The exact number of years of saving it would take the average worker to claw their way out of the middle class has been laid bare — and it spans nearly half a century.

Sobering research released in October 2025 by the think tank Resolution Foundation, which focuses on living standards for Britain's low- and middle-income households, shows that for aspirational Brits looking to move up the wealth ladder, the average worker would need to save their earnings for 52 years to raise £1.3 million ($1.7 million). That is the amount needed to move from the middle of the distribution and become as wealthy as the richest 10% — a stretch that runs longer than a typical full-time career.

And it gets worse: that figure assumes zero bills are paid along the way.

“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, formerly a senior economist at the Resolution Foundation and the lead author of the report.

Put another way, a typical employee could work an entire career without spending a penny and still fall short of the top of the wealth ladder. For those born into 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.

'Passive' gains drive the widening gap

As the saying goes, money makes money. The report identified 'passive' gains as the key driver of widening inequality: those who bought property and invested their money have seen their wealth balloon since 2010. For households without property or investments, none of those gains arrive — the compounding runs in only one direction.

Workers in the U.S. would need to save for 70 years to unlock the American Dream

The issue is transatlantic. In the United States, as inflation squeezes workers in a cost-of-living vise — paired with a job crisis and AI threatening to make conditions even worse — the salary it takes to be considered rich keeps climbing further out of reach.

Even in the U.S., workers say they would need at least $2.3 million to feel rich. Meanwhile, separate research highlights a staggering $4.4 million price tag to achieve the American Dream — the house in the suburbs, two children, an annual vacation, and a new car in the driveway. The two figures are different kinds of benchmarks: one a survey of what Americans say would make them feel rich, the other a calculation of what the classic middle-class milestones actually cost. Achieving those milestones would cost more than $1 million above what most Americans will make in their lifetime, according to an Investopedia calculation.

With median weekly earnings of full-time workers averaging $1,232, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, it would take more than 35 years of full-time work to feel rich with $2.3 million in the bank. That is before a single bill is paid — and it still leaves workers $2.1 million short of affording the American Dream.

It would take the average American worker nearly 70 years without paying a single expense to reach the $4.4 million benchmark — far longer than most people will work in a lifetime. And that is without even considering inflation, any unexpected financial shocks, or automation's impact on the future of work.

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A version of this story was originally published on Fortune.com on December 23, 2025.