Earning five million pesos does not make you rich

I've had arguments about how much you need to earn in Colombia to be rich. Five million Colombian pesos a month, or COP 5 million, comes up as though the number could settle the question. It makes me think about how little we've learned to expect: rent that doesn't keep us awake, an illness that doesn't wreck our finances, something left after the bills. If your income doesn't get you through the month, five million can change your life. That's precisely why I struggle to accept that this degree of peace is what we call wealth.

The phrase I find myself using is harsh: we're so poor that another poor person looks rich to us. It's how I express something that troubles me in those conversations, not a belief I can attribute to an entire country. When almost everything revolves around getting by, someone else's relief can look like a fortune. Understanding where that person is looking from seems more useful than explaining, from a distance, why they're wrong. But I also want to question how a life without constant financial anxiety became an extraordinary aspiration.

Taken to its furthest point, my position is this: anyone who needs to work to live is still poor, whether they earn one million pesos a month or a hundred million. I mean the lack of freedom to stop. Between those incomes are enormous differences in comfort, power, and the ability to save. Sharing a dependency doesn't mean sharing the same life. Nor is that statement a statistical definition of poverty. It's a way of asking how much of what we call wealth disappears when the next payment doesn't arrive.

A salary tells you what you receive for working over a period of time. To know whether you're rich, I'd need to ask more: what you own, what you owe, who depends on you, and how much of that life you can sustain without continuing to sell your time.

Five million for how many people?

In DANE's classification for 2025, Colombia's middle class spans monthly incomes from COP 943,791 to COP 5,081,953 per person within a household. The upper class begins above the second figure. The national statistics agency places 28% of the population in poverty, 30.7% in vulnerability, 38% in the middle class, and 3.3% in the upper class. These are income categories, not an inventory of fortunes. DANE, social classes in 2025, published in August 2026.

The decisive words are “per person.” The measure uses the current income of the spending unit: the people whose incomes and needs are counted together, subject to DANE's exclusions. It doesn't simply take one person's gross salary. Suppose five million pesos is that unit's entire monthly income, measured consistently with the classification. Here's how the calculation changes:

The first three rows fall within the middle-income band for 2025. For four people, combined income would have to exceed COP 20,327,812 a month to cross the upper-class threshold: COP 5,081,953 multiplied by four. The salary that seemed to settle the argument already needs a denominator. DANE's thresholds and definition of spending-unit income, page 2.

The national monetary poverty line for 2025 was COP 482,041 a month per person, or COP 1,928,164 for four people. It's a national reference for a basic basket of food and other necessities; the applicable lines vary by geographic area. DANE, monetary poverty bulletin for 2025.

That same year, the base minimum monthly wage was COP 1,423,500, with a COP 200,000 transport allowance for eligible workers. Together they came to COP 1,623,500 before deductions. Divided among four people, that's COP 405,875 each, below the national reference. This is a simple cash-income example, with one earner and none of the measure's other components; an actual classification also depends on those components and the local poverty line. Even so, it shows why having a minimum-wage job doesn't settle the situation of an entire household. Bogotá's legal secretariat, wage and transport allowance for 2025.

Moving out of monetary poverty matters. But I'd expect a decent life to include being able to get sick, rest, care for someone, replace what breaks, and put money aside. Crossing a threshold doesn't tell us how much of that has become possible. I worry about the beginning of an improvement becoming the limit of our ambition.

The wage in the middle

In February 2026, Decree 159 provisionally set the base minimum wage at COP 1,750,905. The transport allowance is COP 249,095 for eligible workers; together they total COP 2,000,000 before deductions. Five million is about 2.86 times the 2026 base minimum, compared with 3.51 times the 2025 figure. These are nominal ratios. They don't measure what the money buys or justify applying a 2025 poverty line to a household in 2026. Decree 159 of 2026 and Decree 1470 of 2025, transport allowance for 2026.

It also helps to distinguish the mean from the median. Imagine five people earning one, one, one, one, and twenty-one million pesos a month. The mean is five million. The median, the middle value when you put them in order, is one million. Nobody earns the mean, and four earn only a fifth of it. The example is invented, but the distinction matters: a high average can coexist with a majority nowhere near that figure.

The OECD estimates that Colombia's gross minimum wage in 2024 was approximately 92% of the gross median wage of full-time workers, the highest ratio among its members. It also notes the Colombian minimum wage's low purchasing power internationally. That percentage describes a relationship between two wages, not the share of Colombians earning the minimum. OECD, labour market and social policy review of Colombia, 2026, chapter 4.

A minimum wage can be close to what the worker in the middle earns and still buy very little. That combination helps me understand why earning a few multiples of it can feel like an enormous leap. Our everyday comparisons begin with what we know, not with everything it would be possible to have.

A national average leaves a lot out

Monetary poverty fell from 31.8% in 2024 to 28% in 2025, a reduction of 3.8 percentage points. In 2025 it was 24.6% in municipal urban centers and 39.5% in smaller settlements and dispersed rural areas. Among DANE's published urban areas, Quibdó recorded 61.7%, Bogotá 17.8%, and the Medellín metropolitan area 16.7%. DANE, results presentation, pages 14 and 33.

That reduction deserves recognition. Dismissing it because the people who crossed the line still need to work would lose sight of what we're discussing. It would also be a mistake to talk about Colombia as though conditions across those places were equivalent. The country from which someone judges five million pesos changes considerably depending on where they live.

There are other dimensions, too. Multidimensional poverty was 9.9% in 2025 and considers deprivations in education, childhood and youth, work, health, housing, and public utilities. It answers a different question from monetary poverty; you can't add the two rates together. Colombia's estrato classification doesn't replace either measure: it classifies residential properties, not their residents' wealth. DANE, multidimensional poverty in 2025 and stratification FAQ.

Looking abroad with the same measure

If I compare Colombia's official poverty rate with another country's, I may be comparing different baskets and methods. The World Bank offers a common reference: 8.30 international dollars per person per day, at 2021 purchasing power parity, associated with conditions in upper-middle-income countries. Purchasing power parity, or PPP, aims to compare what money can buy. It doesn't mean multiplying dollars by today's exchange rate. This is also distinct from the international extreme-poverty line of 3 dollars a day on the same basis. World Bank, update to international poverty lines.

Using the 8.30-dollar reference, the regional comparison for 2024 looks like this:

Source: World Bank, indicator SI.POV.UMIC, accessed September 7, 2026. Every row refers to 2024. Colombia's 37% differs from DANE's national rate of 31.8% for that year because the poverty line changes.

We don't have to look as far as Norway to find a much smaller share of people below that reference. Chile and Uruguay are in our region. Their figures don't hand us a policy ready to copy, but they do challenge resignation: being Latin American doesn't condemn us to one level of poverty.

To include countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the United States, I use 2022, a year with observations for every selected country. Colombia moves back to 2022 as well. I include both lines to show how the question changes when we set a different floor for purchasing power:

Source: World Bank, population below 3 dollars and 8.30 dollars, at 2021 PPP. These are population percentages drawn from surveys that may measure income or consumption. Harmonization allows this comparison while those underlying differences remain. No country represents its entire continent.

In India, 5.3% below the extreme-poverty line and 82.1% below the broader reference describe different conditions. Reading the second number as though eight out of ten people lived in extreme poverty would be false. China's rounded 0.0% doesn't mean an absence of deprivation, either. The line we choose changes what we can claim about a life. World Bank, explanation of its international lines.

The comparison also tests which countries we choose to make ourselves feel better or worse. China and Vietnam fall below Colombia at both lines; Indonesia and India change position relative to Colombia depending on which one we use. Kenya and South Africa don't offer a single African reality, either. Looking only at those doing worse could become a way of telling ourselves to settle. Looking only at France could erase the progress Colombia has made. I want to recognize how far we've come without turning that distance into a reason to stop asking for more.

Being in the middle buys different lives

The “middle class” label also changes with the rule. In its 2019 study, the OECD uses incomes between 75% and 200% of the national median. That places people relative to their own country. It doesn't guarantee a shared standard of consumption across countries, and it doesn't match DANE's bands. OECD, definition of middle-income households.

To compare purchasing power, the next table uses annual median disposable income: it includes cash transfers and subtracts direct taxes and social contributions. The OECD adjusts for household size and expresses the results in PPP dollars. These are adjusted household incomes, not individual salaries.

Source: OECD, figure 4.1 of Society at a Glance 2024, reference year 2021, rounded values. The publication doesn't have a comparable Colombian observation. Definition and notes.

The adjustment divides income by the square root of the number of household members to account for shared needs. For a household of four, four million pesos of disposable income becomes two million of equivalised income, compared with one million if we divide per person. No money has appeared. The unit changed. That's why we can't transfer these figures directly into DANE's bands.

What they do show is how much the phrase “in the middle” conceals. That position can offer very different purchasing power. GDP per capita wouldn't tell us what the person in the middle receives, either: dividing the value of production by the population isn't the same as looking at people's incomes.

The United States requires another distinction. Although only 2.2% falls below the 8.30-dollar line in the earlier table, the OECD reports around 18% relative income poverty in the United States in 2022: income below 50% of the country's own median. There's no contradiction. One measure uses an international purchasing-power floor; the other measures distance from the central income of that society. OECD, income poverty, Society at a Glance 2024.

We can want greater purchasing power and fewer people left far behind the life that's ordinary around them. Neither aspiration makes the other unnecessary.

What wealth looks like from where you stand

If you're trying to work out how to pay the rent, someone who pays it without anxiety has something you don't. If you have to choose which bill goes overdue, being able to pay all of them can look like abundance. Seeing the world from a position of need isn't a moral failure. Peace of mind is immensely valuable when you don't have it. A discussion about wealth that ignores this ends up dismissing the experience it claims to want to understand.

There's a responsibility on the other side as well. Telling someone who's barely surviving that five million pesos is nothing would ignore what that money could change for them. A good salary buys options: saving, handling an emergency, helping at home, being more selective about the next job. Being far from a great fortune doesn't erase those advantages. From below, someone else's relief can look like wealth. From a comfortable income, the distance from the very rich can become an excuse to stop seeing everyone behind you.

There is evidence about how people perceive poverty. In Colombia's 2025 National Quality of Life Survey, 37.6% of household heads or their spouses considered themselves poor. The figure was 31.2% in municipal urban centers and 60.1% in smaller settlements and dispersed rural areas. DANE, 2025 survey presentation, PDF page 46.

That question asks a household respondent about their perception; monetary poverty classifies people by income. Subtracting the two rates wouldn't tell us how many people are “wrong.” Nor would it tell us who thinks someone earning five million pesos is rich. I include the question because it recognizes an experience that income alone doesn't exhaust. How much fear of an emergency, instability, or an inability to save contributes to the answer requires further research. The answer deserves to be heard before it's corrected.

Class identity also varies across countries. An OECD report published in 2019, using observations from different years, found that roughly two-thirds of people identified as middle class. In the Netherlands and Switzerland, the share was around four in five; in Brazil, Chile, Portugal, and the United Kingdom, it was two in five or less. This is a historical comparison of class identity, not a current survey of who counts as rich. OECD, Under Pressure.

Those differences make me distrust an explanation that reduces everything to Colombians not knowing how to recognize wealth. These words also express belonging and expectations. I can question someone's criteria without treating them as incapable of understanding their own life. And I can accept that they're right about how much five million pesos would change for them while still believing the number doesn't establish wealth.

What remains when the money stops coming in

Net wealth is the value of assets minus debts: savings, investments, ownership stakes in businesses, or a home, less the corresponding obligations. It's what has accumulated at a point in time, distinct from the income received over a period. OECD, guidelines for household wealth statistics.

Imagine a property worth one billion pesos with a debt of eight hundred million. That leaves two hundred million in net wealth tied to the property, before selling costs. The large number impresses people; the debt still exists even when it disappears from the conversation. Those two hundred million aren't necessarily available to buy groceries, either. A home counts as wealth even if it generates no rent, but its value and available cash serve different purposes.

Another example: sixty million pesos in liquid savings against basic expenses of five million a month provides twelve months of support, ignoring returns, inflation, and unexpected costs. Twelve months allows decisions that don't fit into the two weeks until payday. It also runs out. Owning assets, having cash available, and being able to support yourself without working are related conditions. None automatically substitutes for the others.

Averages can mislead here again. The Federal Reserve found that median family net worth in the United States was 192,900 dollars in 2022, while the mean reached 1,063,700 dollars, both in 2022 dollars. The mean was about 5.5 times the median. These are the survey's family units, not individuals, and their wealth isn't all cash. Federal Reserve, 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, published in 2023.

“The average family has more than a million dollars” can be correct and still produce a very misleading picture of the family in the middle. A number can be calculated correctly and used badly. The same thing happens when we turn a paycheck into a statement about everything someone owns.

The OECD also describes a measure of asset poverty: whether liquid financial wealth can support a household for three months at the income poverty line. There isn't a universal definition, but the question brings in what the monthly income figure leaves out: what happens when it fails. OECD, income and wealth glossary.

My own claim has a limit

A hundred million pesos a month offers a radically different ability to save and accumulate assets from one million. If someone needs to keep earning that amount to maintain luxury spending, calling them poor would confuse a preference with a deprivation. Someone with enormous wealth doesn't become poor by choosing to work, either. The freedom I care about is being able to choose, not proving your status by giving up work.

There's an objection in the other direction, too: a pension sufficient for a modest life can allow someone to stop working without making them the owner of a fortune. Financial independence and wealth overlap, but they aren't synonyms. If I want my argument to be useful, I have to accept that, even when it makes the opening claim less forceful.

I still think dependence on the next payment reveals a lack of freedom that a good salary can conceal. Calling it poverty is my way of questioning what we're prepared to accept. It isn't enough to describe all of someone's material circumstances. A high salary can help build wealth. The salary itself doesn't prove that wealth already exists. That part of the argument holds without asking us to pretend we're all in the same position.

Workers fighting other workers

When I say we're poor people fighting other poor people, I think about what we lose if a difference in salary is enough to stop us recognizing shared needs. Someone earning the minimum and someone earning five million pesos have very different resources for handling an emergency or losing a job. But both may need to work to support a household, care for their children, or be there through an illness. Their difficulties don't have to be equal for them to defend better conditions together.

I worry about a conversation consumed by deciding who has the right to ask for more: the higher earner told to be content because others have it worse, and the higher earner treating someone else's hardship as a failure to work hard enough. Having someone below us shouldn't force us to give up on improving our own lives. It shouldn't give us permission to stop caring about theirs, either.

This is what I mean when I think this way of seeing things also keeps us poor. Poverty isn't solved by changing your attitude. My concern is political: if being able to pay for housing and save already seems like living rich, we may start treating those aspirations as privileges only a few deserve. I worry that arguing over a word shrinks what we believe we're entitled to ask for. That's my interpretation of our expectations, not a cause of poverty established by the figures.

Recognizing something shared doesn't require everyone to contribute equally or receive the same priority. Someone earning more has a greater ability to contribute; someone facing hunger needs a more urgent response than someone trying to increase their savings. And an employee can own property, receive an inheritance, or have considerable wealth. Work and ownership can coexist in the same person. Solidarity loses its meaning if we have to erase those differences to build it.

I'd like us to be able to be glad that another worker earns more and argue for that improvement to reach more people. To recognize what others need without feeling that doing so diminishes our own effort. Understanding where someone is looking from should open up the conversation, not turn their need into the limit of what they're allowed to expect.

Security is something we build together, too

If the only conclusion were “buy assets so you don't need to work,” we'd have no answer for someone who can barely afford food. We'd also be reducing security to what each person can finance alone. A pension, replacement income, or a functioning public service can protect a life without its recipient owning a large investment portfolio.

The OECD shows that dimension in Government at a Glance 2025: using 2021 or the latest available year, average relative poverty falls from 27% before taxes and transfers to 11% after them. France records a reduction of 28 percentage points and Finland 27. The reference is 50% of median disposable income adjusted for household size. OECD, poverty and inequality, 2025.

The comparison includes pensions and other transfers. It's an accounting comparison, not an experiment showing what would happen if the state disappeared. Even with that limit, it gives us a way to discuss social protection through its effect on disposable income. The security we can build collectively deserves as much space as the wealth each person manages to accumulate.

Better earnings from work matter. So do the cost of maintaining a life, the risks a family has to bear alone, and how much it can keep of what it earns. That calls for a discussion about productivity, access to employment, wage bargaining, housing, taxes, and how services are funded. Those decisions involve costs and conflicts. Demanding individual discipline from a worker doesn't resolve them. Neither does promising that a single number set by decree will fix everything.

What I wish were ordinary

I'd like work to make it possible to live without constant financial anxiety and build something that lasts. To pay for housing, food, and utilities. To have effective access to health care, education, and care when someone needs it. To have time outside work and room to save. Basic security shouldn't depend on everyone managing to live off investments. Nor should saving be an empty instruction directed at someone with nothing to put aside.

Five million pesos can be an enormous improvement for a household. That improvement deserves to become rest, a financial cushion, and decisions people can make for themselves. Recognizing it doesn't oblige me to treat it as a certificate of wealth. I don't need to call myself poor to stand with someone who has less, either, or abandon what troubles me about a life in which stopping isn't an option.

I want to understand why five million pesos looks like wealth to someone and still argue that a life without constant anxiety should be within their reach. Someone else's relief should show us a possibility, not give us a reason to fight. I worry about a country where being able to get by already looks like having more than you should.