$100k Used to Mean You’d Made It. Now It Barely Covers Groceries.

$100,000 used to mean you'd made it. Today, in some cities, it barely covers groceries — and there's a real reason that gap feels so wide. This week, Jean sits down with Mark Hamrick, Chief Economic Analyst and writer of The Hamrick Brief, to unpack why the official numbers so often miss how people actually feel about their money. Mark recently built his own economic measure, HAPI (the Hamrick American Prosperity Index), designed to answer one question: are people actually getting ahead, or just running in place? Plus, Mark shares the one economic "skill" he believes matters most in this moment of nonstop change — and how to build it, even if it doesn't come naturally. In this episode, you'll learn: What HAPI measures, and why Mark built it as the mirror image of the Misery Index Why real wage growth — not just unemployment — is the number that actually predicts how "ahead" people feel The real odds of a recession in the next 12 months, according to economists Want to make sure you never run out of money, no matter what’s happening in the economy? Pre-order Jean's new book, The Forever Paycheck.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices