Most workers don’t need to earn a really fat paycheck to feel like they are successful in their careers, a new survey finds.
More than half would be happy making under $70,000 a year.
The survey of more than 5,700 full-time U.S. workers, conducted in February and March for CareerBuilder, found that 25 percent of people would want to make more than $100,000 in a year to feel like they had made it.
But 23 percent said they would only need to reach a salary level of below $50,000 to be successful. The rest fell somewhere in between.
Men were more much likely than women to say that six figures was a measure of success. About 32 percent of men said they wanted to make more than $100,000 to be a success. That's versus 17 percent of women.
Older workers were more likely to say they wanted to reach six figures to be successful than younger people, but the gap wasn’t that great.
Still, most people haven't made it there yet.
About 45 percent of workers said they were close to their desired salary, while 32 percent said their paycheck was nowhere near where they wanted it to be.
Only 23 percent said they were earning their desired salary.