I have exact figures. I started at $26,300 in 2002 and am making $80,100 for 2022, base salary comparison only. In fairness, this is because I was entry level in 2002 and am one step from the top of the scale now, as I would expect for most people in a career over 20 years. Starting salaries have not doubled in 20 years and that is concerning, because rents have at least doubled in my area, and home prices have about doubled as well.
For the record, I still refuse to pay $600 for a GPU. Again...teacher. My latest build from Dec 2022 was under $1000 and features a 6800XT I was lucky to find mismarketed as a base 6800 for $400.
My point is don't look down on others, you don't know their timelines or situations. It would be easy for me to condescend to you, I started at double your current salary. I do not make double my starting now, a decade plus later. My career highs were within a few years of starting.
The onus is not on the worker, if people are healthy and available and put effort in, it's on society to find a place for them and give them living wages rewarding that effort. I always see the opposite, people smug on their situation if it's favorable, leaving key details out, then usually getting triggered if someone higher up says something. That can all be stopped if the whole focus on income especially at the proletariat level stops. My career has put me in unfortunate contact with the upper classes, I have very little respect for the highest income careers and positions I've been exposed to. I have far more respect for those that work at any level, including teachers, but blue collar, freelance, uber drivers I don't care what anyone does I have compassion and sympathy for them, and I get personally annoyed when I see people dismiss that work effort and struggle. I'd struggled growing up poor and had a very rough start, including paying off massive student loans, and of course delaying my earnings due to education in the first place.
I hope something constructive comes out of our exchange. I perhaps overreacted, as I said I take this issue personally and seriously, from having heard and seen too much at this point in my life. And I don't mean to single you out or paint you more negatively than what you said, it just generally falls under the same what I consider generally arrogant and ignorant class warfare I'd rather not see. Most of the time it comes from Joe the Plumber types and grifters that steal from taxpayer money to begin with.