I don't care if someone compensated highly chooses that lifestyle, but not someone "average".
You are right that doing this in the Bay Area would be unusual due to an unreasonable cost of living, but it's possible he's still living with his parents. If not, the great thing about the trade is that they're in high demand everywhere - including offshore where the pay skyrockets, especially for a welder who can get underwater work. Those gigs enable one to comfortably retire, if they want, a multi millionaire well before 40.
But the interesting thing about trades is that people end up enjoying them. A friend works the rigs and makes a stupid amount of $$$ thanks to doing 2 on 2 off and spending his offtime in places like Thailand. So he's taking home a healthy 6 figures, gets 50% of the year off, and is having a total cost of living in the low thousands per year. He still has no intention of retiring though, even though he could live off simple interest alone at this point. It ends up being a lifestyle and not just a job.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf
>Median weekly earnings of full-time workers were $1,194 in the first quarter of 2025.
Extrapolates to 62k/year. I don't know what else to say here.
>. So somebody earning $50k and working 60 hour weeks would be earning $87,500 which would put them in the top quarter of all earners in the US
Yes, work 50% more than the median and you hit the 75% mark (above 50% of the top half). The math seems to math out. But thought we wanted to not worm ourselves to death these days?
>straight out of high school, and with 0 debt.
Well, no. Not straight out of high school. You need to compete for a role among unions (which seems to be a hurdle the poster above passed, or is confident of passing), then complete an apprenticeship for a few years that may either be unpaid or pay significantly less. Then after that you become a journeyman and start to get that pay.
There's still a near college level of training where you need resources to survive that your apprenticeship isn't covering. Resources that may or may not include parents covering room and board (and in that case, sure. You can survive on anything That pays anything if the biggest expense is paid for). That's sadly a growing luxury in modern society, though.
>But the interesting thing about trades is that people end up enjoying them.
I work in games, so yea. I get it. You sacrifice comfort and maybe even health for furfillment. But I can still recognize in my industry when that passion and engagement is being exploited while still choosing to participate it.
Well, eventually I recognized it. Gaining 60 pounds and having an emergency room visit finally knocked some sense into me.
Games and trades are complete opposites. If you still think you enjoy game development (and aren't independent), then it's almost certain that you haven't been in the industry long. With games, you start with a passion and the games industry will just completely beat it out of you. The games industry will make you hate game development and even games. The trades are different in that somehow that passion is enabled to be born for those that didn't already have it, and fostered and grown in those that did. In software you end up in a scenario (I'm speaking outside of games here - where you don't even get good pay) where people mostly hate their job, but love the pay. And in welding you end up in one where people mostly love their job.
I'm scoffing at a kid needing to work 60 hours a week in order to earn an income barely above the median. I'm scoffing at the idea that people think 70k is liveable in high COL areas without sharing multiple roommates.These aren't things we should normalize.
If you really think this isn't bad, you're the ones out of touch with how expensive it is to survive these days.
Scoffing at $75k for a kid's first job out of high school is so completely out of touch with reality.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...