upworthy
Policy

Unique visualization of the wealth gap shows what your salary looks like stacked in $5 bills

This eye-opening visualization makes income inequality impossible to ignore.

wealth gap, income inequality, elon musk, money, cost of living, salary, wages, inflation
Greg Sullivan

These stacks are easy enough to grasp, but the two in the back will blow your mind.

There comes a point in many conversations when numbers all just start to lose meaning. The nearest star is, however, many gazillion miles away. The national debt is, however, many tens of trillions of dollars. None of it really makes sense.

We can't really understand numbers at this scale, which is a problem because numbers matter when it comes to things like policy decisions and economic justice. If we can't truly understand the scale of an issue like income inequality, how can we even begin to address it? And income inequality is an issue that needs to be addressed.

The value of a stack of fives

A stack of five dollar bills worth $1,000. At just under an inch tall, a thousand dollars in fives is pretty easy to get your head around. Greg Sullivan

A five-dollar bill is still enough to buy a cup of coffee in most places. Stack 200 of them together, and you have a thousand dollars, which is just under an inch tall. That will be our basic unit of measurement as we climb the economic ladder. It's something tangible that we can understand easily.

Minimum wage: barely scraping by

The federal minimum wage in early 2025 is $7.25 an hour. Someone working full-time at this rate earns $15,080 a year—a stack of fives about 13 inches tall. This number hasn't changed since 2009, and in inflation-adjusted buying power, it's the lowest it has been in 66 years.

The wealth gap visualized in stacks of $5 bills Greg Sullivan/Upworthy

A two-adult household working full-time at minimum wage earns $30,160, which is just above the poverty line of $24,860—a stack of about 21 inches. People living at this level will struggle to get the basic necessities of life, and even a minor setback can be devastating.

The median full-time worker: financial stability with limits

$57,000 stacked in fives is 4 feet tall.The median American worker earns a stack of fives about 4 feet tall. Find a hard hat!Greg Sullivan

The median annual income in the united states was, as of 2024, about $57,000. This translates to a stack of five-dollar bills just over four feet tall. Depending on where a person lives, they can get by pretty comfortably, but things are still financially precarious. Good luck saving up or surviving a layoff.

Interestingly, this stack of fives is tall enough that, according to OSHA guidelines, you should wear safety gear when working here.

High earners: entering serious money

Towering 19 feet up, a quarter million dollars is a lot of money.At $250,000 a year, this stack is enough to endure most of life's typical challenges. Greg Sullivan

Hitting an annual income of $250,000 puts you in the “high earner” category. That’s an 18-foot stack of fives—taller than a two-story house.

Among the fun ways you might get yourself a stack like this are being a drone light-show operator, a high-end stylist, or maybe playing on an NFL team’s practice squad. That’s right… the practice squad will get you about $250,000 a year. Nice work if you can get it!

A millionaire’s earnings: wealth that withstands crises

A million stacked in fives is over 70 feet tall.Getting to the top of a million dollars worth of fives is the sort of problem you can solve if you earn this much. Greg Sullivan

A quarter-million dollars is a lot of money, but it's never been the ultimate dream. After all, the show wasn't called Who Wants to Be a Quarter Millionaire. For generations, a million dollars has held a mythical status. But if you had won that prize on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’s first season in 1999, today it would be worth only about $550,000 after adjusting for inflation.

A million dollars in five-dollar bills would stack up to about 72 feet. At this level, financial setbacks aren’t life-ruining. If you're taking home this much money a year, inflation or not, you probably live a very enviable life.

A billionaire: money beyond comprehension

A club of billionaires standing atop their wealth. Much like climbing Mount Everest, being a billionaire was something very few people had ever done. Now it's nearly common. Greg Sullivan

A new class of Americans is emerging, and people are starting to take notice. These individuals haven’t just achieved the American Dream of a million dollars, they’ve surpassed it by over a thousand times.

A billion dollars stacked in $5 bills would reach 13.5 miles into the sky, towering higher than Mt. Everest.

In 1916, John D. Rockefeller became the first billionaire in U.S. history. Today, there are 737 billionaires in the country. In the past four years alone, 123 more have joined their ranks, that’s one every 12 days.

Elon Musk: wealth at an astronomical scale

Musk's net worth stacked in fives would exceed 5,200 miles. The view from the top of Elon Musk's stack of money would be literally out of this world. Greg Sullivan

Elon Musk is the richest man in the U.S., with a net worth of about $384 billion as of March 2025—though that number fluctuates depending on when and how you measure it. Stacked in $5 bills, his fortune would soar more than 5,220 miles into the sky. To put that in perspective, his net worth has almost certainly shifted by more than you'll earn in a lifetime in just the time it took you to read this sentence.

If he jumped from the top of his theoretical money stack, he’d fall past the entire GDP of Vermont in just three minutes—assuming he didn’t burn up on reentry or drift into orbit. His fortune towers so high that the International Space Station would orbit far below him. Only the Apollo astronauts have ever been higher.

Why these numbers matter

These towering stacks of money are just a visualization, but they highlight the extreme differences in wealth. When the gap is this wide, it affects everything—economic policy, opportunity, and quality of life for millions.

If we want to address inequality, we first need to understand its scale. Because only when we see the differences clearly can we even begin to close the gap.

From Your Site Articles
the wealth gap
Art

In 125 years, millions of people have looked at this painting. No one really saw it until recently.

Van Gogh saw something it took scientists another 100 years to see.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Van Gogh's Starry Night, 1889.

Vincent van Gogh never got to enjoy his own historic success as an artist (even though we've been able to imagine what that moment might have looked like). Van Gogh died in 1890 at the age of 37 in Auvers-sur-Oise, France after shooting himself in the chest with a revolver. It was a tragic end to a turbulent life marked by mental instability and severe self-doubt.

According to the Van Gogh Museum, in a letter to his brother Theo in 1890, just a couple of weeks before his death, Van Gogh wrote, "...my life, is attacked at the very root, my step also is faltering." The man was struggling and exhausted. The high standards he had set for himself and his art were taking a toll. He was unsure about his future and, up to this point, had not received much recognition for his work and thought himself a failure "as a man and as an artist."

His most well-known work, Starry Night, was famously painted while Van Gogh was staying in an asylum in France 1889 after he mutilated his ear during a psychotic episode. According to the Van Gogh Museum, though, this may not be the full story. While it is widely agreed that Van Gogh did in fact cut off his own ear, the museum notes that it was because of a fight between Van Gogh and Paul Gaugin, the artist he had been working for in Aries, that led to the violent explosion that highlighted his deteriorating mental state.

Vincent Van Gogh, artist, 19th century, famous artist, Starry NightVincent Van Gogh's Self-Portrait, 1889Image via Canva.

As one of the best known and most studied artists of the 19th century, Van Gogh's madness and how it influenced his work is not new information. But it turns out that those of us who have appreciated his work have been missing out on some critical details for more than 100 years—revealed in the 2010s thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope.

A video at the bottom of the page will explain everything, but before we get there, let's do some backstory:

We known Van Gogh was an artist—and a genius artist at that—but, it turns out, he was also scientist. Kind of.

Whether intentionally or not, fresh eyes have found that Van Gogh's art—aside from being breathtaking—also captures one of science and nature's most elusive concepts: Turbulence.

The concept of turbulence is hard to understand with math, but it turns out art makes it fairly easy to comprehend through depiction. So, what is turbulence?

According to Britannica, turbulence, or turbulent flow, is a concept of fluid dynamics in which a type of fluid flow (liquid or gas like air or water or air) undergoes an irregular fluctuation or energy cascade. In other words, the air or water swirls and eddies as it moves: big eddies make smaller eddies, and those make even smaller ones, and so on. Common examples of turbulent flow include blood flow in arteries, lava flow, atmosphere and ocean currents, and the flow in boat wakes or surrounding the tips of aircraft wings.

It looks like this:

figures, flow, turbulence, turbulent flow, science, movementTurbulent flow illustrated and animated.All Van Gogh GIFs via TED-Ed.

The thing is, scientists only started figuring this out pretty recently.

turbulence, turbulent flow, science, nature, researchAnimation of art referencing science.All Van Gogh GIFs via TED-Ed.

And yet, there was Mr. Vincent van Gogh, 100 years earlier in his asylum with a mutilated ear and able to accurately capture this turbulent flow in what would become his most famous work, Starry Night.

Starry Night, Van Gogh, turbulence, art, art captures scienceAnimated Starry NightAll Van Gogh GIFs via TED-Ed.

The folks who noticed Van Gogh's ability to capture turbulence checked to see whether other artists did the same. Most of the Impressionists achieved "luminance" with their art—a striking and lifelike depiction of light's effect on color. While impressive, they did not capture or depict turbulence the way Van Gogh did.

The Scream, Edvard Munch, art, popular art, history, painting An animated depiction of The Scream.All Van Gogh GIFs via TED-Ed.

Not even Edvard Munch's The Scream, with it's swirling color and movement, could recreate what Van Gogh had accomplished.

Even in his darkest time, Van Gogh was able to capture—with eerie accuracy—one of nature's most complex and confusing concepts 100 years before scientists had the technology to do so.

Who would have thought that the beauty Van Gogh captured was foreshadowing what scientists would observe in the real, natural world in a century's time? To learn even more, watch the TED-Ed video below:

- YouTubeyoutu.be

This article originally appeared twelve years ago. It has been updated.

From Your Site Articles
art
Community

A patient nominated her for a prestigious nursing award. One problem: She's a doctor.

A male colleague told her it would be more 'humble' to introduce herself by her first name and not the title she'd earned.

Canva Photos

A female doctor was confused for a nurse after taking a male colleague's advice on how to introduce herself.

Years ago, a story went viral about a school kid asked to fill in a blank word containing the letters "u" and "r." The clue? Hospital lady. The kid wrote "surgeon," which was marked incorrect. The answer sheet was looking for nurse. The resulting kerfuffle showed, clear as day, that gender bias still exists almost everywhere. Worse yet, it's still being unintentionally ingrained in our kids from a very young age.

The worksheet in question was from 1997. The story cropped up in 2017. Surely, things have gotten better by now! We've come a long way when it comes to gender bias, discrimination, and, well, pure sexism, right? Right?!

Abbie Cantwell, a doctor from Portland, Oregon, recently shared a story from her hospital that sadly proves otherwise.

nurse, doctor, female doctor, women in medicine, women, sexism, gender bias, discrimination, equal payAbbie Cantwell wouldn't dream of disrespecting nurses. But she's not one.Giphy

In a TikTok video, Dr. Abbie describes getting some questionable advice from a male mentor and colleague at her hospital. He told her it would be more approachable and humble if she introduced herself by her first name (Abbie) instead of by her full title (Dr. Cantwell). Cantwell was hesitant to take the advice but eventually decided to give it a shot. She was vindicated almost immediately.

"I did that one time with a family. I was like 'Hi, I'm Abbie, I'm the doctor in the ICU.' And they legitimately nominated me for a DAISY Award."

A DAISY award is an honor given to nurses who show exceptional patient care and compassion. Anyone in a hospital or healthcare setting can nominate a nurse for their work, including patients and supervisors. It's a great honor and it means Cantwell did a phenomenal job caring for her patient. But, remember, she's a doctor, not a nurse!

"Love, respect, thank you, it's an honor," Cantwell says. "But an incorrect one."

In an effort to take her mentor's advice and seem more humble and approachable, Cantwell had inadvertently made herself "smaller" and stopped demanding the respect she deserved. Watch her tell the whole story here.


@abbiecantwell

Women in stem baby #fyp #residency #medicine #medicalschool

Over a million viewers tuned in. Cantwell's story resonated with medical professionals, and women, everywhere who've had their achievements overlooked.

Commenters had her back, for certain:

"If I had MD behind my name, even my kids would be referring to me as doctor.

"But he would NEVER say that to a male. Babes you worked hard to earn that Doctor title."

"If I had MD behind my name I’d make my own mother call me doctor."

"A senior male attending pulled me aside my first week of intern year and told me to never introduce myself by my first name. He was looking out for me - looking back, I’m so grateful. I had no idea."

"Never do that again. Women docs aren’t making themselves small, for ppl anymore. You are the doctor. We need need to address you as such."

Some argued that Cantwell should look on the bright side:

"Well at least we know you’re great at your job doctor."

Again, Cantwell's story is no shade to nurses, who deserve all the respect in the world. But no one would ever suggest to a male doctor that he be more "humble" by dropping the title he earned through years of school and rigorous training. And that's the problem.

nurse, doctor, female doctor, women in medicine, women, sexism, gender bias, discrimination, equal payConscious and unconscious biases are keeping women out of doctoring. Photo by TopSphere Media on Unsplash

Men currently account for 62% of doctors, with women at 38%. This is despite women earning college degrees and masters degrees at a higher rate than men. So, what gives? An essay in The Guardian cites high levels of burnout from female medical professionals and argues that "medicine continues to systematically disadvantage women physicians at every stage of their careers, causing many to leave." Patients and colleagues alike may be distrustful of female doctors and may not give them the respect and cooperation they deserve, making their experience and job much more difficult than their male counterparts. "And so women in medicine are given advice to make themselves smaller, more palatable, more humble and approachable. And by doing so they undermine themselves."

This phenomenon reflects broader societal biases about women in healthcare," Cantwell told Newsweek. "Addressing it is essential to breaking down barriers and inspiring future generations of women in STEM."

From Your Site Articles
doctors
Democracy

Here’s a paycheck for a McDonald’s employee. And here's my jaw hitting the ground.

The federal minimum wage is still less than this.

via JustFrugalMe/YouTube

How can anyone get by on this?

I've written extensively about minimum wage, supported by fact-checkers, economists, and scholarly studies. All of them support raising the minimum wage as a solution to lifting people out of poverty and getting them off public assistance. It's slowly happening, and there's much more to be done.

But when it comes right down to it, where the rubber meets the road is what it means for everyday workers who have to live with those wages. I honestly don't know how they do it. Ask yourself: Could I live on this small of an hourly wage? I know what my answer is.

(And note that the minimum wage in many parts of the county is STILL $7.25, so it could be even less than this).

paychecks, McDonalds, corporate power, broken systemOne year of work at McDonalds grossed this worker $13,811.18.via JustFrugalMe/YouTube

The YouTube channel Just Frugal Me discussed the viral paycheck and noted there's absolutely nothing wrong with working at McDonald's. More than 2 million people in the U.S. alone work for the fast food giant. The worker's paycheck shows they put in 72 hours over the pay period, making $8.75 per hour. Before taxes, that's $631 for the week. Just Frugal Me's breakdown is even more eye-opening, breaking down this person's pay after taxes and weighing across average rent and utility costs. Spoiler Alert: the total costs for basic necessities far outweigh what this person is making even while working 12 hours per day. But they do make too much to qualify for Medicaid, meaning they will have to go out and buy their own health insurance.

mcdonald's, minimum wage, restaurants, fast food, burgers, big macA photo of a McDonald's in Hartford, CT. via Mike Mozart/Flickr

Even in states like California, where the state's $20 minimum wage ensures that people earn nearly three times as much as the federal minimum wage, which remains as low as when this paycheck first made the rounds nearly 10 years ago.

Still, even for a worker that maxed out at 40 hours per week and took zero vacation or sick time, that's only a little over $41,000 per year. That's barely half the median wage in the state of $78,000 and far below a sustainable living wage in cities like Los Angeles.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

The U.S. federal minimum wage is just $7.25 and hasn't been raised since 2009. In April 2025, the Raise the Wage Act of 2025 was introduced in the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. The bill would increase the federal minimum wage to $17 an hour by 2030 and eliminate the subminimum wage for tipped workers and those with disabilities. But supporters should be cautious that it's unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled Congress.

If the Wage Act of 2025 were to pass, over $22 million workers would get a raise, which is 15% of the U.S. workforce. It would raise $70 billion for low-wage Americans, an increase of $3,200 per worker.

“No person working full-time in America should be living in poverty," Virginia Congressman Bobby Scott said in a statement. "The Raise the Wage Act will increase the pay and standard of living for nearly 22 million workers across this country. Raising the minimum wage is good for workers, good for business, and good for the economy. When we put money in the pockets of American workers, they will spend that money in their communities,”

This story originally appeared ten years ago. It has been updated to reflect new information.

From Your Site Articles
minimum wage
Community

Young autistic man gives a scratch off lottery ticket to every passenger on his flight

"Sebbie boarded with one mission: to make it the happiest plane in the sky."

Images via Canva

Who doesn't love a scratch off ticket?

These days, flying on airplanes can be a real drag. Between travel delays and unruly passengers, it can be an anxiety-inducing experience. But a young autistic man from England named Sebbie Hall (@sebbiehall2003) recently made a flight on European airline Ryanair one of the most joyous they will ever have.

Hall, 22, surprised passengers with scratch off lottery tickets with help from the airline's crew (because who doesn't love a scratch off?!).

"POV: you gave every passenger a scratch card on a Ryanair flight," he captioned the post. "Sebbie boarded a @ryanair flight with one mission: to make it the happiest plane in the sky."

In the video shared on Instagram, Sebbie is introduced to passengers by one of the flight attendants on the plane's PA system. "This is Sebbie Hall. Sebbie has done a random act of kindness every single day for 5 years. He started in lockdown to make people smile. Sebbie has a wish to make this Ryanair flight the happiest plane in the skies," he says.

The video shows Sebbie handing out the scratch offs to seated passengers, shaking hands with many. Some have tears in their eyes, and others wipe them away. The flight attendant continues, "Sebbie is buying every group a scratch card today. He wishes to make someone a billionaire. Sebbie has raised over 100,000 pounds to support disabled and disadvantaged children all across the UK. Sebbie was crowned the UK's Kind Hero last year. On behalf or Ryanair and all of us on board, can we give Sebbie a round of applause please?"

In another clip, Sebbie's mom gets on the PA system to add onto the flight attendant's message, "Sebbie wants to say good luck, strangers! No strings attached. If you win, could you please somehow let him know. He doesn't want your money! But he'd like to know. Good luck!" she says.

Sebbie's team shared more about how his act of kindness was received in the caption. "True to form, he surprised every family onboard with a scratch card—hoping to make one stranger a billionaire. It was a flight filled with joy, laughter, and big-hearted strangers. Thank you to the wonderful @ryanair crew and all the passengers who made this journey so special," they wrote.

Sebbie's thoughtful (and fun!) gift to others received overwhelming praise in the comment section.

"THIS IS MAGIC!!! Such a wonderful and fun surprise. 💫."

"We need more Sebbies in this world 🤍 keep shining your light and making this world a kinder and happier place."

"That’s so kind Sebbie!! I bet you made lots of people smile!"

"I would've kept that scratch card forever and hung up somewhere just to be reminded of how easy and wonderful random acts of kindness can be! 🥹"

Sebbie has made it his mission to do random acts of kindness for others. In 2022, he started the Sebbie Hall Kindness Foundation to spread joy to others, and has previously won the UK's Kind Hero award.

From Your Site Articles
joy
Identity

NFL's first openly gay player shares hilarious moment he realized it was 'safe' to come out

Nassib himself made a gay joke, and the reaction from other players told him everything.

Erik Drost - CC BY 2.0 & Canva Photos

It took years and a lot of courage for Carl Nassib to come out. Now he's sharing the surprisingly funny story.

When Carl Nassib told the world he was gay, it was a huge moment for the NFL, sports, and the queer community. At the time, Nassib was a key defensive player for the Las Vegas Raiders, and his announcement made him the first openly gay active NFL player.

Before him, a few other players had come out after retiring. And there had also been the news and hype around Michael Sam a few years earlier, who was also openly gay. But unlike Nassib, Sam never saw NFL action in a regular-season game and was released before he could make a name for himself in the league. However, there was plenty of debate and rumors that Sam's open sexuality had contributed to his falling in the 2014 draft and ultimately washing out of the league. Though Sam was a good first step forward for the sports world, his experience didn't exactly leave the door wide open for the next person.

Nassib didn't let that stop him. He made his announcement in June of 2021, during the offseason, and on the opening Monday Night Football game of the next season, he made the key defensive play in front of an audience of millions to essentially win the game for his team.


@abcnews

#CarlNassib makes history by coming out as first openly gay active NFL player: “I’ve been meaning to do this for a while now.” #news #sports

Nassib was recently interviewed on The Pivot podcast and gave new insight into his decision to come out. One funny story, in particular, stuck out in his memory.

Former players Ryan Clark and Channing Crowder, hosts of the podcast, asked Nassib if he had any stories about his time in the league worth sharing. "I don't want a bad story because everybody thinks football players are these big meatheads who don't understand anything," Crowder said. "I got funny stories," Nassib replied.

Nassib said that during a game against Cleveland in 2020, he was annoyed that the Browns kept running a play called a "bootleg" away from him, which meant he had to expend a lot of energy sprinting full speed across the field to catch up. "I was so mad," he says.

"Stop with these gay ass bootlegs!" he yelled at the opposing team, admitting later in the interview that his own use of the word was pretty ignorant at the time. And that's when the entire opposing offensive line turned around and told him "You can't say that!"

"Oh man, the league is ready for this," Nassib recalls thinking. "They are ready for me. We got some allies here. ...I was like, 'This is so funny. The guy about to come out, saying the word gay, getting shut down by five massive dudes."

Watch the whole podcast exchange here:


Of course, there was more to it than that one funny moment. Later in the interview, Nassib went on to explain that the death of his uncle, who was also gay, had a huge impact on his decision.

Nassib grew up in a huge family, and his uncle was the only one of the whole bunch of 44 cousins who was open about being gay. On his Uncle Bill's deathbed in 2019, Nassib came out to him privately, and his uncle was so relieved not to be the only one. It inspired Nassib that he could do that for even more people around the world.

"When I came out to him, he was like, 'This is the biggest weight off my chest. I'm not the only one." Nassib remembers thinking, "Man, there's probably so many people out there that are going to feel that same way." Nassib had been wanting to come out publicly for years, but that moment with his uncle was one of the main catalysts that gave him the courage to finally go through with it.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Though Nassib is now retired from pro football, he leaves behind a powerful legacy. There have been no new players to follow in his footsteps per se, but young people all over the world have been quietly following his example ever since.

Nassib and his family still regularly hear from teenagers and their parents that his video gave them the courage to come out, or to participate in sports despite their fears of rejection. He continues to work closely with the Trevor Project and other organizations that aim to make the world safer for LGBTQ youth. And to think, it all may not have happened if those beefy Browns players hadn't called him out on the field!

From Your Site Articles
gay
Trending Stories