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My wife's friend was stuck in a rut where she was extremely well paid for working about 1/3rd time. Hard to give up high hourly pay and low hours to barely increase pay by working many more hours elsewhere.
That said, generally pay increases come about by changing places of employment, not through 3% annual raises at the same old job. When you have a job, you approach the bargaining table with nothing to lose. They can accept the terms you make, or you can continue on with the current job.
Regarding my wife's friend, she made enough money and still never had any. I don't know where it went because she had nothing to show for it. My wife was working full-time for $10/hr in Portland and still slowly accumulating wealth, whereas her friend was working 1/3rd time for twice the income and couldn't deal with any unforeseen money problem at all.
I'll say that if a single, reasonably healthy person in the US is making more than $20k per year, there's little reason why they shouldn't be able to build up some financial resiliency. It's an indication that the appropriate sacrifices aren't being made.
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