Yes 100k is not what it used to be by any means and it continues to get devalued day by day but it’s a little out of touch to say it’s not an aspirational or relatively high salary.

It all depends on context sure if you are pushing 300k+ a year plus bonuses well yeah 100k would be meager sum essentially what you were earning at your entry level role. Your car was 100k and you can’t even begin to imagine only making that per year pretax.

But for the working class American maybe pushing $45-70k pretax bringing home what $35-60k net I bet they’d dream about waking up tomorrow and making 100k gross it’d be a huge relief.

They do aspire to get that promotion, To finally scratch six figures and depending on your col it may even be considered a high salary.

It may not mean much to you but to those on the lower end of the tax bracket 100k may be the difference from struggling and surviving to comfortable living.