Caleb Hammer says 50-year-old YouTuber "will die in poverty"—highlights problems of content creators

Despite being one of the first content creators on the platform — his oldest video dates back to 2006 — his channel has experienced a significant decline in recent years.

In an episode of Caleb Hammer’s YouTube series, Financial Audit, Williams said that at one point, he was considered “LA poor [and] Arkansas rich” and was once “close” to millionaire status.

His income from uploading content online is highly variable, which he claims is now roughly USD$1,600 lower than his monthly expenses. If things don’t change soon, Hammer explains that Williams will “die in poverty.”

Tthe challenges Williams faces are not only self-inflicted — with poor investment decisions and questionable spending habits — but also reflect the ongoing struggles faced by most North Americans faced with higher living costs — and, perhaps, questionable career choices.

Mounting medical bills

An apparent lack of financial knowledge shown by Williams in the episode led to a number of negative comments on Hammer’s video, including one that described Williams as “essentially a 50-year-old adolescent” and an “example of arrested development.”

In late 2022, Williams announced on X (formerly known as Twitter) that he had been diagnosed with polycythemia vera, a rare blood disorder.

“It’s extremely slow moving and many people live with it for decades,” he wrote at the time.

Unfortunately, the condition required him to live in “northwest Arkansas near my medical professionals,” he told Hammer.

Managing the condition is also a serious drain on Williams’ monthly budget. He pays USD$775 a month for health insurance and roughly USD$600 a month for medication.

While these costs are eye-watering, Williams thinks the toll on his budget would've been higher without the Affordable Care Act.

“If it wasn't for the Obama administration that made it possible for me to purchase insurance as a self-employed person, I would have never had access to health insurance,” he said.

The high costs of prescriptions is a straining phenomenon in Canada as well, with nearly one-quarter (22%) of Canadians skipping medication doses, splitting pills or deciding not to fill or renew a prescription due to overwhelming costs. Meanwhile, a further 10% with chronic conditions have ended up in the emergency room due to worsening health because they were unable to afford their prescription medications, according to a recent report, released by the Heart and Stroke and the Canadian Cancer Society.

Financial stress impacts mental health

Williams also opened up about his mental health, something that has been exacerbated by his recent health concerns and financial woes.

He’s not alone with 44% of Canadians saying that their finances are a top stressor, according to a study by Financial Planning Standards Council. What's worse is that the percentage of Canadians that consider finances a stresser is up from 40% in 2023 and 38% in 2022. Nearly half of respondents also admit to losing sleep because of financial worries (49%).

The precarious income of a content creator

In addition to ballooning medical costs, Williams’ finances are complicated by his variable monthly income.

His YouTube channel has just over four million subscribers and, collectively, his videos have more than 930 million views. Despite these impressive numbers, Williams said he earned only USD$3,000 a month from YouTube in the previous year.

Williams’ situation could be a cautionary tale for would-be influencers. According to a survey by Morning Consult, 57% of Gen Z said they believed they could make a living as an online content creator and influencer. But, as Hammer pointed out, it's where you put your money that matters.

Williams hopes to generate more income (potentially an additional USD$2,000 a month) from new projects, such as a podcast, but his monthly income is still significantly lower than either his personal target of USD$7,000 or Hammer’s target of USD$10,000.

Hammer admitted that earnings from YouTube can be unreliable and has put much of his income into cash-flow properties — in case “YouTube goes away.”

Financial misinformation

Despite his current health challenges, Williams should have been in a comfortable financial position given his success on YouTube. He estimated that he earned roughly USD$2.5 million in aggregate over the last decade from his YouTube career. In fact, he said he was “close” to being a millionaire at one point.

“When I say ‘close,’ [I mean] for two days I had about USD$780,000 to USD$800,000 in crypto, went to bed one night and it was worth half that,” he told Hammer.

Williams also owns some alternative assets, with a portion of his wealth tied to Magic: The Gathering playing cards. He’s been playing the game and buying cards since the 1990s, with the estimated total worth of his collection being USD$50,000.

Williams said he’d sold some cards whenever he needed to meet living expenses; however, even he admitted that this “backup plan” is “incredibly stupid.”