How much money would you need to call yourself rich?

[muon2]

If you no longer need to work, you are rich.

Define "need"?

I recently inherited several acres of land in rural south GA, including a small prefabricated shed. The shed could be converted into a livable shelter, and enough seeds planted to sustain someone indefinitely, for less than $200. Does this make me rich? Can I become rich by spending some of my savings in this way?

Edit: and if we want to get technical about the definition of work I could barter my property's timber rights to the neighbor in exchange for one of his migrant laborers doing the like 20 minutes of work my garden would require each day so I wouldn't even have to do that

Or consider a couple that retires at 60 with adult children and a nearly paid-off mortgage and a guaranteed pension of $50K/year with adjustments for inflation. They don't need to work, but are they rich?

[muon2]

Over twice the median income.

National median or local median income? If I use larger counties in IL and use two times the median it would range from 63K in Jackson to 164K in Kendall. That compares to a 2xmedian of 110K for IL and 104K for the US.

[muon2]

I would say state median income, muon.  Wealth in MS compared to MA is definitely a different standard, so national doesn't always work. However, it would be unfair to call someone who lives in a super wealthy county or suburb poor when they can simply move to another nearby town. It's much easier to move to a different locale within a state than move to a different state.

I'm not sure a state median works so well in IL. Jackson county, home to Southern IL University, has a median household income well below that of MS. Most of southern IL is around that same level and central IL is generally below the national median. However Cook is just below the state median and Chicagoland overall is above it and well above the national average.

The upper 5% of household incomes has less variation as a fraction of the US value than the median and might be a better measure of "rich". Using the upper 5% also puts Cook on a par with the suburban counties (209K in Cook and 203K in Kendall) and the US as a whole (191K), yet still differentiates that area from the rural counties in IL (131K in Jackson, IL). 200K would not be a bad approximation if one needed a single number.

[muon2]

I'd define it in terms of stock, not flow.  I don't buy into this "above $300K per year" or anything like that as in idea of rich.  Rich implies independent.  Even attorneys, surgeons, and engineers aren't my idea of rich, unless they were already rich and are just working for actualization of the self, or because they think they can contribute to society.  There are of course rich people who work--George W. Bush is rich, even though he worked as a Governor and President; Mitt Romney is rich, etc.--but generally even the very poorest of the rich have enough capital to comfortably support themselves and their families until the youngest of them dies, independent of any work they do.

Wouldn't that independence then translate into an outflow of cash instead of a throughput of cash from income? Either way one can estimate it in term of a flow.