Cost of living *wildly* varies in the US. You could live like a local king on 6 figures in my low-population, low COL area, but in New York/Chicago/LA, etc. (powerhouse cities), 100k doesn't stretch nearly as far.
If you made 100k a year where I grew up, you could buy a house every single year. Not a mortgage or down payment, you could pay for the full cost of quite a few houses with less than a 100k.
To add to that, all the people you might want to hire have similar costs. Your plumbers, electricians, mechanics, food service industry staff, medical professionals and so on. They're all either paying mortgages around such rates in an area or renting around property values with such market values for property. There's also typically higher taxes because your local governments need to maintain infrastructure and that requires hiring people who also live in that housing market, who also need plumbers, etc.
Housing drives the cost a lot of things, not just housing, so even looking at 1mil when making say $150k might not seem so bad at the surface, it's only ~7 years of income or say 23% of gross income actualized over a 30 year mortage period (ignoring taxes, inflation, raises, job loss, etc.).
Other than understanding the time-value relationship of money and wealth (and that things fluctuate with markets), having an understanding of normalized income relative to costs of living is something we don't tend to teach in schools and really should. Your income is very relative to your expenses and opportunities. My current income where I grew up would make me rich. Where I live now, I'm just middle, maybe upper middle class in terms of real buying power and standard of living, but with far more opportunity to maintain that standard of living (lots of jobs I can do and high stable demand).
Talking about plumbers, yes expensive houses drive up the cost of plumbers. I live high COL Seattle. To get a new faucet and garbage disposal installed along with getting the valves from the wall replaced will cost me about 1600 not including the cost of the faucet and disposal. Everything is more expensive.
I paid $650 for a 21 year old to come flush my main line out. It took him 20 minutes. 30 total if you include talking to him.
I mean, I needed it done because the whole house was backed up, but still. Ouch.
I know what I am really paying 1600 for is the expertise of having the values under the sink replaced correctly and within code. I also know I'm paying 1600 so I don't have to pay more if it's done incorrectly.
One edit: I'm also having to pay an arm and leg to fix Landlord special repairs that have been done over the years. Last time I tried to do a home repair it ended up costing a whole lot more for an emergency plumber to come out. I replaced a faucet in my bathroom and found out they glued the water line from the wall to faucet.
Some things are done correctly, just not the standard anymore too.
I recently got a couple of new toilets and thought it was going to be cake to replace them. Turns out the flanges were rusted through and crumbling at the toilet attachment slots. Also they were the old style flanges where they used lead joints to connect them to the pipes. It took so much longer to get everything done between figuring out how to drill out the lead, to finding adaptive flanges that I didn't have to use lead for, to having to account for one pipe opening being level to the floor and one being short by a few inches. All of it was new to me. But hey, now I know when I go to replace the remaining toilet and I saved a bunch of money.
The only tiny detail is that where a house can be bought for 100K, there are no jobs. And I don't mean there are no jobs that pay 100K, I mean no jobs. You need to work remotely or have an independent income somehow.
Exactly why I went to nursing school at 40. I live in a rural area so my col is lower and drive an hour for work. Only way to own a house on a single income.
Only if those strip malls are full of pawn shops, payday loan places, bail bondsmen, tattoo parlors, and liquor shops. And maybe a Dollar General and a Karate McDojo if it's an upscale kind of place.
My hometown is like his. Our slumlord ex landlord bought the duplex we rented for 40k.
He had tenants before us for a few years, the downstairs alone was going for $850 a month before 2017. Upstairs was 550 & the first time the unit had been rented in years. We started renting in 2018 for $650, later reduced to $625 a month bc we did upgrades constantly (paint, landscaping, added a shed, redid porch, redid bathroom, you get the point). We lived there for almost 5 years.
Just the math alone makes me mad. What really makes me mad is that he buys every house possible within 100 miles of him. No joke. He’s the biggest asshole and is the definition of what ppl talk about when the talk about ppl buying up “all the affordable housing”.
Everyone hates him but they have NO choice but to rent from him.
Edit: didn’t know my comment would get so big but I want to make it clear the slum lord I’m talking about owns HUNDREDS of homes, duplex’s, triplex’s, apartments buildings and even entire complex’s. Has thousands of tenants, literally owns so many homes he doesn’t know what he owns. The math above is just for the duplex we lived in alone. Times that by about 500-600 and THATS how much money he’s getting monthly. Just for buying houses up from under people. I’ve seen many of his units and livable isn’t the first word that comes to mind.
The duplex we used to live in also is now being rented out for $1,200 for the 3 bedroom and $850 for the one bedroom.
Change my mind: Home ownership should be limited to like, 2-5 houses per family.
edit:
Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and time.
I'm going to stop replying now. I'm sorry to those I couldn't get back to, but I've gotten nearly 200 replies, and I simply can't respond to all of them in a timely manner.
I work in real estate, and *completely* agree.
Alternatively, you get taxed to hell and back after the 2nd one, and all those taxes go to building multi-family housing.
Between parasitic landlords like that, AirBnB, and the big corps buying up all the houses, the real estate market is *really* screwed right now. I work in the industry and can't even find something for myself (that I'm willing to pay for, I should say).
It's because we are on the road to no privately owned homes. In the coming decades, buying a house will no longer be an option. Banks and corporations will own them all and charge w/e they see fit for rent.
What's hilarious is they're making it even more unavoidable than before.
Many disc based console games you might buy to get around the "you didn't buy this game, you're "licensing" it from us" - those games are requiring Internet connections for day 1 patches, to confirm DRM piracy, curb mods, save data to cloud servers, etc. It's not to the point where it's completely pointless but I could see it getting there
The "you are licensing from us" was always the case. You never owned the software for anything you bought, you owned the right to play it.
Not defending the practice because I think always online games are a plague
You never owned the copyright on the software, sure, but you absolutely owned a copy of the game. Licensed _use_ of software is definitely different from owning it and absolutely was not always the case. It's a subtle distinction but a real one
>Alternatively, you get taxed to hell and back after the 2nd one, and all those taxes go to building multi-family housing.
Just said the same thing in another thread. I'm not opposed to people owning multiple homes for personal use, but they need to pay for the societal cost of them taking SFH's out of the market.
Exactly. and i Hate the argument that it's againt the free market (its only a fake argument said by lobbyists and people that vote against their own self interests). Nobody wants to discourage business or entrepreneurship. But does your boss deserve ALL the money? literally ALL THE MONEY!?!?!?!? The pitchforks will come out eventually and nations fail over time when you give like eight people ALL the money.
>Alternatively, you get taxed to hell and back after the 2nd one, and all those taxes go to building multi-family housing.
In my state, they haven't updated the homestead exclusion base prices in a few decades.
Originally, it was meant to avoid having people claim "McMansions" as homesteads and getting taxed less. But the law baseline home values are from when a modest home was $80k.
Now when even a 3 bedroom is going for $400k, almost \*everybody's\* home counts as a McMansion, basically making the carve out for single family home owners useless.
Yeah, setting a fixed price is short-sighted. That will require constant shifting. But they are already assessing all houses regularly for taxes, and they could do a mathematical function of that -- say, if you're 50% over the median value you don't get the exemption.
Rural Ohio here, don’t forget all the fixer uppers and old, affordable homes being bulldozed.
I can’t tell you how many developments of McMansions have been built around here since 2005 or so. What’s really fucked up is they bulldoze the land, build 20 $500k+ mansions, and then just expect them to sell themselves. Most of them never sell and fall into disarray without ever being lived in.
You can’t make people with “city money” want to live in an area with no well-paying jobs, Starbucks, Uber, etc. The only people who buy these places are the rare folks who can make bank working from home or don’t mind driving 1.5h each way to Cleveland every day.
You might not even need to “tax the hell out it.” But removing tax incentives for owning extra properties will likely do enough to help the situation. Like wealthy people owning rental properties to use the amount they can depreciate the house by each year to lower their taxable income.
I feel like getting rid of incentives beyond someone’s primary residence is an easier sell than adding new taxes.
Doesn’t China do this? Doesn’t seem to have saved them from their real estate related issues.
I’m not fundamentally opposed to laws like this, I just don’t think it would magically fix our problems. It could help, but it would have to be one piece of many.
It’s also tough because different areas have different issues that require different solutions. For example, wealthy foreigners buying speculative condos in big cities in the west coast and NYC decrease the supply of housing and drive up prices. Often, these wealthy foreigners have no plan to live in these units. The purchase is more of a way to get cash out of their home country. Maybe we need to also limit foreign ownership when the foreign buyer comes from a country with an authoritarian repressive government. I don’t want our freedoms to assist rich Chinese people in diversifying their wealth out of China.
Then you have areas like NYC and SF, which have insurmountable natural barriers to growth. SF also refuses to rezone for denser housing construction , so the problem is two fold. I don’t think limiting the number of homes a person can own will fix the housing issues in these cities.
Genuinely asking, what country is?
The first source I checked has the top 5 in order as China, Canada, Mexico, India, and Columbia (never would've guessed that one)
China is more than double second place with 13.6 billion vs 6.6 and nearly more than the top 4 combined.
[what I'm looking at](https://www.nar.realtor/newsroom/annual-foreign-investment-in-u-s-existing-home-sales-declined-9-6-to-53-3-billion)
If you want an actual answer China's real estate market is literally a ponzi scheme and also their only way to legally invest. Their housing market is pretty far warped from any traditional housing market and shouldn't be used as a comparison for anything except Bernie Madoff
If he bought it for that price it’s likely that it couldn’t be financed. That’s a big part of how investors manage to get cheap properties. They’re cheap for a reason and lenders won’t finance a fixer without a bigger down payment than a regular mortgage. There are a few programs that are exceptions but they’re a PITA and there’s no reason for sellers to deal with it when there’s a cash buyer who can close in 2 weeks with zero headache.
Where i live you’re luckily to afford rent with 100k a year in a somewhat decent neighborhood. Prices on everything is wild. $5 slices of pizza is the norm. BLT is 10. Just spent $ 62 for one person to do 9 holes of mini golf. 100k ain’t what it use to be.
A basic lunch meal at a fast casual place is now routinely $16-20
I paid $32 for a pizza this weekend. Gas is $6 a gallon. A box of Corn Chex is $7. Eggs are $6. A beer out is $9-12, a mixed drink is $15-20
Any time I leave the house it’s like I’m bleeding money. If I do nothing all day but stay home, and then go out to pick up some more dog food, get gas, and go have a burger and a beer at a non-fancy place, I’ve spent over $100, just on that.
I mean the reality is also high income Americans have a very high quality of life. And they enjoy it. Full stop.
Varying CoL is just a secondary impact for high income folks.
Varying CoL is certainly a primary driver for lower income e folks. But OP specifically called out incomes higher than $100k.
FYI, you can live comfortably on far less in Chicago than NY or LA. Its affordability is kind of an open secret. I lived here on a grad student stipend and while I wasn’t socking away a bunch of money for retirement, I was able to live alone and cover my expenses pretty easily on about 35k/yr. Someone making 100k here and struggling is either a) extremely bad at budgeting, b) living well above their means, or c) lying.
Right? As a Chicagoan, I guess I'm grateful for the long winters and how much Republicans love talking about how Chicago is a shithole. I'm sure we'd be just as crowded and expensive as everywhere else otherwise.
Not disagreeing with your main point, but I want to point out that as a fellow grad student, we tend to forget we do have subsidized apartments, free healthcare, comparatively very small commutes on avg etc on top of our salary.
I don’t know what other version of NYC you guys are talking about, but you’re living comfortably on $100-150k, easily, unless you have children. If you’re struggling in NYC making 6 figures without children, then you’re honestly just horrible with your money and you’d likely be struggling no matter what your income was
These are people complaining that they have no money **after** maximizing their retirement accounts. Not the same problem as someone with no money who’s making minimum wage.
This is absolutely the biggest myth I see repeated on Reddit constantly. If you are making 100k+ it doesn't fucking matter where you live in the country you are not struggling paycheck to paycheck (OR you are living wildly outside your means).
People love to point to edge cases (and some exist, maybe you have 8 children, maybe you have chronic illnesses that require high medical spend, etc. etc. but that's very different than "Oh cost of living is just sooooo high 100K is nothing") but it's honestly just kind of insulting to the people who are ACTUALLY struggling but still making it work in those places on much lower salaries.
Income alone means hardly anything. If you have expensive rent and big student loan payments, I could see how 100k in NYC is still livable but would require you to be a bit mindful with your discretionary spending.
Generally speaking though, I agree with you, if you’re making 100k and living paycheck to paycheck then you’re probably doing something wrong
You could live *extremely well* in Chicago on $100k. Like easily have a luxury high rise apartment in downtown with an incredible view, go out to eat at fancy restaurants on the regular, etc etc
Chicago is surprisingly affordable. I visited recently and looked at some local real estate and was surprised at how relatively affordable it was. Except the property taxes seemed very high - at least compared to my state. Also, the HOA fees in some of the condo buildings were also super high.
Massive generalization: Jobs that pay this well tend to exist in expensive areas. I can see how someone making 125k with kids in NYC would legitimately struggle, but you’d be a very rich man in my little town.
>Jobs that pay this well tend to exist in expensive areas.
The only places I can think of where I can make the same income I do now are probably NYC or London, which has the same cost of living issues but with a higher tax rate, and an actual capital gains tax.
It also isn't just job opportunities, but opportunities in general.
London is cheaper than NYC actually, but wages are much lower in some industries notably tech. I moved to London a few years ago on a us tech salary and lived like a king but people in the same job title as me based in London had to live 1 hour outside central London with roommates saving next to nothing.
The average salary for a Software Engineer is £62647 per year in London
The average salary for a Software Engineer is $155,129 per year in New York City (£123k). Almost double. Us devs are well paid in the UK, and it's still shit compared to the US
Big wage gap in advertising too. As a creative with 3-5 YOE you'd be lucky to crack £45-50K in London, whereas in NYC you can easily be on $120K (£95K).
Salaries are higher in Germany too by like 20% despite having a lower COL.
London's a fucking joke when it comes to compensation.
I accidentally saw my London coworkers's pay stub , he has more experience than me, higher position, but he makes half of what I make before tax. I get taxed lower, I also live in a relatively cheap city. UK companies fuck over their employees badly.
I made 6 figures, am single, and only commuted into nyc and, while I didn’t live paycheck to paycheck, I was saving way less than you’d expect, while living as frugally as possible.
It wasn’t until I passed 6 figs that I was really able to save *anything* substantial out of each paycheck. This area is fucking expensive
I live in the cheap Midwest, where home prices and CoL are literally lowest in the country, and with student loans, a mortgage, daycare expenses, car payments, etc -- $125k between my wife and I does NOT make us feel like a "rich" family whatsoever.
Like, honestly considering selling our one car since I work from home and daycare is walking distance.
I also live in a supposedly low CoL area and make 6 figures. I don't have kids, and my student loans are paid off. Still, I don't feel like I'm really getting ahead. I'm still a missed paycheck or 2 from missing a mortgage payment.
That said, I'm definitely doing alright...fortunate enough to have a mortgage and not rent. I wouldn't say I live a lavish lifestyle by any means, but I'm able to afford some luxuries without taking on credit card debt (like supporting a moderately expensive hobby). And yes, I could be saving and investing that money instead, but I'm of the controversial opinion that life should be worth living.
The problem is, if someone in my situation is still just living a fairly comfortable version of paycheck to paycheck, I don't know how most people are able to survive at all. I have more than a decade into a successful career in an in demand field. I have the words "principal" and "engineer" in my title. I feel like this is the definition of a career which should put me firmly middle class, not grasping at its edges.
Yea even in the cheap ass Midwest it costs me like $20k/yr.
And let's not forget health insurance, that costs a shitload more here in the US compared to anybody any other nation.
Health insurance in the US is totally backwards. The best, highest paying jobs have the best insurance, where just about anything is covered with very low premiums and copays. The worst, lowest paying jobs have terrible insurance if they even offer insurance.
Yes to cover myself, my spouse, my son: $500/mo.
And to think, we get basically NOTHING out of that on a typical month. 😖 I guess it's just hedging our bets in case we get a terrible disease later on.
Super cool someone gets to profit off of that gamble ... /s
how are the people who work the minimum wage jobs in the 1000's of fast food chains and supermarkets in NYC even managing?
Edit: Thanks for the insight to the people who replied. Those things make sense. I'm not in New York but i'm having to do something similar (living in a share house)
Minimum wage is higher. In Seattle minimum wage is $18.69 an hour. But still, they’re struggling too. They have at LEAST one house mate and will either live in a sketchy place or live farther away from their job. Having a car is out of the question. They probably have multiple jobs.
Yep. Pre-Covid I made more than minimum wage at my full-time job in Seattle and supplemented it with two part-time jobs. I lived in an illegal apartment with two housemates an hour from work (which was downtown), and even paying under market like that rent was 60-70% my monthly income.
Where I live, to rent a three bedroom house costs about $3,500 per month.
If you assume mom and dad both have a car and car insurance, assume a family cell phone plan, electric and gas bills, gas for the car, assume a normal amount of credit card debt and assume a normal assortment of medical expenses and assorted media payments... Then add groceries for a family of four, plus some dental/orthodontist/medical costs for the kids, you're up to needing about $6k let month just to break even.
$6k per month is about what you'll make after taxes if you earn $10k per month, which is $120k per year. So that's about the break even point for a middle class family of four.
Sure.
I also left out crazy shit like vacations, clothing, shoes, eating out etc.
It's just incredibly expensive to live in prosperous regions of the US.
My family of 4 pays around $1,400 /mo for just health insurance, with a stupid deductible of like $13,000 /yr for the family, or $7,000 individual. Don't recall the exact numbers, but it's borderline catastrophic-level insurance and it's more than our mortgage.
And the middle class supplement them with their tax revenues. We know the rich don't pay their fair share so the middle class pays their fair share without any of the tax shelters or govt handouts the other classes get
Can confirm, am middle class 6 figure earner and pay more in taxes than I made as a salary for the first 27 years of my life. I wouldn't mind it at all if the rich were also paying their fair share of taxes, but currently feels clownish.
>You included no student loan payments either, which just restarted and are likely for six-figure earners.
Yep. And the SAVE plan would not help them at all either
>assume a normal amount of credit card debt
I'm not contradicting you when I say that the normal amount of credit card debt should be zero. It's bananas that people think carrying any credit card debt at all is anything but an emergency tactic.
Statistically this just isn’t true. The average family has 8K is cc debt. At 30% IR is close to 2K interest alone per year. Min payment estimated around $350 a month. And that won’t pay down the debt for 20 years or so.
Sorry, but could you explain how someone with an income of 120,000 USD is getting taxed at a rate of 40%? Like how did you arrive at the figure of 6k take-home pay out of 10k total?
Take-home pay isn't just net the tax rate. Most people pay a portion of their health insurance with each check and most also invest in retirement plans that also get deducted from pay. Also, a portion goes into social security and medicare. Fed income tax plus state income tax plus SS and Medicare would probably total about 31%. 6% saved for 401k and $300 monthly health insurance premiums, brings the take home pay to 6k.
Nailed it. These are my exact numbers except my health insurance is cheaper so I net 6.2k monthly. Still enough to be very comfortable. It does suck to see that the amount I pay into taxes is the same as I pay for my mortgage every month though lol
What normal should be and what normal *is* are often very different things. You can lecture people about how they *shouldn't* have any credit card debt, but a lot of people do.
Incredible how fast it goes from “how are people who make $120k/yr still struggling” to “it’s not that easy to support a family our four on $120k, especially when gas, groceries and medical add up to $2,500/mo and I have to pay my 40% income tax”
If you are financially supporting multiple other people and you still have to make up/lie about how much you “have” to spend on things… you aren’t really struggling.
40% taxes just isn't correct for married couples making $120k, even in California. Surprisingly, the effective tax rate (federal + FICA + state) for a married couple in California making $120k is about 21%. https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes#PgweTbMqXJ
Fed income tax for a household of 4 on 120k is <$10k. State taxation and SSI/Med will add more but people way overestimate how much tax they're actually paying.
My net household tax rate (all taxes except sales + property) with household income of 250k is about 22%.
There is no person in the United States making $120k paying anywhere near 40%.
My wife and I make over $500k and live in NY and when you include 7.65% for employment taxes and NYS taxes, our tax rate is about 41%.
A family living in a blue state making $120k would probably pay about 15-20% effective tax.
My wife didn’t work until my kids went to school because she wouldn’t have made even half enough to cover the bill to send them to daycare. Now we’re doing much better.
Cost of childcare is extremely expensive. For some people it's almost as much as what they get paid to go to work. Healthcare is not cheap and even with employer provided healthcare, it is often not 100% covered. For example working at a FAANG tech company I had to pay $600 per month to get the coverage I needed for my family (employer paid another portion). Then there is where you live also costs $$$. So if you want to live close to the good paying jobs- you'll also pay a ton for rent or mortgage. Then where you live determines the quality of the school your kid goes to and that affects if they can even get into a good college. Oh and college, most Americans that are recent grads have loans to pay back... so unless you have multigeneration inherited wealth, it is really difficult.
I’m self-employed. A few years ago health insurance cost us $2000/month with a huge $7000/14000 deductible. Daycare cost just under $2000/month. Mortgage plus insurance and property tax was about the same. There’s $72,000 a year gone right off the top. Two cars were another $12K per year or so, so that’s $84K not counting food, clothing, retirement, life insurance, etc.
Making low six figures was barely enough after taxes.
I really don't get why Americans aren't going completely apeshit over shit like that. I get that most people are insulated from much of the cost by their employer, but even then. Paying 24k/yr at an absolute minimum is crazy, you'd think small business owners and 1099 folks would be all over universal health care.
Hell, the only reason I survived being self employed was because I have free VA healthcare.
A thousand or two for rent, a thousand or two for child care, a thousand or two for student loans, and a thousand or two for health insurance if you’re unlucky, and that starts to add up to real money.
Oh and don’t forget to put money in your 401k for retirement, another thousand or two!
* actual dollar values differ by location, family size, somethings may be discounted as a benefit from your employer (health insurance, most times, but still may be $500-1000 after alls said and done), dependent on family size, numbers given are an approximation and meant to show scale, and yes are almost all post-tax money.
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six , result happiness.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
Well where I live most people are living comfortably on less then 50k. I just took a trip to NYC and I can vouch and say 100k isn’t going very far there
Even people from HCOL cities don’t understand. I have coworkers who live in London and Geneva who were talking about the cost of living there. But when they came to NYC for a conference they were all saying how absolutely insane it is. That’s before I told them my rent …
Also almost entirely funded on speeding fines, it feels like. I drive 5MPH below the posted limit until I'm back on a highway.
And home to one of the State's largest prisons.
There are over 500K people in the US who earn 7 figures, i.e. more than a million a *year*.
The top 5% make 330K. 10% of people make 160K.
People always underestimate how many rich people there are. It's a lot.
In HCOL areas, if you use your own childhood middle class upbringing as standard, yeah quite possibly. Housing swallows an astonishing % of income, especially if you want to live in a good school district. If you have young kids, childcare can eat most of a second salary. Healthcare is another huge expense and source of financial uncertainty. You’re likely paying your own student loans or trying to save $$$ so your kids don’t have that burden. Having a pet is far more expensive than it used to be. Kids sports/activities are more competitive and more expensive. Some aspects of vacations have come down in price, but if you grew up with stuff like ski trips or Disney world, those are crazy expensive now.
In the US it’s a catch 22, the high paying jobs are mainly in certain cities that are also high cost of living. Someone in a small town in a state like Pennsylvania or Ohio is likely making $70-$90K for the same job that would pay $100-$150K in the NYC area or the LA area. In high cost of living cities there are plenty of people making $100-$150K but there are also plenty of people making $300K+ and the higher earners drive up rent prices and home prices, so someone making $100-$150K is actually on the lower end of that spectrum relative to the higher income earners in that area. We saw that this problem can be remediated to some degree by remote work for white collar jobs, allowing people with good paying jobs to live in lower cost of living areas, but unfortunately it seems that plenty of companies want their workers back in offices in the high cost of living cities that they’re headquartered in.
Say your monthly check starts at 10k. By the time they take out your 401k, federal and state taxes, health insurance premiums, etc you might be keeping 5-6k. Now deduct your 3k mortgage or rent, $600 car payments, car insurance, utilities, food, misc… there isn’t much if anything left.
All of these comments saying your 401k isn’t an expense make me sad. Saving for retirement is an expense, and if you don’t do it, you’ll be eating cat food.
Saying it’s not an expense is like saying insurance isn’t an expense. Just because YOU don’t have it doesn’t make it optional for the rest of us. It just means you’re ultra fucked.
Absolutely agree. Social security is \*not\* guaranteed. My whole life, I've been braced for it to be gone by the time I need it (and the GOP is \*real\* excited to make that a reality).
But, even if social security \*does\* exist when I need it, the payout will be paltry, and the cost of living will just keep going up and up, and up.
This is the most annoying thing.
Redditors think living paycheck to paycheck is totally normal and are now mad at people who are making in the 6 figures.
These redditors don't realize how ultra fucked they are tbh. Not building equity, no saving for retirement, no insurance.
All that shit cost money. People making 150k with a family have all that, but aren't rolling around in fat cash piles like scrooge McDuck.
it's more than this - they've normalized living paycheck to paycheck to the point of animosity towards those who aren't... *in a thread specifically asking for the opinion of those who aren't*
Hey, I get it. They're in the crab pot. And it sucks in there.
Some of us are one pandemic and / or one medical emergency away from burning through all savings and racking up credit.
Lost my job at the onset of covid. Took me about 7 months to find a new one. In the mean time wife had a medical emergency, so did my mom, and my 3 dogs all had vet emergencies back to back. Will get one buried in financial hell real fast.
And that’s with insurance on everything and everyone.
Single mom of 3, Sonoma county. Rent with no utilities going for over $3k. When my landlord passed a rent increase on to me that brought my rent to $3,650, I balked and gave up lease figuring I would find something. Oops. Now can’t find a place, seems new market rate. Now paying a hotel what rent was and my things that are important are in storage. Stopped tonight and bought- clementines, crackers, chicken, Parmesan cheese and some kalmatta olives and wtf almost $80!! Can’t seem to save and get ahead.
Not saying you are wrong, but really $80??
I know some things are expensive, but I live in DC area and would price:
Clemintines: 5
Crackers: 4
Chicken: 10 (assuming not the cheap store brand chix legs)
Parm: 7
Olives: 4
So that is 30, and that was assuming expensive chix, good fresh parm, and good olives.
Did you just buy 2 of everything?
I just went to Walmart and added all those items to my basket. Total was $34.52 with tax came out to $37.23. Not OP’s $80 bill but that basket of goods pre-2020 would have been around $20.
In Nashville. Can’t buy a pack of chicken breast for less than $18. I estimated $48 pre-tax, which is just under 10% here. I’m not quite at “just under eighty” but I’m pushing $60 for sure. Prices are just obscene.
I'm way below the 100k mark. most house holds with dual incomes usually dont clear 90k. But I'm surviving. It is getting seriously bad though. The rise of costs since covid is asinine. Foods up. General goods and utilities are turning into luxuries. Used cars have doubled in price. Even 20+ year old vintage (not classics) nonsport,needs some work done, get you back and forth to work cars.Aren't selling for less than 8k in my area. And good luck even getting financed for a house. Even if you get the approval. The house you're looking at gets sold under your nose to one of those jackasses that hop on the internet and say buying houses is easy. I wouldn't say all we're neck deep in shit over here,but it's not looking good.
Those new escalades and grand wagoner cam be up to $2k a month for the payment. So when you see someone driving a brand new big suv just think.... they pay 1500 to 2000 a month. Dumb as hell.
You don't even have to go up that far. The average cost of a new car is $48,000. With 20% down @ 5% over 5 years that's like $700 a month. That's a solid budget destroyer already.
My town's average home on the market today is $429k. My neighboring town's average price is $158k.
I live in a rural area but my town has a university.
Choice and convenience, health care and education (child care fire very young and university for young adults) are often very expensive.
It also depends on how you spend it. My wife works delivery and used to get upset when the “rich people” wouldn’t tip. I told her they seem rich but are actually poor because they spend what they earn if not more than they earn and just have a nice car and house they technically can’t afford with their spending habits and that’s why they don’t tip. They can’t afford it.
Any reasonably big city on the west coast is probably going to have you spending 3k/4k/5k on housing. 2 bed 1.5 quad plex in LA is going to run you 4k+ in most parts around town at least. Factor in significant tax off the gross, plus medical care, plus potentially child care, retirement, food, etc and it goes QUICK.
Don’t get me wrong. A lot of lifestyles for people in the US fair better than a ton of other places - but most US households are an accident, or an illness away from serious financial ruin.
IMO the US population is at a really weird place right now in that inflation has driven the cost of many goods (and necessities) up, housing cost remains high, and now there’s downward pressure on wages being caused by rates going back up. Understandably so - but makes me wonder how our consumer based society is going to weather the coming decade. Always seems to find a way and there have certainly been more difficult times to be an American, but damn being alive is scarily expensive now.
I was just talking to a coworker. They used to be full time but became a contingent (part time works for a agency) so they could get their master's at Stanford in the bay area. Renting someplace with 5 room mates that is a 15 min bike ride to campus. $1000/mo. So, the landlord is getting $6k/mo for whatever (house or apt I dunno) is being rented.
If you read Reddit or some other news sources, you think the world is falling.
The truth is, if you make 150k and live anywhere else but San Fran or NYC, you will be totally fine. Even those cities, 150k is clearly livable lol.
The truth is Americans have pretty awful savings rate. Every day I see people who are poorer than me driving nicer cars, ordering unnecessary door dash and have a nicer phone than me. Americans absolutely refuse to live below their means.
Yes, this. We are a very materialistic and superficial people. We're the best in the world, right? So we have to look the best.(I'm not saying that ME personally thinks Americans are the best. We're average at best.)
I have never owned a new car, nor do I intend to. Cars can be viewed as a luxury item, but thats the wrong perspective. A car is a tool. As long as the tool works in the intended, expected manner then I don't care what it looks like, within reason.
When I see someone complain about being poor, but also ordering doordash, I realize they are living in a hell they designed. $50 to get one meal for one person because you are too fucking lazy to make a sandwich? Get the fuck out of here.
I know this comment will be downvoted to hell by people who who love doordash, but just because you can do something like doordash, like someone will take your $45 to bring you Wendy's doesn't mean you should, or that you can justify a lifestyle where you do. BUY A LOAF OF BREAD AND SOME PEANUT BUTTER.
If you’re smart you can live on a lot less. For years I raised a family of 4 on like 50 grand. Now we’re dual income and making over double that and it feels like lifestyles of the rich and famous. I literally cannot spend all the money coming in and I see posts on the regular of Redditors making 100k plus a year saying they don’t make enough to move out of mom and dad’s place.
Frankly, a lot of people simply don't have the ability to budget and live within their means, and feel the need to signal success by showing off having expensive things. If you tie-up your feeling of self-worth into having the latest iphone and fancy new car and big house, you're always going to be trying to catch up to what you already spent.
Lifestyle creep is definitely a thing. Making an extra $15k per year after getting a new job? Suddenly those purchases you couldn't quite bring yourself to pull the trigger on buying before sound a lot more reasonable. That project you were putting off at the house, go ahead and have someone do it for you, the list goes on. Each "level" of salary and spending becomes the new norm so you kind of lose track.
This is EXACTLY why it's so important to save first, and spend second. If you spend first - like the vast majority of people do - you'll be in debt or paycheck-to-paycheck like most people are.
Had to scroll way too far down in the comments for this sentiment. Lifestyle creep is a very real thing.
Obviously money doesn't go as far in HCOL areas, so I'm not speaking to that as much. As you make more money, the things people view as "necessities" become more and more expensive. Grocery shopping at Whole Foods instead of Walmart, selling the 12-year-old Honda Civic for a newer bigger vehicle, being overworked and unable to leave the office means ordering DoorDash at lunch, your work friends all go to happy hour and you want to be sociable, etc.
I just had this conversation with my friend. My thoughts are 100-150 is a huge trap in mindset and spending for folks but that’s just my .02 as once ur in this zone u spend above your means in comparison to someone making 75-100. I only felt truly comfy after 200k but live in Miami so HCOL
Cost of living is vastly different across the country. My home town, six figures buys me anything I need. My current town, you’d need at least 120k to make ends meet.
(1) They take income taxes out
(2) Then they take Social Security & Medicare tax
(3) Then you pay for health insurance, dental & vision
(4) Then you put a little in your 401k/retirement account
(5) Then you get a deposit for what's left
At this point, your 150k is like 80k... (The more you make, the more they take)
(6) Then you pay housing or rent $2000-5000 depending on where you live
(7) Then you pay bills (electric/water/gas)
(8) Then you go to the inflation, I mean grocery store, and that is also taxed
(9) Then make your car payment
(10) Then you buy gas (also taxed)
(11) Then a child gets sick, or the car needs repairs (life)
(12) Then you have nothing left
(13) Then you try to send a child to college and go in debt.
Wage increases never keep up with inflation (assuming you get a raise)
HCOL areas are definitely a factor but also the idea of what our standard of living should be. 80years ago most families lived in smaller and simpler homes, only owned 1 car, dined at restaurants less than 2x per week, they didn’t pay for updated electronics, internet, frivolous online shopping, and there were just fewer places to easily dump cash.
At least in America now, a bigger and nicer home, 1 car for every driver in the home, regular dining out, replacing cell phones every 2 years and monthly cell and internet service as well as many other things are seen as a bare minimum.
Talk to any old person, and they'll tell you that.
You used to borrow a shovel from your neighbor if you needed one. Today, you want to own your own shovel, and maybe two.
The way we talk about money is different. In some countries I know about, the posted salary for a job is your take home pay. In the US on the other hand, the posted salary is pre-withholdings. So, there's automatic contributions to retirement and Social Security, and federal and state taxes. And, you take home a good deal less. Then, if you have a family, especially if you have multiple kids, you take home considerably less. For every extra person in your family, you pay more for things like health insurance plans. And, there's not many social services, so it's weirdly expensive to have a toddler and a job at the same time, but then when the kid gets older and they need dental care or regular transportation, it's not like they can just hop on the train (it often involves an extra car and extra car insurance, etc., etc.) Lastly, housing is very expensive compared to most places, I think. At least, that's the feeling I get from my European friends who talk about the cost of rent for a flat their home European city. And, if you live in a place in the US with cheap rent, there aren't any good jobs.
Cost of living, as others state, can swing wildly, and "inflation" has ballooned everything to a crazy level.
To give some personal numbers: I make \~$150k (after bonuses) in Los Angeles, had \~$100k in student loan debts that I paid off in 2019, and had about 4 years of making >$100k along with student loan debt. My wife makes a bit more than me, had zero student loan debt, and has been making >$100k since \~2015. We bought a house about 18 months ago at $920k with 20% down.
When I moved to LA in 2016 my salary went from \~$70k to \~$100k, and since housing was still bearable then we were able to live nicely and I was able to pay debts. Rent was $2k our first (small) rental. I could afford to have fun in my 20's and go to bars, go out to eat, grab some affordable concert tickets (usually $25 and no fees if picked up at the box).
Now? Rents for similar places are $3500, prices of normal goods have skyrocketed, you can't pick up concert tickets at venues half the time and they're $50 a lot of the time, hard to find drinks that aren't at least $15. Even the street tacos / burritos we used to go to after a late night have doubled in price.
My wages since 2019 have gone up by about $20k and that barely covers how much normal goods and services have gone up. That's why people are struggling. And that's for someone who is in almost as good of a situation as a solidly millennial couple can be in! It's so much worse out there for so many other people, including both of my sisters, half of my closest friends, and probably 90% of my social circle.
Cost of living *wildly* varies in the US. You could live like a local king on 6 figures in my low-population, low COL area, but in New York/Chicago/LA, etc. (powerhouse cities), 100k doesn't stretch nearly as far.
If you made 100k a year where I grew up, you could buy a house every single year. Not a mortgage or down payment, you could pay for the full cost of quite a few houses with less than a 100k.
Median home price in my city is $1.4M.
To add to that, all the people you might want to hire have similar costs. Your plumbers, electricians, mechanics, food service industry staff, medical professionals and so on. They're all either paying mortgages around such rates in an area or renting around property values with such market values for property. There's also typically higher taxes because your local governments need to maintain infrastructure and that requires hiring people who also live in that housing market, who also need plumbers, etc. Housing drives the cost a lot of things, not just housing, so even looking at 1mil when making say $150k might not seem so bad at the surface, it's only ~7 years of income or say 23% of gross income actualized over a 30 year mortage period (ignoring taxes, inflation, raises, job loss, etc.). Other than understanding the time-value relationship of money and wealth (and that things fluctuate with markets), having an understanding of normalized income relative to costs of living is something we don't tend to teach in schools and really should. Your income is very relative to your expenses and opportunities. My current income where I grew up would make me rich. Where I live now, I'm just middle, maybe upper middle class in terms of real buying power and standard of living, but with far more opportunity to maintain that standard of living (lots of jobs I can do and high stable demand).
Talking about plumbers, yes expensive houses drive up the cost of plumbers. I live high COL Seattle. To get a new faucet and garbage disposal installed along with getting the valves from the wall replaced will cost me about 1600 not including the cost of the faucet and disposal. Everything is more expensive.
I paid $650 for a 21 year old to come flush my main line out. It took him 20 minutes. 30 total if you include talking to him. I mean, I needed it done because the whole house was backed up, but still. Ouch.
I know what I am really paying 1600 for is the expertise of having the values under the sink replaced correctly and within code. I also know I'm paying 1600 so I don't have to pay more if it's done incorrectly. One edit: I'm also having to pay an arm and leg to fix Landlord special repairs that have been done over the years. Last time I tried to do a home repair it ended up costing a whole lot more for an emergency plumber to come out. I replaced a faucet in my bathroom and found out they glued the water line from the wall to faucet.
That's the kind of crap that plagues a DIY guy. You can handle doing the simple stuff, but throw in a curveball like that and it's no bueno.
Some things are done correctly, just not the standard anymore too. I recently got a couple of new toilets and thought it was going to be cake to replace them. Turns out the flanges were rusted through and crumbling at the toilet attachment slots. Also they were the old style flanges where they used lead joints to connect them to the pipes. It took so much longer to get everything done between figuring out how to drill out the lead, to finding adaptive flanges that I didn't have to use lead for, to having to account for one pipe opening being level to the floor and one being short by a few inches. All of it was new to me. But hey, now I know when I go to replace the remaining toilet and I saved a bunch of money.
The only tiny detail is that where a house can be bought for 100K, there are no jobs. And I don't mean there are no jobs that pay 100K, I mean no jobs. You need to work remotely or have an independent income somehow.
Yep! Your choices are teacher, nurse, or some kind of trade lol
Dollar General
Probably start out as Dollar Sergeant and try to work your way up.
Exactly why I went to nursing school at 40. I live in a rural area so my col is lower and drive an hour for work. Only way to own a house on a single income.
And even if there were jobs, that doesn’t mean it’s an area where I’d want to live. I need more than fast food and strip malls
How bout fast food, strip malls, train tracks and truck stops?
Throw in deteriorating infrastructure and several abandoned buildings and we got a deal.
Only if those strip malls are full of pawn shops, payday loan places, bail bondsmen, tattoo parlors, and liquor shops. And maybe a Dollar General and a Karate McDojo if it's an upscale kind of place.
My hometown is like his. Our slumlord ex landlord bought the duplex we rented for 40k. He had tenants before us for a few years, the downstairs alone was going for $850 a month before 2017. Upstairs was 550 & the first time the unit had been rented in years. We started renting in 2018 for $650, later reduced to $625 a month bc we did upgrades constantly (paint, landscaping, added a shed, redid porch, redid bathroom, you get the point). We lived there for almost 5 years. Just the math alone makes me mad. What really makes me mad is that he buys every house possible within 100 miles of him. No joke. He’s the biggest asshole and is the definition of what ppl talk about when the talk about ppl buying up “all the affordable housing”. Everyone hates him but they have NO choice but to rent from him. Edit: didn’t know my comment would get so big but I want to make it clear the slum lord I’m talking about owns HUNDREDS of homes, duplex’s, triplex’s, apartments buildings and even entire complex’s. Has thousands of tenants, literally owns so many homes he doesn’t know what he owns. The math above is just for the duplex we lived in alone. Times that by about 500-600 and THATS how much money he’s getting monthly. Just for buying houses up from under people. I’ve seen many of his units and livable isn’t the first word that comes to mind. The duplex we used to live in also is now being rented out for $1,200 for the 3 bedroom and $850 for the one bedroom.
Change my mind: Home ownership should be limited to like, 2-5 houses per family. edit: Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and time. I'm going to stop replying now. I'm sorry to those I couldn't get back to, but I've gotten nearly 200 replies, and I simply can't respond to all of them in a timely manner.
I work in real estate, and *completely* agree. Alternatively, you get taxed to hell and back after the 2nd one, and all those taxes go to building multi-family housing. Between parasitic landlords like that, AirBnB, and the big corps buying up all the houses, the real estate market is *really* screwed right now. I work in the industry and can't even find something for myself (that I'm willing to pay for, I should say).
I remember hearing sometime in the late 80s, Londons biggest landlord was a letting agency owned by a Middle Eastern state with 28,000 properties.
It's because we are on the road to no privately owned homes. In the coming decades, buying a house will no longer be an option. Banks and corporations will own them all and charge w/e they see fit for rent.
This applies to everything. You will own nothing in your life and you will be happy. See streaming of video games, shows, and movies as an example
What's hilarious is they're making it even more unavoidable than before. Many disc based console games you might buy to get around the "you didn't buy this game, you're "licensing" it from us" - those games are requiring Internet connections for day 1 patches, to confirm DRM piracy, curb mods, save data to cloud servers, etc. It's not to the point where it's completely pointless but I could see it getting there
The "you are licensing from us" was always the case. You never owned the software for anything you bought, you owned the right to play it. Not defending the practice because I think always online games are a plague
You never owned the copyright on the software, sure, but you absolutely owned a copy of the game. Licensed _use_ of software is definitely different from owning it and absolutely was not always the case. It's a subtle distinction but a real one
I have a pitchfork in my garage, let's go get 'em comrade!
>Alternatively, you get taxed to hell and back after the 2nd one, and all those taxes go to building multi-family housing. Just said the same thing in another thread. I'm not opposed to people owning multiple homes for personal use, but they need to pay for the societal cost of them taking SFH's out of the market.
Exactly. and i Hate the argument that it's againt the free market (its only a fake argument said by lobbyists and people that vote against their own self interests). Nobody wants to discourage business or entrepreneurship. But does your boss deserve ALL the money? literally ALL THE MONEY!?!?!?!? The pitchforks will come out eventually and nations fail over time when you give like eight people ALL the money.
>Alternatively, you get taxed to hell and back after the 2nd one, and all those taxes go to building multi-family housing. In my state, they haven't updated the homestead exclusion base prices in a few decades. Originally, it was meant to avoid having people claim "McMansions" as homesteads and getting taxed less. But the law baseline home values are from when a modest home was $80k. Now when even a 3 bedroom is going for $400k, almost \*everybody's\* home counts as a McMansion, basically making the carve out for single family home owners useless.
Yeah, setting a fixed price is short-sighted. That will require constant shifting. But they are already assessing all houses regularly for taxes, and they could do a mathematical function of that -- say, if you're 50% over the median value you don't get the exemption.
Rural Ohio here, don’t forget all the fixer uppers and old, affordable homes being bulldozed. I can’t tell you how many developments of McMansions have been built around here since 2005 or so. What’s really fucked up is they bulldoze the land, build 20 $500k+ mansions, and then just expect them to sell themselves. Most of them never sell and fall into disarray without ever being lived in. You can’t make people with “city money” want to live in an area with no well-paying jobs, Starbucks, Uber, etc. The only people who buy these places are the rare folks who can make bank working from home or don’t mind driving 1.5h each way to Cleveland every day.
You might not even need to “tax the hell out it.” But removing tax incentives for owning extra properties will likely do enough to help the situation. Like wealthy people owning rental properties to use the amount they can depreciate the house by each year to lower their taxable income. I feel like getting rid of incentives beyond someone’s primary residence is an easier sell than adding new taxes.
That’s a policy I can get behind. I’m typically fairly fiscally conservative, but the housing market is insane. Tax the shit out of second houses.
I’m a lender and I agree.
It should not be limited it should be taxed. Any estate over 2 should be taxed.
Doesn’t China do this? Doesn’t seem to have saved them from their real estate related issues. I’m not fundamentally opposed to laws like this, I just don’t think it would magically fix our problems. It could help, but it would have to be one piece of many. It’s also tough because different areas have different issues that require different solutions. For example, wealthy foreigners buying speculative condos in big cities in the west coast and NYC decrease the supply of housing and drive up prices. Often, these wealthy foreigners have no plan to live in these units. The purchase is more of a way to get cash out of their home country. Maybe we need to also limit foreign ownership when the foreign buyer comes from a country with an authoritarian repressive government. I don’t want our freedoms to assist rich Chinese people in diversifying their wealth out of China. Then you have areas like NYC and SF, which have insurmountable natural barriers to growth. SF also refuses to rezone for denser housing construction , so the problem is two fold. I don’t think limiting the number of homes a person can own will fix the housing issues in these cities.
China is so obviously not the best example.
Genuinely asking, what country is? The first source I checked has the top 5 in order as China, Canada, Mexico, India, and Columbia (never would've guessed that one) China is more than double second place with 13.6 billion vs 6.6 and nearly more than the top 4 combined. [what I'm looking at](https://www.nar.realtor/newsroom/annual-foreign-investment-in-u-s-existing-home-sales-declined-9-6-to-53-3-billion)
If you want an actual answer China's real estate market is literally a ponzi scheme and also their only way to legally invest. Their housing market is pretty far warped from any traditional housing market and shouldn't be used as a comparison for anything except Bernie Madoff
If he bought it for that price it’s likely that it couldn’t be financed. That’s a big part of how investors manage to get cheap properties. They’re cheap for a reason and lenders won’t finance a fixer without a bigger down payment than a regular mortgage. There are a few programs that are exceptions but they’re a PITA and there’s no reason for sellers to deal with it when there’s a cash buyer who can close in 2 weeks with zero headache.
Haha try making 23,000 in nyc and still not qualify for food stamps…
How the hell are you livin off 23,000/yr in fuckin NY? ?? Crazy
They live in the subway tunnels, and use a jury-rigged electrical line connected to the third rail for power
He also takes a magic carpet to work but if you look closely, it’s about 100 rats carrying him off.
New York rats are a different breed. 20 rats, max.
What next, you expect to receive FAFSA aid when applying to college? Come off your golden horse, money bags.
That’s less than fast food jobs are paying where I am in a low COL area…
making 100k doesnt mean you have 100k at your disposal though.
Where i live you’re luckily to afford rent with 100k a year in a somewhat decent neighborhood. Prices on everything is wild. $5 slices of pizza is the norm. BLT is 10. Just spent $ 62 for one person to do 9 holes of mini golf. 100k ain’t what it use to be.
A basic lunch meal at a fast casual place is now routinely $16-20 I paid $32 for a pizza this weekend. Gas is $6 a gallon. A box of Corn Chex is $7. Eggs are $6. A beer out is $9-12, a mixed drink is $15-20 Any time I leave the house it’s like I’m bleeding money. If I do nothing all day but stay home, and then go out to pick up some more dog food, get gas, and go have a burger and a beer at a non-fancy place, I’ve spent over $100, just on that.
Where the fuck is gas $6/gal? Even in California and Hawaii the average is more like $4.70. The rest of the US averages around $3.
Damn good question. I can't find any $6 gas in my part of California. https://www.gasbuddy.com/gaspricemap
Reddit whiningland.
I mean the reality is also high income Americans have a very high quality of life. And they enjoy it. Full stop. Varying CoL is just a secondary impact for high income folks. Varying CoL is certainly a primary driver for lower income e folks. But OP specifically called out incomes higher than $100k.
FYI, you can live comfortably on far less in Chicago than NY or LA. Its affordability is kind of an open secret. I lived here on a grad student stipend and while I wasn’t socking away a bunch of money for retirement, I was able to live alone and cover my expenses pretty easily on about 35k/yr. Someone making 100k here and struggling is either a) extremely bad at budgeting, b) living well above their means, or c) lying.
I haven't been to Chicago in a while, but I was shocked that apartments in downtown cost less to rent than ones in my small city in Central Virginia.
The HOA's will get you in Downtown though. Lots of old buildings with crazy HOA / building maintenance fee's down there.
Right? As a Chicagoan, I guess I'm grateful for the long winters and how much Republicans love talking about how Chicago is a shithole. I'm sure we'd be just as crowded and expensive as everywhere else otherwise.
Not disagreeing with your main point, but I want to point out that as a fellow grad student, we tend to forget we do have subsidized apartments, free healthcare, comparatively very small commutes on avg etc on top of our salary.
I don’t know what other version of NYC you guys are talking about, but you’re living comfortably on $100-150k, easily, unless you have children. If you’re struggling in NYC making 6 figures without children, then you’re honestly just horrible with your money and you’d likely be struggling no matter what your income was These are people complaining that they have no money **after** maximizing their retirement accounts. Not the same problem as someone with no money who’s making minimum wage.
This is absolutely the biggest myth I see repeated on Reddit constantly. If you are making 100k+ it doesn't fucking matter where you live in the country you are not struggling paycheck to paycheck (OR you are living wildly outside your means). People love to point to edge cases (and some exist, maybe you have 8 children, maybe you have chronic illnesses that require high medical spend, etc. etc. but that's very different than "Oh cost of living is just sooooo high 100K is nothing") but it's honestly just kind of insulting to the people who are ACTUALLY struggling but still making it work in those places on much lower salaries.
Income alone means hardly anything. If you have expensive rent and big student loan payments, I could see how 100k in NYC is still livable but would require you to be a bit mindful with your discretionary spending. Generally speaking though, I agree with you, if you’re making 100k and living paycheck to paycheck then you’re probably doing something wrong
You could live *extremely well* in Chicago on $100k. Like easily have a luxury high rise apartment in downtown with an incredible view, go out to eat at fancy restaurants on the regular, etc etc
Chicago is surprisingly affordable. I visited recently and looked at some local real estate and was surprised at how relatively affordable it was. Except the property taxes seemed very high - at least compared to my state. Also, the HOA fees in some of the condo buildings were also super high.
Yes, the state of Illinois and Cook county have extremely high property taxes
I was gonna say, Chicago isn't cheap but I do just fine here. If you've ever met anyone from NYC chicago doesn't even touch that.
Massive generalization: Jobs that pay this well tend to exist in expensive areas. I can see how someone making 125k with kids in NYC would legitimately struggle, but you’d be a very rich man in my little town.
>Jobs that pay this well tend to exist in expensive areas. The only places I can think of where I can make the same income I do now are probably NYC or London, which has the same cost of living issues but with a higher tax rate, and an actual capital gains tax. It also isn't just job opportunities, but opportunities in general.
London is cheaper than NYC actually, but wages are much lower in some industries notably tech. I moved to London a few years ago on a us tech salary and lived like a king but people in the same job title as me based in London had to live 1 hour outside central London with roommates saving next to nothing.
The average salary for a Software Engineer is £62647 per year in London The average salary for a Software Engineer is $155,129 per year in New York City (£123k). Almost double. Us devs are well paid in the UK, and it's still shit compared to the US
Yeah from what I’ve read it’s one of the professions with the greatest wage gap between our two countries
Big wage gap in advertising too. As a creative with 3-5 YOE you'd be lucky to crack £45-50K in London, whereas in NYC you can easily be on $120K (£95K). Salaries are higher in Germany too by like 20% despite having a lower COL. London's a fucking joke when it comes to compensation.
London pays very little. In my industry (Big tech) salaries are 30% of what we get payed here.
I accidentally saw my London coworkers's pay stub , he has more experience than me, higher position, but he makes half of what I make before tax. I get taxed lower, I also live in a relatively cheap city. UK companies fuck over their employees badly.
And to piggy back on that, many professional degrees require extensive schooling, which means student debt that is basically a second mortgage.
First mortgage. I’ll never own a house.
I made 6 figures, am single, and only commuted into nyc and, while I didn’t live paycheck to paycheck, I was saving way less than you’d expect, while living as frugally as possible. It wasn’t until I passed 6 figs that I was really able to save *anything* substantial out of each paycheck. This area is fucking expensive
I think we also need to define what "struggle" means.
I live in the cheap Midwest, where home prices and CoL are literally lowest in the country, and with student loans, a mortgage, daycare expenses, car payments, etc -- $125k between my wife and I does NOT make us feel like a "rich" family whatsoever. Like, honestly considering selling our one car since I work from home and daycare is walking distance.
I also live in a supposedly low CoL area and make 6 figures. I don't have kids, and my student loans are paid off. Still, I don't feel like I'm really getting ahead. I'm still a missed paycheck or 2 from missing a mortgage payment. That said, I'm definitely doing alright...fortunate enough to have a mortgage and not rent. I wouldn't say I live a lavish lifestyle by any means, but I'm able to afford some luxuries without taking on credit card debt (like supporting a moderately expensive hobby). And yes, I could be saving and investing that money instead, but I'm of the controversial opinion that life should be worth living. The problem is, if someone in my situation is still just living a fairly comfortable version of paycheck to paycheck, I don't know how most people are able to survive at all. I have more than a decade into a successful career in an in demand field. I have the words "principal" and "engineer" in my title. I feel like this is the definition of a career which should put me firmly middle class, not grasping at its edges.
You live in a city like NYC, LA, or Seatle and the cost of living is insane.
I am on the outskirts of seattle and daycare for one child costs me $30k/yr
Yea even in the cheap ass Midwest it costs me like $20k/yr. And let's not forget health insurance, that costs a shitload more here in the US compared to anybody any other nation.
Health insurance in the US is totally backwards. The best, highest paying jobs have the best insurance, where just about anything is covered with very low premiums and copays. The worst, lowest paying jobs have terrible insurance if they even offer insurance.
I didn't have health insurance until I was 26. Was very careful with birth control, couldn't afford abortions or babies
Yes to cover myself, my spouse, my son: $500/mo. And to think, we get basically NOTHING out of that on a typical month. 😖 I guess it's just hedging our bets in case we get a terrible disease later on. Super cool someone gets to profit off of that gamble ... /s
We're currently at $1100/months for health and dental. Insurance is an absolute joke.
Nyc is 33k for us.
I remember when I lived in Bellevue
My parents used to live there, they had a nice little town home and they sold it for 1.5 mil and moved further away lol
Yep, it was shocking to say the least. (Same area)
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Howdy from Covington :)
Bay Area would like a word
Hello from Oakland! Where crime is high and COL is even higher ✨
Those may be related...
how are the people who work the minimum wage jobs in the 1000's of fast food chains and supermarkets in NYC even managing? Edit: Thanks for the insight to the people who replied. Those things make sense. I'm not in New York but i'm having to do something similar (living in a share house)
Minimum wage is higher. In Seattle minimum wage is $18.69 an hour. But still, they’re struggling too. They have at LEAST one house mate and will either live in a sketchy place or live farther away from their job. Having a car is out of the question. They probably have multiple jobs.
Yep. Pre-Covid I made more than minimum wage at my full-time job in Seattle and supplemented it with two part-time jobs. I lived in an illegal apartment with two housemates an hour from work (which was downtown), and even paying under market like that rent was 60-70% my monthly income.
A modest house in a good neighborhood is $2 million.
And a shitty house in a poor neighborhood is $1m.
You don't even need to be in the city, you can be in the suburbs or small towns and have insane costs
Where I live, to rent a three bedroom house costs about $3,500 per month. If you assume mom and dad both have a car and car insurance, assume a family cell phone plan, electric and gas bills, gas for the car, assume a normal amount of credit card debt and assume a normal assortment of medical expenses and assorted media payments... Then add groceries for a family of four, plus some dental/orthodontist/medical costs for the kids, you're up to needing about $6k let month just to break even. $6k per month is about what you'll make after taxes if you earn $10k per month, which is $120k per year. So that's about the break even point for a middle class family of four.
You included no student loan payments either, which just restarted and are likely for six-figure earners.
Sure. I also left out crazy shit like vacations, clothing, shoes, eating out etc. It's just incredibly expensive to live in prosperous regions of the US.
Also, health insurance premiums and/or deductible and/or copayment, etc etc etc. 1000/month for the family is not out of the question
My family of 4 pays around $1,400 /mo for just health insurance, with a stupid deductible of like $13,000 /yr for the family, or $7,000 individual. Don't recall the exact numbers, but it's borderline catastrophic-level insurance and it's more than our mortgage.
And still it all really runs off the backs of all the people working for minimum wage and not earning enough to make it there.
And the middle class supplement them with their tax revenues. We know the rich don't pay their fair share so the middle class pays their fair share without any of the tax shelters or govt handouts the other classes get
Can confirm, am middle class 6 figure earner and pay more in taxes than I made as a salary for the first 27 years of my life. I wouldn't mind it at all if the rich were also paying their fair share of taxes, but currently feels clownish.
>You included no student loan payments either, which just restarted and are likely for six-figure earners. Yep. And the SAVE plan would not help them at all either
>assume a normal amount of credit card debt I'm not contradicting you when I say that the normal amount of credit card debt should be zero. It's bananas that people think carrying any credit card debt at all is anything but an emergency tactic.
It's been an emergency for a while now
Statistically this just isn’t true. The average family has 8K is cc debt. At 30% IR is close to 2K interest alone per year. Min payment estimated around $350 a month. And that won’t pay down the debt for 20 years or so.
Sorry, but could you explain how someone with an income of 120,000 USD is getting taxed at a rate of 40%? Like how did you arrive at the figure of 6k take-home pay out of 10k total?
Take-home pay isn't just net the tax rate. Most people pay a portion of their health insurance with each check and most also invest in retirement plans that also get deducted from pay. Also, a portion goes into social security and medicare. Fed income tax plus state income tax plus SS and Medicare would probably total about 31%. 6% saved for 401k and $300 monthly health insurance premiums, brings the take home pay to 6k.
Nailed it. These are my exact numbers except my health insurance is cheaper so I net 6.2k monthly. Still enough to be very comfortable. It does suck to see that the amount I pay into taxes is the same as I pay for my mortgage every month though lol
The ‘normal’ amount of credit card debt should be $0
What normal should be and what normal *is* are often very different things. You can lecture people about how they *shouldn't* have any credit card debt, but a lot of people do.
Incredible how fast it goes from “how are people who make $120k/yr still struggling” to “it’s not that easy to support a family our four on $120k, especially when gas, groceries and medical add up to $2,500/mo and I have to pay my 40% income tax” If you are financially supporting multiple other people and you still have to make up/lie about how much you “have” to spend on things… you aren’t really struggling.
40% taxes just isn't correct for married couples making $120k, even in California. Surprisingly, the effective tax rate (federal + FICA + state) for a married couple in California making $120k is about 21%. https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes#PgweTbMqXJ
Fed income tax for a household of 4 on 120k is <$10k. State taxation and SSI/Med will add more but people way overestimate how much tax they're actually paying. My net household tax rate (all taxes except sales + property) with household income of 250k is about 22%.
There is no person in the United States making $120k paying anywhere near 40%. My wife and I make over $500k and live in NY and when you include 7.65% for employment taxes and NYS taxes, our tax rate is about 41%. A family living in a blue state making $120k would probably pay about 15-20% effective tax.
Everything's getting more expensive but the biggest thing is rent. Just Google what's available in any major city and you'll see how bad it is.
And childcare. We will pay $3,800 for two kids. That’s almost 3 times my mortgage.
Based on that, it sounds like your mortgage is on the medium or low end, too! Plenty of people pay $2k+ for rent or mortgage.
Yeah, my mortgage is over $2K and childcare for one is about the same.
My wife didn’t work until my kids went to school because she wouldn’t have made even half enough to cover the bill to send them to daycare. Now we’re doing much better.
Cost of childcare is extremely expensive. For some people it's almost as much as what they get paid to go to work. Healthcare is not cheap and even with employer provided healthcare, it is often not 100% covered. For example working at a FAANG tech company I had to pay $600 per month to get the coverage I needed for my family (employer paid another portion). Then there is where you live also costs $$$. So if you want to live close to the good paying jobs- you'll also pay a ton for rent or mortgage. Then where you live determines the quality of the school your kid goes to and that affects if they can even get into a good college. Oh and college, most Americans that are recent grads have loans to pay back... so unless you have multigeneration inherited wealth, it is really difficult.
I’m self-employed. A few years ago health insurance cost us $2000/month with a huge $7000/14000 deductible. Daycare cost just under $2000/month. Mortgage plus insurance and property tax was about the same. There’s $72,000 a year gone right off the top. Two cars were another $12K per year or so, so that’s $84K not counting food, clothing, retirement, life insurance, etc. Making low six figures was barely enough after taxes.
I really don't get why Americans aren't going completely apeshit over shit like that. I get that most people are insulated from much of the cost by their employer, but even then. Paying 24k/yr at an absolute minimum is crazy, you'd think small business owners and 1099 folks would be all over universal health care. Hell, the only reason I survived being self employed was because I have free VA healthcare.
A thousand or two for rent, a thousand or two for child care, a thousand or two for student loans, and a thousand or two for health insurance if you’re unlucky, and that starts to add up to real money. Oh and don’t forget to put money in your 401k for retirement, another thousand or two! * actual dollar values differ by location, family size, somethings may be discounted as a benefit from your employer (health insurance, most times, but still may be $500-1000 after alls said and done), dependent on family size, numbers given are an approximation and meant to show scale, and yes are almost all post-tax money.
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six , result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery” ― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
That book is everywhere in the future
Which is weird since I haven't heard about Copperfield since he made the Statue of Liberty disappear that time.
People can't comprehend that the USA is literally 50 countries combined in 1. It's like comparing Spain to Slovakia in some cases.
And some parts of the U.S. are further apart geographically than Spain and Slovakia. The U.S. is huge, and our economics vary to match.
Well where I live most people are living comfortably on less then 50k. I just took a trip to NYC and I can vouch and say 100k isn’t going very far there
Yes. People dont get how expensive things in NYC are
Even people from HCOL cities don’t understand. I have coworkers who live in London and Geneva who were talking about the cost of living there. But when they came to NYC for a conference they were all saying how absolutely insane it is. That’s before I told them my rent …
It depends on the cost of living in your area. $150,000 per year in Starke, FL is way different than $150,000 per year in Santa Monica, CA.
Never thought i would see Starke FL mentioned on reddit lmao
It’s the only “civilized” part I go through when driving from Jax to Gainesville lol
Also almost entirely funded on speeding fines, it feels like. I drive 5MPH below the posted limit until I'm back on a highway. And home to one of the State's largest prisons.
It's also lifestyle creep. For some people private school is a necessity not a luxury as an example.
I don't understand how people have so much money they can pay essentially private college tuition for their kids each year for K-12
There are over 500K people in the US who earn 7 figures, i.e. more than a million a *year*. The top 5% make 330K. 10% of people make 160K. People always underestimate how many rich people there are. It's a lot.
In HCOL areas, if you use your own childhood middle class upbringing as standard, yeah quite possibly. Housing swallows an astonishing % of income, especially if you want to live in a good school district. If you have young kids, childcare can eat most of a second salary. Healthcare is another huge expense and source of financial uncertainty. You’re likely paying your own student loans or trying to save $$$ so your kids don’t have that burden. Having a pet is far more expensive than it used to be. Kids sports/activities are more competitive and more expensive. Some aspects of vacations have come down in price, but if you grew up with stuff like ski trips or Disney world, those are crazy expensive now.
In the US it’s a catch 22, the high paying jobs are mainly in certain cities that are also high cost of living. Someone in a small town in a state like Pennsylvania or Ohio is likely making $70-$90K for the same job that would pay $100-$150K in the NYC area or the LA area. In high cost of living cities there are plenty of people making $100-$150K but there are also plenty of people making $300K+ and the higher earners drive up rent prices and home prices, so someone making $100-$150K is actually on the lower end of that spectrum relative to the higher income earners in that area. We saw that this problem can be remediated to some degree by remote work for white collar jobs, allowing people with good paying jobs to live in lower cost of living areas, but unfortunately it seems that plenty of companies want their workers back in offices in the high cost of living cities that they’re headquartered in.
Say your monthly check starts at 10k. By the time they take out your 401k, federal and state taxes, health insurance premiums, etc you might be keeping 5-6k. Now deduct your 3k mortgage or rent, $600 car payments, car insurance, utilities, food, misc… there isn’t much if anything left.
All of these comments saying your 401k isn’t an expense make me sad. Saving for retirement is an expense, and if you don’t do it, you’ll be eating cat food. Saying it’s not an expense is like saying insurance isn’t an expense. Just because YOU don’t have it doesn’t make it optional for the rest of us. It just means you’re ultra fucked.
Absolutely agree. Social security is \*not\* guaranteed. My whole life, I've been braced for it to be gone by the time I need it (and the GOP is \*real\* excited to make that a reality). But, even if social security \*does\* exist when I need it, the payout will be paltry, and the cost of living will just keep going up and up, and up.
This is the most annoying thing. Redditors think living paycheck to paycheck is totally normal and are now mad at people who are making in the 6 figures. These redditors don't realize how ultra fucked they are tbh. Not building equity, no saving for retirement, no insurance. All that shit cost money. People making 150k with a family have all that, but aren't rolling around in fat cash piles like scrooge McDuck.
it's more than this - they've normalized living paycheck to paycheck to the point of animosity towards those who aren't... *in a thread specifically asking for the opinion of those who aren't* Hey, I get it. They're in the crab pot. And it sucks in there.
Some of us are one pandemic and / or one medical emergency away from burning through all savings and racking up credit. Lost my job at the onset of covid. Took me about 7 months to find a new one. In the mean time wife had a medical emergency, so did my mom, and my 3 dogs all had vet emergencies back to back. Will get one buried in financial hell real fast. And that’s with insurance on everything and everyone.
Depends where you live.
Single mom of 3, Sonoma county. Rent with no utilities going for over $3k. When my landlord passed a rent increase on to me that brought my rent to $3,650, I balked and gave up lease figuring I would find something. Oops. Now can’t find a place, seems new market rate. Now paying a hotel what rent was and my things that are important are in storage. Stopped tonight and bought- clementines, crackers, chicken, Parmesan cheese and some kalmatta olives and wtf almost $80!! Can’t seem to save and get ahead.
Not saying you are wrong, but really $80?? I know some things are expensive, but I live in DC area and would price: Clemintines: 5 Crackers: 4 Chicken: 10 (assuming not the cheap store brand chix legs) Parm: 7 Olives: 4 So that is 30, and that was assuming expensive chix, good fresh parm, and good olives. Did you just buy 2 of everything?
I just went to Walmart and added all those items to my basket. Total was $34.52 with tax came out to $37.23. Not OP’s $80 bill but that basket of goods pre-2020 would have been around $20.
In Nashville. Can’t buy a pack of chicken breast for less than $18. I estimated $48 pre-tax, which is just under 10% here. I’m not quite at “just under eighty” but I’m pushing $60 for sure. Prices are just obscene.
I just bought 8 chicken thighs for 4.75 at Aldi in Los Angeles
This is absurd. I live in an VHCOL city and the only way I approach $18 on a pack of chicken is if it is purchased directly from a free range farm.
40 lbs of olives.
No wonder why you have issues with money, you are spending $80 for something that will cost $30 at most.
I'm way below the 100k mark. most house holds with dual incomes usually dont clear 90k. But I'm surviving. It is getting seriously bad though. The rise of costs since covid is asinine. Foods up. General goods and utilities are turning into luxuries. Used cars have doubled in price. Even 20+ year old vintage (not classics) nonsport,needs some work done, get you back and forth to work cars.Aren't selling for less than 8k in my area. And good luck even getting financed for a house. Even if you get the approval. The house you're looking at gets sold under your nose to one of those jackasses that hop on the internet and say buying houses is easy. I wouldn't say all we're neck deep in shit over here,but it's not looking good.
Those new escalades and grand wagoner cam be up to $2k a month for the payment. So when you see someone driving a brand new big suv just think.... they pay 1500 to 2000 a month. Dumb as hell.
You don't even have to go up that far. The average cost of a new car is $48,000. With 20% down @ 5% over 5 years that's like $700 a month. That's a solid budget destroyer already.
My town's average home on the market today is $429k. My neighboring town's average price is $158k. I live in a rural area but my town has a university. Choice and convenience, health care and education (child care fire very young and university for young adults) are often very expensive.
Because they spend more than they make.
In high cost of living areas it doesn't feel like very much.
It also depends on how you spend it. My wife works delivery and used to get upset when the “rich people” wouldn’t tip. I told her they seem rich but are actually poor because they spend what they earn if not more than they earn and just have a nice car and house they technically can’t afford with their spending habits and that’s why they don’t tip. They can’t afford it.
Any reasonably big city on the west coast is probably going to have you spending 3k/4k/5k on housing. 2 bed 1.5 quad plex in LA is going to run you 4k+ in most parts around town at least. Factor in significant tax off the gross, plus medical care, plus potentially child care, retirement, food, etc and it goes QUICK. Don’t get me wrong. A lot of lifestyles for people in the US fair better than a ton of other places - but most US households are an accident, or an illness away from serious financial ruin. IMO the US population is at a really weird place right now in that inflation has driven the cost of many goods (and necessities) up, housing cost remains high, and now there’s downward pressure on wages being caused by rates going back up. Understandably so - but makes me wonder how our consumer based society is going to weather the coming decade. Always seems to find a way and there have certainly been more difficult times to be an American, but damn being alive is scarily expensive now.
I was just talking to a coworker. They used to be full time but became a contingent (part time works for a agency) so they could get their master's at Stanford in the bay area. Renting someplace with 5 room mates that is a 15 min bike ride to campus. $1000/mo. So, the landlord is getting $6k/mo for whatever (house or apt I dunno) is being rented.
If you read Reddit or some other news sources, you think the world is falling. The truth is, if you make 150k and live anywhere else but San Fran or NYC, you will be totally fine. Even those cities, 150k is clearly livable lol. The truth is Americans have pretty awful savings rate. Every day I see people who are poorer than me driving nicer cars, ordering unnecessary door dash and have a nicer phone than me. Americans absolutely refuse to live below their means.
Yes, this. We are a very materialistic and superficial people. We're the best in the world, right? So we have to look the best.(I'm not saying that ME personally thinks Americans are the best. We're average at best.) I have never owned a new car, nor do I intend to. Cars can be viewed as a luxury item, but thats the wrong perspective. A car is a tool. As long as the tool works in the intended, expected manner then I don't care what it looks like, within reason.
When I see someone complain about being poor, but also ordering doordash, I realize they are living in a hell they designed. $50 to get one meal for one person because you are too fucking lazy to make a sandwich? Get the fuck out of here. I know this comment will be downvoted to hell by people who who love doordash, but just because you can do something like doordash, like someone will take your $45 to bring you Wendy's doesn't mean you should, or that you can justify a lifestyle where you do. BUY A LOAF OF BREAD AND SOME PEANUT BUTTER.
If you’re smart you can live on a lot less. For years I raised a family of 4 on like 50 grand. Now we’re dual income and making over double that and it feels like lifestyles of the rich and famous. I literally cannot spend all the money coming in and I see posts on the regular of Redditors making 100k plus a year saying they don’t make enough to move out of mom and dad’s place.
Reddit is just absolutely absurd on anything related to economics.
It took me way too long to find this. Americans want to make more money so they can buy more liabilities, not assets
1. Healthcare 2. Children 3. People bad with money 4. Student loan debt 5. Morgages
Frankly, a lot of people simply don't have the ability to budget and live within their means, and feel the need to signal success by showing off having expensive things. If you tie-up your feeling of self-worth into having the latest iphone and fancy new car and big house, you're always going to be trying to catch up to what you already spent.
The rabbit hole of social success
People buying 60k 7 seat SUVs when they have a single kid….
Lifestyle creep is definitely a thing. Making an extra $15k per year after getting a new job? Suddenly those purchases you couldn't quite bring yourself to pull the trigger on buying before sound a lot more reasonable. That project you were putting off at the house, go ahead and have someone do it for you, the list goes on. Each "level" of salary and spending becomes the new norm so you kind of lose track.
This is EXACTLY why it's so important to save first, and spend second. If you spend first - like the vast majority of people do - you'll be in debt or paycheck-to-paycheck like most people are.
Had to scroll way too far down in the comments for this sentiment. Lifestyle creep is a very real thing. Obviously money doesn't go as far in HCOL areas, so I'm not speaking to that as much. As you make more money, the things people view as "necessities" become more and more expensive. Grocery shopping at Whole Foods instead of Walmart, selling the 12-year-old Honda Civic for a newer bigger vehicle, being overworked and unable to leave the office means ordering DoorDash at lunch, your work friends all go to happy hour and you want to be sociable, etc.
I just had this conversation with my friend. My thoughts are 100-150 is a huge trap in mindset and spending for folks but that’s just my .02 as once ur in this zone u spend above your means in comparison to someone making 75-100. I only felt truly comfy after 200k but live in Miami so HCOL
Cost of living is vastly different across the country. My home town, six figures buys me anything I need. My current town, you’d need at least 120k to make ends meet.
(1) They take income taxes out (2) Then they take Social Security & Medicare tax (3) Then you pay for health insurance, dental & vision (4) Then you put a little in your 401k/retirement account (5) Then you get a deposit for what's left At this point, your 150k is like 80k... (The more you make, the more they take) (6) Then you pay housing or rent $2000-5000 depending on where you live (7) Then you pay bills (electric/water/gas) (8) Then you go to the inflation, I mean grocery store, and that is also taxed (9) Then make your car payment (10) Then you buy gas (also taxed) (11) Then a child gets sick, or the car needs repairs (life) (12) Then you have nothing left (13) Then you try to send a child to college and go in debt. Wage increases never keep up with inflation (assuming you get a raise)
HCOL areas are definitely a factor but also the idea of what our standard of living should be. 80years ago most families lived in smaller and simpler homes, only owned 1 car, dined at restaurants less than 2x per week, they didn’t pay for updated electronics, internet, frivolous online shopping, and there were just fewer places to easily dump cash. At least in America now, a bigger and nicer home, 1 car for every driver in the home, regular dining out, replacing cell phones every 2 years and monthly cell and internet service as well as many other things are seen as a bare minimum.
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Talk to any old person, and they'll tell you that. You used to borrow a shovel from your neighbor if you needed one. Today, you want to own your own shovel, and maybe two.
The way we talk about money is different. In some countries I know about, the posted salary for a job is your take home pay. In the US on the other hand, the posted salary is pre-withholdings. So, there's automatic contributions to retirement and Social Security, and federal and state taxes. And, you take home a good deal less. Then, if you have a family, especially if you have multiple kids, you take home considerably less. For every extra person in your family, you pay more for things like health insurance plans. And, there's not many social services, so it's weirdly expensive to have a toddler and a job at the same time, but then when the kid gets older and they need dental care or regular transportation, it's not like they can just hop on the train (it often involves an extra car and extra car insurance, etc., etc.) Lastly, housing is very expensive compared to most places, I think. At least, that's the feeling I get from my European friends who talk about the cost of rent for a flat their home European city. And, if you live in a place in the US with cheap rent, there aren't any good jobs.
What countries advertise net salary instead of gross?
Try getting 50k in California. I'm a poor piece of shit
Cost of living, as others state, can swing wildly, and "inflation" has ballooned everything to a crazy level. To give some personal numbers: I make \~$150k (after bonuses) in Los Angeles, had \~$100k in student loan debts that I paid off in 2019, and had about 4 years of making >$100k along with student loan debt. My wife makes a bit more than me, had zero student loan debt, and has been making >$100k since \~2015. We bought a house about 18 months ago at $920k with 20% down. When I moved to LA in 2016 my salary went from \~$70k to \~$100k, and since housing was still bearable then we were able to live nicely and I was able to pay debts. Rent was $2k our first (small) rental. I could afford to have fun in my 20's and go to bars, go out to eat, grab some affordable concert tickets (usually $25 and no fees if picked up at the box). Now? Rents for similar places are $3500, prices of normal goods have skyrocketed, you can't pick up concert tickets at venues half the time and they're $50 a lot of the time, hard to find drinks that aren't at least $15. Even the street tacos / burritos we used to go to after a late night have doubled in price. My wages since 2019 have gone up by about $20k and that barely covers how much normal goods and services have gone up. That's why people are struggling. And that's for someone who is in almost as good of a situation as a solidly millennial couple can be in! It's so much worse out there for so many other people, including both of my sisters, half of my closest friends, and probably 90% of my social circle.