I am in my 20s. I have about 200k and would like to be able to build an income stream in case I lose my job or would like to quit. Growth or dividend?

200k of free cash is a huge milestone achievement, congrats!

Since you are asking for very specific requirements (short term + income), new age products might be viable but do come with risks. You might want to check out crypto and stablecoins. To overly simplify things, buy USDC then transfer over to a platform like Hodlnaut to earn about 12% interest APY, paid out weekly - works out to be about $2k/mth.

My personal thoughts:
Maybe the question to figure out is why the fear/hurry to give up employment income?

For passive income to be sustainable and meaningful (where you can eat fish instead of peanut), the base needs to be bigger. Because this opens up your options to many other kinds of income streams (loans, rental income, stock dividends, ad revenue , crypto staking and lending etc), and this diversification provides more longevity to your ultimate goal of passive income. So I’d focus on growing the base more first.

You could definitely still tender your resignation, but wouldn’t that be what a rainy day fund is for?

$200k is a good financial head start, I’d take this chance to settle all the basic financial foundations like emergency money, insurance, upcoming big ticket items, tax planning etc. Might end up with a lower residual amount to actually invest, but you’ll also get the mental liberation to totally focus on building wealth thereafter

25% in growth, 50K should be enough to have enough skin in the game

75% in dividends, 150K @ 5% = $7,500/year, $625/month, enough to pay off the utilities/rent

Building pocket money from 200k generates only 10k a year assuming if you can get 5% dividends to begin with. Is this figure enough for you to take a 1 year break and allows you to do what you want? Dividends are not paid every month and dividend stocks are also at risk of market drawdowns which is something investors must understand. If you are young, chances are by picking the right growth stock you would be better off in terms of absolute amount over the longer period of time. But the issue is if you have strong hands to see it true or you may need the funds for short term needs eventually.

You are not alone in the sense that everyone is also looking to have the freedom to quit their jobs or take sabbatical from work. However not many were able to achieve that, for various reasons.

Firstly know that everything will take time to be built. Just like your 200k - how long did it take you to accumulate it?

How much ‘income stream’ you are looking to achieve per month? Note that dividend yield on average is around 4% per year (so you can backsolve how much you can get with 200K)

Go beyond dividend or growth stocks. Have you considered starting a business (doing what you enjoy of course - otherwise it will be how you feel about your day job), getting a rental property etc etc

All the best!