HENRYs

In 1980 the "young urban professional" (YUP-py) was identified as a significant cohort, and ensuing demographic acronyms have never stopped coming.

DINKs (double income, no kids), BOBOs (bourgeois bohemians), WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) all have had their place in the sun. Now there are HENRYs (high earner, not rich yet). [bold added]

Fifteen years ago if you’d told April Little that she’d make $300,000 a year, she would have pictured a life free of financial stress.

“The white picket fence—I have the whole visual in my head,” says Little, 38 years old, a human-resources executive turned career coach in Rochester, N.Y. “I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but when I got to that proverbial mountaintop I realized there’s a lot of expenses. And I still don’t own a home.”

So go the plush-but-not-too-plush lives of the Americans who qualify as HENRY—high earner, not rich yet.

Little makes multiple six figures running her own business but carries $90,000 of college and grad-school debt. Child care and education for her three children would be so costly that she and her husband decided the better option was for him to leave his radio job to parent and home-school full time.

New census data show 14.4% of U.S. households bring in $200,000 or more a year, a near record. Yet the money doesn’t have the buying power those earners wish it did, partly due to the rising prices hammering us all and partly due to the supercharged costs of things like houses and cars. HENRYs describe feeling stuck on a hamster wheel—a nice one that other hamsters envy—but running in place nonetheless.

Oh come on, you’re thinking. You’re asking me to feel sympathy for Audi-driving, Chase Sapphire-loving, Whole Foods-shopping consultant types with kids in private school?

Well…not exactly. But what they’re feeling is a version of what a lot of Americans at every income level face—making more money but not feeling like there’s a surplus. The essence of being a HENRY is feeling a gap between what you have and what you think you need to be comfortable.

What these high earners consider essentials might be termed luxuries (or nonsense) by the rest of us, but it’s also true that it takes more money to feel rich these days. And their great fear is becoming a HENRE: high earner, not rich ever.

The outlays for housing, private schools, transportation, and health care, not to mention education indebtedness, are often underestimated by 20- or 30-year-olds who think they have made it with a $200,000+ starting salary.

Even HENRYs whose futures look bright can't relax, since the loss of their high-paying job could be disastrous.

Speaking from the experience of being a previous generation's HENRY, I had visions of being able to quit when I was 40 but didn't achieve that psychological comfort zone until I was in my mid-60's. Hard work and technical abilities, while necessary, were IMHO not as important as finding a trustworthy life time partner and keeping one's health. (Having a little luck helps, too.)