The pursuit of passive income has become a widespread phenomenon, reshaping how millions of Americans think about work and money. The Wall Street Journal reported that the dream of not having to work at all is eclipsing the traditional American dream of working hard to get ahead, fueled by a growing feeling that traditional work is broken.
In March, the shares of U.S. workers satisfied with their pay and opportunities for promotion reached the lowest levels since the New York Fed began tracking those measures in 2014, according to the report.
About one in four Americans said they have a side hustle, according to a 2025 Bankrate poll cited by the Journal. A survey from financial platform Cash App in March found that 44% of adults ages 18 to 28 had an income source outside full- or part-time work. In 2022, roughly one in 10 U.S. workers said they derived income from “less labor-intensive” activities such as selling goods on eBay, according to a Boston Fed working paper.
Greg Keogh, a mechanical engineer by training, stumbled into passive income after a conversation with a dog owner who was excited about a larger lint roller. Keogh designed a roller nearly as wide as a paper-towel roll and put it on Amazon, where sales took off. Seven years later, he said he works on it two hours or less a month and personally nets about $50,000 to $115,000 a year. “That is the ultimate power,” Keogh said of being able to choose how he spends his time.
Matt Ebso, 31, a software-tutorial creator who moved to Spain, earns about $3,000 a month by licensing AI clones of his voice on the platform ElevenLabs. He records samples of his speech and creates voice personas for audiobooks, guided meditations, and fantasy tales. “How little can I put in and make as much money as possible?” Ebso said. ElevenLabs said it has paid out $22 million to more than 10,000 uploaders since early 2024.
Michaël Tremblay, a 39-year-old paper mill worker near Montreal, makes hundreds of dollars a month on Etsy by selling PDF guides and workbooks he created in minutes using AI. He used the Claude chatbot to identify niche search terms where shoppers weren’t finding products that matched their precise needs. “There are too many meal planners on Etsy,” Tremblay said. “But make one for women who hike and have ADHD, for example, and it’ll sell.”
Not everyone finds success. Ana Lohrmann, 43, of Catonsville, Md., who has cancer and cannot work a regular schedule, said she has spent thousands of dollars on courses teaching passive-income methods that did not pay off. A $1,000 course on email newsletters was too general, and a $2,500 follow-up also failed to deliver. “I don’t know of anybody who made as much as they were hoping to make or as much as the teachers of these courses say you’ll make,” Lohrmann said.
Among scams reported to the Better Business Bureau last year that mentioned losing money on business courses, the median loss was $1,326. The FTC in a 2022 complaint alleged that one operation promised “passive income on autopilot” using falsified consumer reviews; it later sent $2.8 million in refunds to 890 consumers. Another operation shut down earlier this year allegedly told people they could invest $75,000 or more in a semi-truck and have a driver and shipping loads arranged, according to an FTC complaint.
AI is accelerating the quest. Google search interest in passive income has increased about 50% since 2020, and a Reddit community devoted to the topic draws roughly half a million visitors per week. The report noted that some people are pumping chatbots for money-making ideas and using AI content generators to churn out videos, books, and other media they hope to monetize.
“It’s more of a bet in this casino economy of ours,” said Victor Tan Chen, a sociologist at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Ronnie Lim, 19, of Lawrenceville, Ga., makes thousands of dollars a month running eBay stores that sell products from Amazon at a markup, a practice that both Amazon and eBay say violates their terms of service. Lim said he stumbled upon the strategy on an e-commerce forum and made hundreds of dollars in profit on his first day. “We don’t know how long this is gonna last but we’re just gonna make as much money as we can,” Lim said.
Beverly Osborn, a former business professor in Indianapolis, said some of her undergraduate students have explored dropshipping, a retail arrangement often pitched as easy online money. “I think most of them would still rather get a job at Eli Lilly where they get a good salary and good benefits,” Osborn said. “But I think you have a lot of people who don’t see that as a feasible path forward anymore.”
Even those who have built successful passive-income streams acknowledge the initial effort involved. Keogh said that when a batch of his rollers had faulty handles, he ordered replacements and swapped 1,600 of them in his garage. “The more pain you have in the beginning, the more passive it might be,” he said.