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, not even a lifetime of savings would be enough.
In fact, the average worker would need to save their earnings for 52 years, to raise £1.3 million ($1.7 million), 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, 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 that’s not been this bad since the financial 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 (up $100,000 from two years ago). 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. In fact, Investopedia did the math and calculated achieving those milestones would cost over $1 million more than most Americans will make in their lifetime.
With median weekly earnings of full-time workers averaging $1,251, 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:
- Billionaire says he can tell if you’ll stay stuck in the middle class forever with a simple marshmallow test—but even your car can give it away
- Meet the millennial who turned a $400 side hustle into TikTok Shop’s biggest teeth whitening brand in the UK—now he splashes $335 a month on haircuts and lost $20K on crypto
- He fled Iran for the American Dream, became a millionaire, and could have retired—instead, he built the health tech that saved his father from cancer
- This millennial became a millionaire before turning 30 thanks to early investments in Deliveroo and Revolut—he shares how Gen Z can spot the next startup jackpot
- After selling his business for $532 million, this millennial says a life of leisure was surprisingly ‘boring’, so he’s choosing to go back to work
