Let's say you don't want to be in business, that's fine; it's not for everyone. In life there's trade offs, the key is to know your options and find what's best for you. If you look around, pay attention to every job you see. The cashier, waiter, salesperson, technician, security guard, manager, nurse, etc; what do you think each of them makes? A manager often makes a middle class income (not always) but there's only 1 in a room full of workers. A nurse may make a middle class income, or not; find out what kind of nurse they are and search the typical income they earn in the region. You'd be amazed how many adults working full time don't earn a decent income. In my state, the minimum wage is $13/hr; but minimum wage jobs minimize the hours their employees get so even that modest sum does not come to them in the expected amount.
I'd say owning your own home (and not having a mortgage that's astronomical), vacationing (actual travel, desired activities; not just a week off) for at least a week a year, having a reasonable expectation of retirement and earning at least $40k per person in the workforce (if a couple has 2 jobs, then $40k each; if only one works then they'd probably want more than this.) The best advice I can give to those seeking a middle class lifestyle is to go to college or trade school and get a bachelors degree (try to avoid student loan debt.) Owning a duplex (or triplex or 4-plex) can lead to cost savings and improving the odds of being truly middle class by renting out the other unit.
Jobs that often get you into the middle class: UPS driver (100k+ salary with massive benefits), teacher, office manager (sometimes appears like a receptionist but often has a few extra tasks that dramatically increase earnings), police officer, librarian (that's a masters in library science), pharmacist (doctor of pharmacy earning $135k average totalling 6-8 years but not med school or a residency, not a pharmacy technician which is 6mo to 2 years and make $36k average), physician's assistant, nurse, plumber, AC repair, electrician, manager, dental hygienist, utility worker, city worker, Federal government jobs, chiropractor.
Some jobs pay better or worse depending on the region, small town police sometimes make dismal wages; but most cities pay their police well. Teachers in some states are poorly paid, other states well paid. Some types of nurses get paid poorly compared to other types, make sure not to get the kind of job that pays to little or is in too low of demand. An X-ray technician or medical assistant might only make slightly more than minimum wage, a radiologist might make $500k or more a year; a nurse might make $40k-100k+ a year. The faster you can make $40k-50k annually (especially with reduced living costs, such as a couple with careers splitting the mortgage) the faster you'll have capital to invest in something like sp500 low fee index funds in a Roth IRA or 401k with matching and the better growth you'll get over time.
To achieve a middle class lifestyle at a lower income than what you think of middle class (you might consider $100k to be middle class, others might want 1/2.5th of their house as an annual income for middle class) there are a few tips. If you earn more, you may choose to have more kids; logically having less you might want to either structure it differently (2 people with 3 kids each earning $49k get great tax benefits, 1 person or a couple earning $49k-55k/couple could get the same tax benefit per 3 kids but not for 6) or have less kids or no kids (obviously, if you want kids; you'll likely have those that you can afford to have.) A lower earning middle class couple might both work in the workforce rather than 1 earning a higher middle class income with a spouse that stays at home. If you can, it's better to own than rent long term (mainly due to predatory rent increases in some cases); if owning represents challenges with monthly payments but you can afford the down payment you should strongly consider a duplex, triplex or 4-plex. If you can get a 4-plex on a 3.5% down loan with reasonable interest, you might pay the entire mortgage with rents from the other 3 units.
Here's how the scenarios compare at retirement (age 65):
Some under payed jobs include entry level military (if you want to be in the armed services, you should join ROTC in high school; if you go to college you may start as an officer.) Realtor-you may earn a living as a realtor, or not; most people don't make money at it despite a single sale a month with national average home prices being sufficient to make you middle class. The good thing about realtor commissions, if you make 2.5% of each sale you only need to sell 40 homes to be able to afford your own (other than taxes, increasing prices while saving, living expenese; but at least there is some connection between income and real estate prices.)
Personally, I don't think that those in military service are paid well enough; but it's not a job you do for the money. If you're not a soldier, that's simply not who you are and if our country is not facing a land invasion; that' perfectly fine. If you are a soldier at heart, then joining the military has some financial benefits. Great mortgages (no down payment, no PMI), great college aid (often full tuition), monthly housing stipend, great pension after 20 years (you might do 20 years in the military and get another job like police officer and have even more pension by retirement.) If you get into Harvard Law or UCLA medical school, they match the government's coverage and you get a free ride (just 2 examples of advanced degree programs at prestigious universities that GI bill covers for free with help from university matching.) Housing stipend while in school can be incredible, in NY or San Francisco it may be $48000/yr in housing stipend (though this example seems to possibly be with dependants.) A reservist who's activated for 36 months would get 100% of GI bill benefits. If you start a business, veteran owned businesses get priority for certain department contracts.
Owning your own home has countless benefits, though it can be an annoyance at times; the key is not draining your resources. If you can get a house for 3.5% down, that puts it in reach (even $350k being a cheap house these days that's $12,250 down (living at home you can save that in a year) and you could make mortgage payments more affordable by having roommates. You could pay it off in 21 years by paying bi-weekly half of the mortgage rather than monthly (if your roommates don't mind the weekly rent, it makes it less explanation than bi weekly.) You could be far more structured if you had a 2,3,4-plex residence and if you rent out 3 units that might cover all expenses. The downside of 3.5% down is that until you have 20% equity you'll have to pay PMI but with the fast rise of real estate expenses, that's probably the better choice (if you can save a down payment in a year you should do it in most cases, if you have a significant other and you both work and want to have kids together you should both save for it and both be on the property title.) It can be challenging to find quality roommates, tenants or spouses; but it can be rewarding long term when you do (just giving fair warning, it's not always perfect and you both have to be careful and willing to change course if you realize you made a mistake.)
In the investing section, I highly advise full use of Roth IRA, 401k matching and proper investment vehicles. For 401k, I advise low fee index funds. For Roth IRA, since it's capped at $7k/yr currently; I suggest $1k each into 7 market leaders of growing industries (if you can't identify those then I suggest 60% S&P 500 and 40% Nasdaq 100 low fee index funds.) The downside is you won't have access to these until 60 years old. So, let's say you can put $10k into non-retirement investments each year. At age 18, if you didn't save in high school; save for 1 year for $10k to put into a 4-plex (though it's unlikely to find one cheap enough that it's 3.5% down, I saw some in Ocala that might get to that price for this extreme example.) Let's not forget, you could either get a real estate license and use your commission as down payment, or you can contact 4-plex owners in your area and offer them an amount that you can get financing on (perhaps offer to buy it for 3.5% below appraisal, or take seller financing for the down payment; so many ways to get the deal done; as long as the rents cover monthly payments then it's worth considering.) You can have tenants pay the mortgage for you and you live in the cheapest unit as needed. For the next 6 years you put $10k/yr into growth stocks that will average 17% annually, now any time stocks start looking a bit expensive (or if they're falling out of leadership and you decide to adjust strategy) you can pull out some of that and put it into a new batch of market leaders in growing industries (ie selling 10% to rebalance portfolio.) It's unlikely that it will be up that much at a specific time, but the average growth rate is all that matters. At that 17% growth rate, in 21 years those stocks will be worth $1 million; at 36 years if you can maintain this growth rate they'd be worth $10 million. As a side benefit, by paying bi-weekly mortgage payments (ie every 2 weeks) you'll pay off your mortgage in 21 years (since you saved for a year, that's your 40th birthday!) So, you'd actually have a million in liquid cash, plus a 4-unit residence that's paid off by 40 (and has likely gone up in value dramatically.) Of course, this does rely on doing well with growth stocks and finding a fair value on a 4-plex that renting 3 units covers the mortgage; but if you can do 67% as well as I suggest you might still be a millionaire by 40. That leaves plenty of room to become even richer later or get lucky early on with a flyer like $15 worth of Bitcoin in 2011 being worth $1 million in 10 years.
The downside of employment over entrepreneurship is tht it doesn't rise nearly as fast as the size of businesses, though it's not a perfect comparison. In some of the data for business growth in the investing section I show the size of the largest companies per generation and per decade and it's a dramatic rise. Over the last 130 years, wages have grown at about 4% and the size of the top 10 largest businesses of the time have grown at 8%; that slight difference is the difference between $100 becoming $2 million if your capital grew at the same speed as the largest businesses and $400 becoming $66,622 if your capital grew at the rate of the rate wages grow. Here's a chart of per capita income growth in the US on average:
| Year | Average Annual Wage / Per Capita Income (Nominal USD) |
|---|---|
| 1895 | $400-$500 |
| 1905 | $580 |
| 1915 | $600-$700 |
| 1925 | $1,200-$1,300 |
| 1935 | $474 (Great depression) |
| 1945 | $1,223 |
| 1955 | $2,992 |
| 1965 | $3,600-$4,000 |
| 1975 | $6,000-$7,000 |
| 1985 | $12,000-$13,000 |
| 1995 | $23,000-$24,000 |
| 2005 | $35,000-$36,000 |
| 2015 | $47,000-$48,000 |
| 2025 | $66,622 |