Americans need up to $200,000 on average to live comfortably, and about half a million to feel upper-class wealthy
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What does it mean to be wealthy in America?
The answer depends on where you live.
Ask a professional in New York City, one of the nation’s most expensive metros.
I put the question to Janel Abrahami, a Glassdoor career expert, and she told me that even a salary of $150,000 in the New York Metropolitan area is fairly modest and just barely scratching the surface of paying the bills.
“It seems so shocking and wild to get to this place where that does not feel like nearly enough to achieve the American dream,” she expressed. (At the same time, salaries in NYC are generally higher than other locales, just like in California.)
The average American salary currently sits at $62,192 a year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report on salaries in Q2 2025.
Yet 58% of Americans say they need $75,000 – $200,000 to live comfortably and afford a house, according to GOBanking Rates (and that’s not even considering the rising costs of supporting a larger family).
So how do you close the gap on the cost/salary discrepancy without quitting your job?
The answer: passive income.
7 AI-Powered Passive Income Ideas For Busy Professionals
And thanks to AI tools like ChatGPT, it’s become faster and easier than ever to build, launch, and promote your passive income idea, and make money within days or weeks at most, without sacrificing too much time or needing to leave your job.
Here are seven passive income ideas that are AI-powered and are perfect for busy professionals:
Launch a paid newsletter on insights, news, and practical how-to’s pulled from your expertise in your current role/industry. Use Gen AI tools to help you plan and outline newsletter content and ensure SEO and SGO optimization.
Start an online membership subscription for professionals to access tips, training, resources, etc. to help them become a [name of role, i.e. product manager], including support resources for job-seekers for this role. Use Gen AI to help you develop membership products, create pricing tiers, marketing copy, etc.
Licence your knowledge and expertise into frameworks and courses, and sell these to higher education institutions, training providers, and businesses, using AI to help you pitch to these entities and conceptualize your ideas.
Start a day-in-the-life series on YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram, featuring your profession and what you do from day-to-day in an entertaining or educational way (or a lively mix of both); get corporate partnerships and use affiliate marketing to make money.
Create a pre-recorded mini-course/masterclass that helps students solve a highly-specific problem that is tied directly to financial outcomes, i.e. LinkedIn marketing masterclass to help corporate trainers get clients, using AI to help you develop course content outlines, quizzes, slides, and resources.
Invest in AI stock shares for longer-term wealth.
Build and deploy an AI-powered tool using no-code app builders and AI agents, and monetize it through subscription access, selling to larger companies, in-app purchases, etc.
How Do I Make Passive Income While Working Full-Time?
Follow the advice in this article and try any of the ideas above.
Start small with the easiest idea on this list so you don’t get overwhelmed
Work persistently and consistently to build your audience and gain trust, even if it’s just crickets to begin with
Keep iterating and honing your expertise over the next 90 days.
The initial legwork will be challenging, but once you begin to scale and see your income compound and even double your salary, it will be so worth it. Once you’ve begun to see success with one stream of passive income, diversify and consider branching out and building on this success by creating other, complementary, passive income sources.
Even though a single paycheck is scarcely enough to keep up with the cost of living and supporting yourself and your family comfortably, the passive income ideas in this article prove that when you employ the right AI tools and think strategically, you can generate extra cash without quitting your job or taking up a second one.
Passive income lifts the lid on your salary cap and boosts the earning potential of your skills
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