poll found that 57% of workers in households earning at least $150,000 said their wages were failing to keep pace with rising prices.

That used to be considered a wealthy household.

Today, more than half of those earners feel like they’re falling behind.

When I read stories like Margo’s, they bring me back to a question that has been increasingly bothering me over the last several months:

Why do two people earning the same income end up living completely different financial lives?

One works hard, saves what they can, and follows all the rules. And still can’t make ends meet.

The other earns roughly the same amount – yet somehow retires with 15, 20, even 25 times more wealth.

I’ve spent most of my adult life studying money. I’ve worked on Wall Street across four separate decades. I’ve built businesses. And I’ve traveled the world uncovering investment ideas that changed my readers’ financial lives for the better.

But the more I looked at what was happening to ordinary Americans, the more this question bothered me.

Because working harder isn’t closing the wealth gap anymore.

Your Paycheck Is Only the Starting Point