Tina Fey wants the wealthy to quit ‘side hustles’: Is she right?
- The Hollywood actor-producer’s quip on the rich earning a quick buck went viral in the US. But how much money is ‘enough’ is hard to estimate and wealthy celebrities doing brand endorsements, for example, needn’t be a sign of greed.
Americans have a complicated relationship with wealth. On one hand, 73% of millennials aspire to be members of the three-comma club [in US dollar terms]. On the other, 71% of the country’s population believes billionaires aren’t doing enough with their fortunes to better US society. Often, those outside wealthy circles are the loudest critics of what the elites should be doing with their money. What isn’t so common is a public indictment from one wealthy person about the earning habits of another.
Tina Fey, acclaimed actor-writer-producer, made a podcast appearance recently on Good Hang with Amy Poehler, where she made a quip about judging rich people for having side hustles that quickly went viral. People immediately reacted with wholehearted agreement (the rich should not keep hustling) or vehemently disagreement (let them earn however much they want!).
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But nestled within Fey’s comments was a throwaway line that just about everyone should agree on: “I don’t get excited about money if I’m safe and I have enough money to live." While ‘enough money to live’ is certainly relative—and Fey herself is a multi-millionaire, with an estimated net worth of $75 million—there is something to be learnt from her attitude.
At its root, she seems to be articulating the concept of identifying a financial independence number—what’s known as the amount you’d be able to live off without actively working. There is a sense that she knows how much she needs to feel financially secure and understands that anything beyond that is unnecessary to pursue. It is the type of relationship with money that many of us, regardless of income bracket, should adopt.
But that level of contentment is not an easy milestone to achieve, particularly because of the prevalence of money dysmorphia—a feeling of insecurity about finances despite evidence that there’s little cause for concern. The concept traps the average millennial and Gen Zer, but it’s a reality that anyone can experience.
That’s one way to explain why some among the wealthy decide to shill for products in a way that feels like a money grab (and possibly even damaging to the public). The volume of celebrities of all stripes who have promoted cryptocurrencies is one such example. However, categorizing all wealthy people who take on multiple side hustles as greedy is short-sighted; there is always an exception to the rule.
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In this case, the rich people who should be given some grace are those working in industries notorious for having a short or inconsistent shelf-life. This includes athletes, actors and even influencers. In these careers, striving to accumulate as much wealth as quickly as possible could be reasonable.
Professional athletes have extremely short career windows compared to the average employee. Many rookies gross less than $1 million their first year; that’s even before the cut that goes to taxes, agents and lawyers. Players also must contend with whether their career pivot after retiring from their respective sports will be successful.
Scant data is available for how much a well-known actor or influencer earns, but we have seen enough anecdotal evidence to gather that work opportunities can also be unpredictable for them. One minute, someone’s the Hollywood or social media star of the moment, and the next, they cannot even get a callback or as many likes as they used to.
So, as the more well-off navigate the fickleness of sports and entertainment industries, the bulk of their earning potential may happen in a limited period during their 20s or maybe early 30s. They’d need to set a financial security number and attempt to achieve it in a matter of years instead of decades. Many times, that results in brand endorsement deals—or, to borrow Fey’s phrase, ‘side hustles’—that flood our screens with ads.
Also Read: Why people are quitting hustle culture
Can it be overwhelming? Yes, and the injustice of the wealthy being given opportunities to seemingly earn a quick and hefty pay-cheque may be part of what doesn’t sit well with Fey. Her apparent attempt was to make a distinction between meaningful work and the propensity of the already-wealthy to slap their names on branded products for a quick buck.
But perhaps they’re different sides of the same coin if the intended outcome is still the same: financial security. In Fey’s case, the multi-hyphenate works across film, television and theatre. Multiple streams of income presumably help hedge against projects that don’t move forward and other lulls in her acting career. Maybe a limited number of side hustles is the best way for many of us to be sure that we have “enough money to live," after all. ©Bloomberg
The author is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering personal finance.
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