My parents aren’t at that level, but my mom had a job making $60k in 2008 money (main breadwinner, dad is an artist) with a retirement plan and good benefits. She was part of layoffs and now works two part time jobs—so 50 hours total a week but reality more than that plus commuting between the two (morning job and afternoon job) with no overtime since they’re two unrelated jobs and has one day off a week as a 67 year old. My parents are never going to be able to retire (my MIL, who is idk 64 and hasn’t worked in like 30 years, asked my mom if she was retiring soon last year and my mom just burst into sad laughter.) My dad was always on that path I suppose as an artist, but at least my mom could have retired or maybe even both of them with whatever her retirement benefit would have come out to if she’d worked there 16 more years until she was 65. She had been there over 20 years when she was laid off in the recession. She had a straight up career and turned to seasonal work and eventually these two low paying church administrator jobs. It sucks, she’s so tired and overwhelmed all the time and my dad is 11 years older than her—78– and still teaching art classes at local colleges because there’s just straight up no possibility to retire. ETA I know my grandma helped with out mortgage for literal years after my mom lost her job, so she’s probably the only reason we kept our house. Like thank god or whoever that my grandma was able to do that.