Woman Released After Decade in Prison Stunned at Low Value of $100K Salary

Jennifer Gomez left prison after more than nine years in jail in February 2020. Two weeks later the world changed—and COVID hit her hard. Now, post-pandemic, she's shocked at how little a $100,000 salary can provide compared to yesteryear.

"It was a very, very interesting situation for me. Because I was prepared to work, live, start at the bottom, clean toilets, which I did, and then all of this. I actually got COVID about maybe two weeks after I got out," Gomez told Newsweek in a Zoom interview.

"I was like, gosh, am I acclimating to, like, the air in the free world? You know, are there allergies that I haven't been exposed to that I am just breathing for the first? Because I was sick. I mean, I was really sick," she added.

Inflation has hit a lot of Americans hard, beginning just after the COVID-19 pandemic, as supply chain bottlenecks and demand helped shoot up prices.

After she left prison, Gomez noticed prices had gone up. But she told Newsweek how shocked she's been at how expensive things have become since then, especially in the post-pandemic world.

She recalls milk and eggs costing about $3 or $4 for brand names or organic options. But post-pandemic, she saw those prices shoot up to $7. Her plan to eat healthy after leaving prison is now being challenged by how pricey things have become, Gomez told Newsweek.

"But I really couldn't do that because the price even of those things had increased, I mean they had tripled as to where everything else had doubled. These things have tripled," she said. "Groceries. I am thinking, how are people surviving? Everything has literally doubled, if not tripled. I mean, it was insane."

A $7,000 Monthly Income Isn't Enough

Since leaving prison, Gomez has worked as a janitor for $9 an hour and has since used some of her savings to go into business renting children's bounce houses for parties. She also generates income through social media work and is writing a book.

Gomez told Newsweek that her monthly income is now about $7,000. But she lamented that even with that income, it's barely comfortable.

Gomez, who has an 11-year-old son and a dog named Princess, finds herself having to fork out $300 to $400 a month for food, gas, and bones for her dog, as well as some expenses for her kid. She also said she pays about $2,000 a month for her three-bedroom condo that her mother owns in Jacksonville, Florida.

"If you told me 15 years ago that I would have $7,000 a month, that would be a very large amount for me monthly. And now it is just making it," she said.

Asked if she felt like inflation, which has dropped from its four-decade high of 9 percent in the summer of 2022 to 3.1 percent in November, has declined, she said she was not sensing that shift in her personal life.

Gomez pointed out how expensive owning a home is right now. She has always dreamed of owning a home and has started looking into what it would cost for her to afford one.

To afford a $300,000 house, she discovered through her research, that she would need to be making $93,000 a year to get approved for such a mortgage.

Data from the National Association of Realtors shows that for a starter home price of about $345,900 in 2023, a prospective buyer who can afford to put down a 10 percent down payment would need more than $100,000 of income to qualify for such a mortgage.

"I don't feel that, if they're saying inflation is dropping, and that the economy is, you know, kind of going back to what it was, or some semblance of it, I don't feel it yet," she told Newsweek.

Groceries are expensive, cars cost more and even paying for staples like milk and eggs are exorbitant, Gomez pointed out, making it feel less like prices are getting cheaper.

"I spend money every day. Nothing that I spend money on makes me feel like anything's going back to the way it was," she said. "Quite honestly, I don't really feel like it's going to ever even get close to what it was."

You may need $100k income to survive this economy

Gomez said she believed that in the past, a $40,000 a year income could be enough to sustain someone's livelihood. But nowadays, she felt like they would need to earn about $100,000 to be able to enjoy a decent lifestyle.

"That is what is required in this economy to survive. Anything less, and you will be financially struggling," she said.

Gomez suggested that Americans may need to think about having side hustles and generate multiple income streams to pay for what they need.

"We all know that wealthy people have stocks and investments in this and that. But there's a reason why those people get their money and reinvest into things. Because they want several income streams. They understand that one day that house of cards could fall, and you'll need something else," she told Newsweek.

She added: "If you can invest in yourself by learning something else, doing something else and getting money from that, then you're gonna win. And I think that's the best thing to do in this economy right now."