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.
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). That’s the amount needed to move from the middle and become as wealthy as the richest 10%.
And it gets worse: That’s with zero bills being paid.
“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.
And for those who happen to be born in the working class, the odds are increasingly stacked against them.
“Wealth mobility in Britain is low. People that start life wealthy tend to stay wealthy, and vice versa,” Broome added.
As the saying goes, money makes money. The report revealed the key driver of widening inequality is the “passive” gains. Essentially, those who bought property and invested their money have seen their wealth balloon since 2010.
Workers in the U.S. 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. And the issue is transatlantic.
Even in the U.S., workers say they’d need at least $2.3 million to feel rich. 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. Achieving those milestones would cost over $1 million more than most Americans will make in their lifetime, according to an Investopedia calculation.
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. That’s before a single bill is paid, and still $2.1 million short of affording the American Dream.
It would take the average American worker nearly 70 years without a single expense being paid to reach that $4.4 million benchmark—far longer than most people will work in a lifetime. And that’s without even considering inflation, any unexpected financial shocks, or automation’s impact on the future of work.
A version of this story originally published on Fortune.com on December 23, 2025.
Read more about success from Fortune’s Orianna Rosa Royle:
The most successful people are not the smartest—instead, they’re both ambitious and lazy, career coach to the Fortune 500 says Self-made millionaire and Netflix’s finance guru Ramit Sethi reveals the financial red flags that are keeping you from getting rich Britain’s only blind female CEO got her big break after hearing a client slam: ‘Why the f–k do I want my website designed by a blind person?’ Gen Z dropouts could be your future boss: 20-somethings without degrees are leading the side gigs economyThis story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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