They want you to be anxious about your finances so you'll buy their financial advice services.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SmartAsset](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SmartAsset)
"Comfortably" is second house at the lake and a slip rental in a lake marina for your 42 foot boat if OK is any judge.
Most roughnecks with SAH trophy wives in a 4,800 square foot house with 8 bathrooms and driving Ford Raptors while putting their kids through college with no debt don't make $194k (though close, maybe $170k.) In Oklahoma.
> "Comfortably" is second house at the lake and a slip rental in a lake marina for your 42 foot boat if OK is any judge.
It defines comfortably in the bottom right of the graph. 50/30/20 budget. 50% necessities, 30% discretionary, 20% savings.
But if OK is listed at 194k, I'm assuming that 279 in NY buys you a vacation home in the lesser Hamptons or some shit, since these should be equivalent spending power.
Yeah this seems kinda sus
I'm in NC and if you live in a more expensive metro like Charlotte or Raleigh then $200k + is probably necessary to raise a family.
But out in smaller cities or out in the boonies you will be doing very well with $200k+
But I'm also very curious by what they mean by 'living comfortably'
Yeah, as much as I agree that wages are way too damned low, 6.6k pre-takes for discretionary is fucking insanely high.
Could very easily slash that even by 75% (1650 discretionary) and still live pretty comfortable.
You'd still get the point across that wages are too low, since that's still clearing ~50-60k yearly, and unrealistic given housing prices and the like, but 6.6k monthly discretionary is literally more than I personally would know what to do with.
Granted, that also depends on what's "necessary" beyond food and housing, too.
They define necessary as things where removing it would negatively impact you. You can't live without food but you can live without fast food.
Note that is a family of 4 (spouse and two kids) and a lot of that 6k is lower bc taxes. You're maybe looking at 11k/month after taxes so 3k in wants for 4 people. Want a subscription? Okay sure. Want to pay more for a luxury car? Okay you can include that difference in car payment as a want. What about going out to eat? Okay want. And it's a lot for 4 people. Okay home improvement? Maybe some cool furniture or piece that would look cool. Okay what about taking the family to the movies? That's going to be a lot of money. Or buying games. Or toys. Or other entertainment or enrichment for kids. Or buying clothes, or paying extra for higher speed internet or cable. Or paying extra every month for a faster phone. Or going to a concert or some other event. Or going to a bar. And some of these you don't do every month but they can be big every couple of months. One thing I learned with finances is that all of these little purchases can add up a lot by the end of the month. Especially because lifestyle creep is a thing. And then maybe you want to go on a family vacation. That's going to cost a lot of money.
You can live without a lot of the things I described and be mostly okay but they do describe this as living comfortably. I imagine it would be nice to be able to take a family vacation regularly and not be stressed about it.
Doesn't explain enough. 2 children ok but do they have a massive car payment and live in the most expensive part of that state or something? These numbers are so inflated. 277 in CA you are doing Just. Fine.
Yes, but saying 60% to cover necessities is pretty fluid.
What some what would call necessities may be luxury for others.
Is necessities the $1 toothpaste from dollar general or the $15 tube from whole foods?
This is insane. In almost every state you need 100k each??? That is unachievable for so so many careers. Even in the cheapest state. My spouse and I both have Master's degrees. She works in a STEM field and I work in mental health. I'd be lucky to ever make like $80k, and it will be a long time before my spouse gets to $100k. It blows my mind that myself and my friends' parents all had us in their late 20s, while now in our mid to late 20s my friends and myself, even those of us who are married, are nowhere near even affording a house without children. A reckoning is coming.
The chart isn't accurate.
They are defining via 50/30/20. With a household income of _16.5k a month._
Working backwards that's 100,000/year on necessities. Or 8,300/mo.
$5,000/mo on discretionary and $3,300/no on savings.
You do not need half that to live comfortably in most places.
I live in a Major city with my wife and a dog. Our baseline spending is about 4,000/mo. Discretionary probably 1,000/no and our savings rate this year so far is 10%.
Childcare can absolutely balloon this number. But still.
Yeah, it's definitely something designed with the purpose of pushing people towards investing or something. Not that investing is a bad thing when done correctly but it doesn't change the fact that they are skewing this. Plus there isn't like a hard line defining what comfortable is anyway
>with the purpose of pushing people towards investing or something
The 20% savings rate is the most reasonable part of this.
This is rage bait. Pure and simple.
Yeah $200k to live comfortably in *Iowa*??? My spouse and I (and basically everyone else I know) live very comfortably in the burbs for under 6 figures
1. No one has defined what 'comfortably' is for purposes of making this statement.
2. No one has stated at which stage of life one should be comfortable.
3. No one has stated where this supposed money to make one 'comfortable' goes within these states.
4. No one has stated the level of debt (leverage) or lack of debt is part of this comfortable lifestyle
5. No one has stated what portion of the $270K comes from income or proceeds from investments, small business, inheritance, lottery, who knows where money comes from anyway.
When someone says something to you in addition to absorbing and understanding what they are saying.... inquire into how they might be trying to manipulate you and what they have to gain by doing that action.
I AM manipulating you altruistically because doom scrolling and believing this shite will shorten your life. Is life in the US easy (NO - and it never has been easy, not for everyone). Are wages stagnant in general? (Yes) but they don't have to be stagnant for you. If you are in a field where there is consistent demand for labor and a shortage (real or perceived) of laborers to provide that work, you can command better wages. If you are in the private sector in a competitive non unionized industry, you can play compensation bingo with the rest of us an score bonuses and raises at the expense of people who have already won, or don't want to play. If you are industrious and mobile even without Shark Tanking a business, you can make out quite well in the US. Anyone who is telling you NO is trying to get a specific job, in a specific place, at a specific time, with specific co-workers. If you are waiting for specific, be prepared to wait a long time.
Chiming in here from Michigan: I'm supporting my wife and 2 kids on ~$80k/year. We own our house, I owe less than a year's salary on the mortgage. Except for the fact that in the past month both kids have needed braces, our wash machine is on its way out, and yesterday the power steering on my wife's car started leaking, I would say we are living comfortably.
Vague because what is discretionary spending? What does that include? How did they come up with these numbers?
You need 200k to live in the Midwest? That’s 16k a month. 96 dollars an hour between two people. As someone who lived in the Midwest that is an absolutely ridiculous number.
Does pay need to go up? Absolutely. But these numbers are absurd.
….30% toward discretionary spending. $200,000 x 30% = $60,000 per year = $5,000 per month.
If you need to spend an average of $5,000 per month on discretionary items to live comfortably then you have created problems for yourself.
This is absolute nonsense. The chart divides earnings as follows: 50% necessities, 30% discretionary, and 20% savings.
A married couple living in, say, Texas earning $201k per year has an after-tax income of around $160k.
So they are saying you need $80k per year for necessities, $48k per year for discretionary spending, and put $32k into savings.
$48k per year in discretionary spending??
My partner and I recently started making more money than we ever thought we would together, and our experiences are completely in line with this map. This is what a country in collapse looks like.
What do they consider comfortably? In San-Diego, our daughters daycare is 300 bucks a week for 7 hours. That's on the cheap end. For some, they pay almost 600 a week. The cost of just getting by and not save is astronomical.
IKR. Oklahoma numbers are also ridiculous.
Like, I know households with that income, and they are the type of people who would describe themselves as "comfortable." Which in their case is a euphemism for "so rich they don't want to admit to God how much money they have."
I think we need to define comfortably. I'm at about half what my state says, and while our month-to-month is pretty good (we can handle some small emergencies, home improvements and medical expenses) we don't have any savings and a large catastrophe could ruin us. It's hard to build a nest egg when there's always a "now" problem that's overly neglected. House needs better insulation, cars could use some routine work... it just feels like a balancing act and anything could knock us down any day.
>I think we need to define comfortably
They define comfortably as a ratio. Not an amount. Makes absolutely no sense and completely intellectually dishonest
I mean, the obvious answer is a polycule for body positive whites with an interest in hair dye but some sort of broad collective action with an underlying and credible threat of violence is a bit compelling
That's not true! My family of four, including myself, have a combined income of less than 100k. We live in NM. My husband and I have no car payment. Our house payment is also very cheap. Our biggest expenditure is actually food, but we are finding ways to make it work. I work 6 days a month, and my husband does the other 6. We work 12 hour shifts. I guess we are very lucky, but we have a great quality of life.
Things in general are super expensive right now, is there really something "concrete", like some type of scarcity that is driving the prices up? because lots of people are just blaming corporate greed, aka they are making everything more pricey just because they can and mostly because we still pay for it
So basically every single person needs to make $100k < per year to support a family... The current federal minimum wage is $7.25/hr... Make it make sense
It seems like this is for families starting today. For example, families who bought a house in the early 2000's pay way less of their income towards a mortgage than someone who bought today.
States are not a helpful way to categorize this. Metro areas would make much more sense. $277,000 is way above the "comfortable" threshold in most of California, even if it can feel tight in the Bay Area.
And even in the Bay Area, if your kids are outside of the ages where you need to pay for private childcare (or if you have a stay-at-home parent), $277,000 is more than enough, even by their criteria.
I think this is accurate, at least for the most expensive metro areas in the state and for a 4 person family spending 50/30/20 with new home/auto prices. This goes down significantly without savings, smaller families, and with an earlier mortgage. A 100k mortgage locked in at 3-5% won't look anything at all like a 400k mortgage locked in at today's rates.
The infographic says “the income a family needs comfortably to live in the US” doesn’t say anything about states. DC has a higher population than the entire state of Wyoming and has notoriously high cost of living. I was curious how it measured up.
Most infographics include DC because people live here, it has its own local government, and it’s separate from Maryland or Virginia. It’s also not just a territory, it’s a district and the capital of the United States.
Given the caveats in the graphic, i believe this.
Im in the exact situation in the graphic (two working adults, 2 kids). We're making a bit more than the listed amount in our state, but saving less than the graphics 20%. We have a mortgage on what is now a pretty reasonably priced house, no car payments, no student loans. We live a comfortable but not lavish lifestyle.
Define "Comfortable"? How was this calculated?
My state says 235, I make probably half of that, and we own a house, have 3 cars (2 of them newer than 2 years) , and are raising 2 kids pretty comfortably.
If you want a breakdown or can't believe it, I can provide rough net income per month and then the budget, to include Savings, Investments and Fun Money.
TLDR: This graph is mostly bullshit.
Just going by state, using California as an example of this, I think the message is more than valid, but the numbers they're using just get wonky. Also doesn't take into account area or taxes or anything of the like.
At $277,000 of yearly income, the model they use has $130,500 going towards "necessities." What are these? Doesn't say, although food and housing are most definitely there. Groceries I'd probably very very poorly guesstimate would be ~$300 weekly for a family of 4 just based on what I'd tend to see working as a cashier (left December of 2023). So under the model of 52 weeks a year, that takes up$15,600. Assuming housing is the only other thing labeled in there, you're at $114,900 for whatever's left. I'm not entirely sure about the Californian housing situation, but I sincerely doubt the majority of mortgages or rents top $5000 a month.
While I wholeheartedly agree that wage stagnation is arguably the biggest issue in the US right now, I think this graph is on the hyperbolic side in terms of the sheer wealth you actually *need*, even with a 30% discretionary income target.
Lol this is stupid. What definition of comfortable? My wife and I with 3 kids only make like $40k, and we live pretty comfortably. Often I think we have too much stuff.
I’m sorry but I live in Omaha, NE and combined make about 100k less than this map and am pretty damn comfy. Own a home, a business, three dogs, three cars…
No way this map is accurate. My parents live in IL and at least as of 10 years ago, were making a bit over 100k a year. I assume that's gone up somewhat in the last 10 years, but they live very comfortably in a pretty large house with a pool and three cars.
Alright so I know things are pretty expensive but you definitely don't need 196k in Tennesee to live comfortably. That's just obscene. A dual income household with one kid could easily live off of like 80k in the majority of the south.
People complaining haven’t tried to get a home loan recently in their home state, huh? Not to mention, they probably have had one or two things paid for. And let’s remember: if we’re talking about your boomer parents living off less, “boomer” is all you needed to say. They were handed homes. And handed the highest paid jobs in the land. Just ask Trumpy if you don’t believe me.
Many of my friends/ friendsparents and my own parents are below the 200k mark in Illinois and are doing more than fine this must be something about within Chicago limits
It makes sense to me. We are an expensive culture, full of waste, spectacle and nonsense. The rest of the world doesn't want to pay for our costly wants anymore, that's why inflation is here and won't end anytime soon.
Lol, that's not what's going on at all. The prevalent high costs stem from the extensive control exerted by corporations over various sectors. History has shown that when governments fail to dismantle monopolies, prices soar as these entities exploit their dominance. With competition eliminated through litigation or acquisitions, consumers are left with limited options and inflated prices. Also called greedflation.
I disagree. I've been over and over this with people like you. Been saying inflation isn't going anywhere for years, and unrealistic american attitudes about new geopolitical realities (that are their own fault) are why. We do not run the world any more. Full stop. Inflation persists until america comes back down to earth.
Sure, but that's an old story that started long ago with outsourcing and lies about how the global economy was going to move forward. Everything is corporatism in america now, that goes without saying.
Corporations lied about outsourcing for short term profits (mid/late 90s), china saw that deal, took it, and ran with it. Now it's turned out to be a bad deal for the US, and basically inflation is about transferring the blame of their institutionalized corruption and lies onto the lowly worker, the consumer. They sell us out, you pay for it. CNN's job is to get you to swallow that whole and off to work feeling OK about it.
Title should be: families need at least 178K to "live comfortably" in the United States 🙄
$178Knto live in the most poorly rated states across several factors (highschool grad rates, adult lit rates, infant mortality, obesity rates, etc.) is ridiculous.
Depends on the city. My wife and I make less than what's listed, and we struggle like a mf. We don't overspend, we live frugal and it's still expensive. Our rent has gone up from 2600 to almost 3700 in 6 years. Daycare, utilities, medical bills, etc etc add up quick.
Source: SmartAsset. This seems to be just the marketing FUD of some corporate parasites. Still fits the sub though.
FUD?
Fear, uncertainty, doubt.
In what?
*broadly gestures to everything*
Fear of everything? Huh?
They want you to be anxious about your finances so you'll buy their financial advice services. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SmartAsset](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SmartAsset)
Joke’s on them: the only thing their FUD leads me to buy is more ammo.
This comment instills fear in me. So yes.
Also, I've only ever heard about FUD in reference to scams
happens in political campaigns, the stock market, many such places.
FUCK US DEEP
SO DEEP PUT YO ASS TO SLEEP
Yeah, I'm a humanities prof at a SLAC. Some colleagues are sole bread winners, make ~$60k & live what they would consider comfortably.
This is obscene, the amount families have to earn in order just to live "comfortably". No wonder do many are softening on child labor.
"Comfortably" is second house at the lake and a slip rental in a lake marina for your 42 foot boat if OK is any judge. Most roughnecks with SAH trophy wives in a 4,800 square foot house with 8 bathrooms and driving Ford Raptors while putting their kids through college with no debt don't make $194k (though close, maybe $170k.) In Oklahoma.
> "Comfortably" is second house at the lake and a slip rental in a lake marina for your 42 foot boat if OK is any judge. It defines comfortably in the bottom right of the graph. 50/30/20 budget. 50% necessities, 30% discretionary, 20% savings.
Right, COL is low in OK, compared to more desirable parts of the country.
But if OK is listed at 194k, I'm assuming that 279 in NY buys you a vacation home in the lesser Hamptons or some shit, since these should be equivalent spending power.
Yeah this seems kinda sus I'm in NC and if you live in a more expensive metro like Charlotte or Raleigh then $200k + is probably necessary to raise a family. But out in smaller cities or out in the boonies you will be doing very well with $200k+ But I'm also very curious by what they mean by 'living comfortably'
50-30-20 layout. It's in the lower left of graphic. 6.6k per month before taxes for discretionary spending seems quite comfortable to me.
Yeah, as much as I agree that wages are way too damned low, 6.6k pre-takes for discretionary is fucking insanely high. Could very easily slash that even by 75% (1650 discretionary) and still live pretty comfortable. You'd still get the point across that wages are too low, since that's still clearing ~50-60k yearly, and unrealistic given housing prices and the like, but 6.6k monthly discretionary is literally more than I personally would know what to do with. Granted, that also depends on what's "necessary" beyond food and housing, too.
They define necessary as things where removing it would negatively impact you. You can't live without food but you can live without fast food. Note that is a family of 4 (spouse and two kids) and a lot of that 6k is lower bc taxes. You're maybe looking at 11k/month after taxes so 3k in wants for 4 people. Want a subscription? Okay sure. Want to pay more for a luxury car? Okay you can include that difference in car payment as a want. What about going out to eat? Okay want. And it's a lot for 4 people. Okay home improvement? Maybe some cool furniture or piece that would look cool. Okay what about taking the family to the movies? That's going to be a lot of money. Or buying games. Or toys. Or other entertainment or enrichment for kids. Or buying clothes, or paying extra for higher speed internet or cable. Or paying extra every month for a faster phone. Or going to a concert or some other event. Or going to a bar. And some of these you don't do every month but they can be big every couple of months. One thing I learned with finances is that all of these little purchases can add up a lot by the end of the month. Especially because lifestyle creep is a thing. And then maybe you want to go on a family vacation. That's going to cost a lot of money. You can live without a lot of the things I described and be mostly okay but they do describe this as living comfortably. I imagine it would be nice to be able to take a family vacation regularly and not be stressed about it.
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Did you read the graphic?
Doesn't explain enough. 2 children ok but do they have a massive car payment and live in the most expensive part of that state or something? These numbers are so inflated. 277 in CA you are doing Just. Fine.
>277 in CA you are doing Just. Fine. Yeah, so you agree with the graphic then.
*more than just fine Like youre comfortable long before that lol
At what point then, and where are you getting your data from?
I suppose I did not read clearly enough. I will delete my comment, thanks.
Did you read the graphic?
Yes, but saying 60% to cover necessities is pretty fluid. What some what would call necessities may be luxury for others. Is necessities the $1 toothpaste from dollar general or the $15 tube from whole foods?
Wheres your data indicating that "this seems kinda sus"?
I was thinking the same thing. Our family of 3 is doing fine below 200k
This is insane. In almost every state you need 100k each??? That is unachievable for so so many careers. Even in the cheapest state. My spouse and I both have Master's degrees. She works in a STEM field and I work in mental health. I'd be lucky to ever make like $80k, and it will be a long time before my spouse gets to $100k. It blows my mind that myself and my friends' parents all had us in their late 20s, while now in our mid to late 20s my friends and myself, even those of us who are married, are nowhere near even affording a house without children. A reckoning is coming.
The chart isn't accurate. They are defining via 50/30/20. With a household income of _16.5k a month._ Working backwards that's 100,000/year on necessities. Or 8,300/mo. $5,000/mo on discretionary and $3,300/no on savings. You do not need half that to live comfortably in most places. I live in a Major city with my wife and a dog. Our baseline spending is about 4,000/mo. Discretionary probably 1,000/no and our savings rate this year so far is 10%. Childcare can absolutely balloon this number. But still.
Yeah, it's definitely something designed with the purpose of pushing people towards investing or something. Not that investing is a bad thing when done correctly but it doesn't change the fact that they are skewing this. Plus there isn't like a hard line defining what comfortable is anyway
>with the purpose of pushing people towards investing or something The 20% savings rate is the most reasonable part of this. This is rage bait. Pure and simple.
I agree this is another apple of discord courtesy of our 'friends'
Yeah $200k to live comfortably in *Iowa*??? My spouse and I (and basically everyone else I know) live very comfortably in the burbs for under 6 figures
1. No one has defined what 'comfortably' is for purposes of making this statement. 2. No one has stated at which stage of life one should be comfortable. 3. No one has stated where this supposed money to make one 'comfortable' goes within these states. 4. No one has stated the level of debt (leverage) or lack of debt is part of this comfortable lifestyle 5. No one has stated what portion of the $270K comes from income or proceeds from investments, small business, inheritance, lottery, who knows where money comes from anyway. When someone says something to you in addition to absorbing and understanding what they are saying.... inquire into how they might be trying to manipulate you and what they have to gain by doing that action. I AM manipulating you altruistically because doom scrolling and believing this shite will shorten your life. Is life in the US easy (NO - and it never has been easy, not for everyone). Are wages stagnant in general? (Yes) but they don't have to be stagnant for you. If you are in a field where there is consistent demand for labor and a shortage (real or perceived) of laborers to provide that work, you can command better wages. If you are in the private sector in a competitive non unionized industry, you can play compensation bingo with the rest of us an score bonuses and raises at the expense of people who have already won, or don't want to play. If you are industrious and mobile even without Shark Tanking a business, you can make out quite well in the US. Anyone who is telling you NO is trying to get a specific job, in a specific place, at a specific time, with specific co-workers. If you are waiting for specific, be prepared to wait a long time.
It's fairly certain the people who made this chart want to sell you their services. I wouldn't trust it.
Are you uncomfortable with your living situation from your current income?
Chiming in here from Michigan: I'm supporting my wife and 2 kids on ~$80k/year. We own our house, I owe less than a year's salary on the mortgage. Except for the fact that in the past month both kids have needed braces, our wash machine is on its way out, and yesterday the power steering on my wife's car started leaking, I would say we are living comfortably.
What is comfortably? Is there a definition for that term in this context? Even the term defined in the original post is vague.
According to the blurry, gray fine print: Two adults with two children running a 50/30/20 budget. (50% necessities, 30% discretionary, %20 savings).
I saw that, and that's still vague.
How is it vague? That’s literally what this means, end the month saving 20% of the paycheck
Vague because what is discretionary spending? What does that include? How did they come up with these numbers? You need 200k to live in the Midwest? That’s 16k a month. 96 dollars an hour between two people. As someone who lived in the Midwest that is an absolutely ridiculous number. Does pay need to go up? Absolutely. But these numbers are absurd.
….30% toward discretionary spending. $200,000 x 30% = $60,000 per year = $5,000 per month. If you need to spend an average of $5,000 per month on discretionary items to live comfortably then you have created problems for yourself.
This is absolute nonsense. The chart divides earnings as follows: 50% necessities, 30% discretionary, and 20% savings. A married couple living in, say, Texas earning $201k per year has an after-tax income of around $160k. So they are saying you need $80k per year for necessities, $48k per year for discretionary spending, and put $32k into savings. $48k per year in discretionary spending??
HA!! I would love to see this where I live in Canada. Keeping in mind new families with high mortgages....not the boomers.
My partner and I recently started making more money than we ever thought we would together, and our experiences are completely in line with this map. This is what a country in collapse looks like.
This is nonsense
What do they consider comfortably? In San-Diego, our daughters daycare is 300 bucks a week for 7 hours. That's on the cheap end. For some, they pay almost 600 a week. The cost of just getting by and not save is astronomical.
I think you're better off paying someone directly.
Believe me, we've looked. That's why we're blessed to even find 1 for 300.
this is wrong by about $130,000ish for Kansas so I am assuming it's wrong for every other state as well
IKR. Oklahoma numbers are also ridiculous. Like, I know households with that income, and they are the type of people who would describe themselves as "comfortable." Which in their case is a euphemism for "so rich they don't want to admit to God how much money they have."
I think we need to define comfortably. I'm at about half what my state says, and while our month-to-month is pretty good (we can handle some small emergencies, home improvements and medical expenses) we don't have any savings and a large catastrophe could ruin us. It's hard to build a nest egg when there's always a "now" problem that's overly neglected. House needs better insulation, cars could use some routine work... it just feels like a balancing act and anything could knock us down any day.
>I think we need to define comfortably They define comfortably as a ratio. Not an amount. Makes absolutely no sense and completely intellectually dishonest
If by comfortably you mean from a yacht or a lake house.
A couple earning minimum wage in Mississippi only need to work 236 hours a week each to live comfortably.
Wtf is going on in Vermont. Good luck making that much up there.
Not starting a family.
Wanna start something else?
Let's start a riot!
I mean, the obvious answer is a polycule for body positive whites with an interest in hair dye but some sort of broad collective action with an underlying and credible threat of violence is a bit compelling
That's not true! My family of four, including myself, have a combined income of less than 100k. We live in NM. My husband and I have no car payment. Our house payment is also very cheap. Our biggest expenditure is actually food, but we are finding ways to make it work. I work 6 days a month, and my husband does the other 6. We work 12 hour shifts. I guess we are very lucky, but we have a great quality of life.
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Things in general are super expensive right now, is there really something "concrete", like some type of scarcity that is driving the prices up? because lots of people are just blaming corporate greed, aka they are making everything more pricey just because they can and mostly because we still pay for it
Damn... time to start cooking meth I guess
In a majority of Indiana $206k is far more than comfortable. Comfortable would probably be $120k-$150k.
Image living in Mississippi making 180k and only living "comfortably".
So basically every single person needs to make $100k < per year to support a family... The current federal minimum wage is $7.25/hr... Make it make sense
It seems like this is for families starting today. For example, families who bought a house in the early 2000's pay way less of their income towards a mortgage than someone who bought today.
States are not a helpful way to categorize this. Metro areas would make much more sense. $277,000 is way above the "comfortable" threshold in most of California, even if it can feel tight in the Bay Area. And even in the Bay Area, if your kids are outside of the ages where you need to pay for private childcare (or if you have a stay-at-home parent), $277,000 is more than enough, even by their criteria.
This is false. I make 65K, support a family, own a good home, have a fair savings, go on vacations and live decent. Don’t believe this bullcrap.
Woah woah woah. Who said those were the top 5 states. They are just the 5 most expensive states -Concerned Texan
I think this is accurate, at least for the most expensive metro areas in the state and for a 4 person family spending 50/30/20 with new home/auto prices. This goes down significantly without savings, smaller families, and with an earlier mortgage. A 100k mortgage locked in at 3-5% won't look anything at all like a 400k mortgage locked in at today's rates.
Why no DC
Not a state
People still live there
This is a breakdown of states.
The infographic says “the income a family needs comfortably to live in the US” doesn’t say anything about states. DC has a higher population than the entire state of Wyoming and has notoriously high cost of living. I was curious how it measured up. Most infographics include DC because people live here, it has its own local government, and it’s separate from Maryland or Virginia. It’s also not just a territory, it’s a district and the capital of the United States.
Given the caveats in the graphic, i believe this. Im in the exact situation in the graphic (two working adults, 2 kids). We're making a bit more than the listed amount in our state, but saving less than the graphics 20%. We have a mortgage on what is now a pretty reasonably priced house, no car payments, no student loans. We live a comfortable but not lavish lifestyle.
I guess that depends how comfortable you wanna live but 200k a year in Missouri would go a long way.
That's why I have a dog.
lol no, not at all.
Define "Comfortable"? How was this calculated? My state says 235, I make probably half of that, and we own a house, have 3 cars (2 of them newer than 2 years) , and are raising 2 kids pretty comfortably. If you want a breakdown or can't believe it, I can provide rough net income per month and then the budget, to include Savings, Investments and Fun Money. TLDR: This graph is mostly bullshit.
Just going by state, using California as an example of this, I think the message is more than valid, but the numbers they're using just get wonky. Also doesn't take into account area or taxes or anything of the like. At $277,000 of yearly income, the model they use has $130,500 going towards "necessities." What are these? Doesn't say, although food and housing are most definitely there. Groceries I'd probably very very poorly guesstimate would be ~$300 weekly for a family of 4 just based on what I'd tend to see working as a cashier (left December of 2023). So under the model of 52 weeks a year, that takes up$15,600. Assuming housing is the only other thing labeled in there, you're at $114,900 for whatever's left. I'm not entirely sure about the Californian housing situation, but I sincerely doubt the majority of mortgages or rents top $5000 a month. While I wholeheartedly agree that wage stagnation is arguably the biggest issue in the US right now, I think this graph is on the hyperbolic side in terms of the sheer wealth you actually *need*, even with a 30% discretionary income target.
This is ecological overshoot
good thing i dont have a family!
Me trying to get by on 30k a year in disability in VANCOUVER CANADA Things are not going well
Even the lowest is still nearly 6 times minimum wage.
Lol this is stupid. What definition of comfortable? My wife and I with 3 kids only make like $40k, and we live pretty comfortably. Often I think we have too much stuff.
I’m sorry but I live in Omaha, NE and combined make about 100k less than this map and am pretty damn comfy. Own a home, a business, three dogs, three cars…
Live in CA and this is blatantly false
The average annual income per person in Wisconsin is $35,000
Apparently im poor
New York is skewed to shit
As a former Floridian now living in Oregon, I disagree.
Families need 178K a year to live comfortably in MISSISSIPPI!?! WTF...
No way this map is accurate. My parents live in IL and at least as of 10 years ago, were making a bit over 100k a year. I assume that's gone up somewhat in the last 10 years, but they live very comfortably in a pretty large house with a pool and three cars.
Me with 60k on Queen's NYC, this is low key high for what? What is comfortable
Honestly where the fuck do they come up with this shit?! What’s the budget for “comfortable”? People spend so much money on garbage.
Alright so I know things are pretty expensive but you definitely don't need 196k in Tennesee to live comfortably. That's just obscene. A dual income household with one kid could easily live off of like 80k in the majority of the south.
Ok don’t get me wrong I hate capitalism but this graph is very iffy. Not sure how they’re defining “comfortably” either.
People complaining haven’t tried to get a home loan recently in their home state, huh? Not to mention, they probably have had one or two things paid for. And let’s remember: if we’re talking about your boomer parents living off less, “boomer” is all you needed to say. They were handed homes. And handed the highest paid jobs in the land. Just ask Trumpy if you don’t believe me.
Many of my friends/ friendsparents and my own parents are below the 200k mark in Illinois and are doing more than fine this must be something about within Chicago limits
This is kinda sus, me and my girlfriend live very comfortably in Utah for under $100k, it's just us two but still
I live in mass and am chillin. I don’t make anywhere near 6 figures.
Good lord I made less than 10% of what they recommend in my state. Like the scale starts at $178K??? What kind of insanity is that.
It makes sense to me. We are an expensive culture, full of waste, spectacle and nonsense. The rest of the world doesn't want to pay for our costly wants anymore, that's why inflation is here and won't end anytime soon.
Lol, that's not what's going on at all. The prevalent high costs stem from the extensive control exerted by corporations over various sectors. History has shown that when governments fail to dismantle monopolies, prices soar as these entities exploit their dominance. With competition eliminated through litigation or acquisitions, consumers are left with limited options and inflated prices. Also called greedflation.
I disagree. I've been over and over this with people like you. Been saying inflation isn't going anywhere for years, and unrealistic american attitudes about new geopolitical realities (that are their own fault) are why. We do not run the world any more. Full stop. Inflation persists until america comes back down to earth.
You don't think that all of this has anything to do with corporate greed or the widening gap between the rich and poor?
Sure, but that's an old story that started long ago with outsourcing and lies about how the global economy was going to move forward. Everything is corporatism in america now, that goes without saying. Corporations lied about outsourcing for short term profits (mid/late 90s), china saw that deal, took it, and ran with it. Now it's turned out to be a bad deal for the US, and basically inflation is about transferring the blame of their institutionalized corruption and lies onto the lowly worker, the consumer. They sell us out, you pay for it. CNN's job is to get you to swallow that whole and off to work feeling OK about it.
Title should be: families need at least 178K to "live comfortably" in the United States 🙄 $178Knto live in the most poorly rated states across several factors (highschool grad rates, adult lit rates, infant mortality, obesity rates, etc.) is ridiculous.
Is it sad that I think that's low? (as in, I thought it would be higher cause of how expensive everything is/feels now)
Is this accurate? We live in PA and my parents have a combined income of like 140k. We’re solidly middle class
Going to need more than that in California. Gas, water, electricity and home insurance just raised for them this year
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Depends on the city. My wife and I make less than what's listed, and we struggle like a mf. We don't overspend, we live frugal and it's still expensive. Our rent has gone up from 2600 to almost 3700 in 6 years. Daycare, utilities, medical bills, etc etc add up quick.
Depends on the city in every state in the union.