If he had invested the prize in the S&P500, in order to be able to live from the investment income for 50 years (Michael was aged 33 when he won), he would have

If he had invested the prize in the S&P500, in order to be able to live from the investment income for 50 years (Michael was aged 33 when he won), he would have been able to withdraw only about $10,040 per year, in 1982 dollars, which is equivalent to $32,500 in today's dollars, which is a minimum wage salary. I don't think this is "reasonably comfortable". The CAGR of the S&P 500, including dividends reinvested, inflation-adjusted, was about 9% in the 1982-2024 period [1], and my Python script below shows that starting with $110k, with this 9% CAGR, he would run out of money in about 50 years: t = 110e3 for y in range(50): t *= 1.09 t -= 10040 print(1982 + y, round(t)) Output: 1982 $109850 1983 $109687 1984 $109508 1985 $109314 1986 $109102 1987 $108871 1988 $108620 1989 $108346 1990 $108047 1991 $107721 1992 $107366 1993 $106979 1994 $106557 1995 $106097 1996 $105596 1997 $105049 1998 $104454 1999 $103805 2000 $103097 2001 $102326 2002 $101485 2003 $100569 2004 $99570 2005 $98482 2006 $97295 2007 $96001 2008 $94592 2009 $93055 2010 $91380 2011 $89554 2012 $87564 2013 $85394 2014 $83030 2015 $80453 2016 $77643 2017 $74581 2018 $71244 2019 $67606 2020 $63640 2021 $59318 2022 $54606 2023 $49471 2024 $43873 2025 $37772 2026 $31121 2027 $23872 2028 $15971 2029 $7358 2030 $-2030 # no more money 2031 $-12263 (But actually he died early in 1999, so if he had know that he could have spent more yearly...) [1] https://dqydj.com/sp-500-return-calculator/ https://dqydj.com/sp-500-return-calculator/