4 ms·

If you're working a high-end job (one that not many people would qualify for, presumably), making well over $100,000 per year (FAR above the average family inco

If you're working a high-end job (one that not many people would qualify for, presumably), making well over $100,000 per year (FAR above the average family income in the US), then why should you settle for a near-poverty lifestyle?

refurb 10y ago
Wow. Not being able to drive a new $40K car, live in a big house with a yard (in the most expensive area of the US) and only have one spouse work is near poverty?
- bradfitz 10y ago
  I want all my spouses to work!
pmiller2 10y ago
Let's not exaggerate. $100K/year in the Bay Area (as a single person) isn't living it up, but it's not "a near-poverty lifestyle." It's a "living in the East Bay with roommates, commuting at least an hour, (very) occasionally going out," lifestyle but it's eating good food with a roof over your head. If that sounds like poverty, well, you should see real poverty sometime.
- cmiles74 10y ago
  The choice of words was poor, but living with roomates and commuting an hour when your salary is $100/year is, in my opinion, unreasonable. There's good food and roofing available all over the country.
  - colmvp 10y ago
    But the living expenses in cities like SF and NYC are entirely different compared to the rest of the country. 100k is not really a magical number aside from the fact that it's six digits instead of five. You see similar things in other countries.
  - pmiller2 10y ago
    $100K/year is an entry level salary at many places these days. If you're not entry level and don't have absurd amounts of student loans, then you can afford to do better. You can have less of a commute, or maybe not live with roommates, and actually put some money into savings. It's still nowhere near poverty wages.
- VLM 10y ago
  ""living in the East Bay with roommates, commuting at least an hour, (very) occasionally going out," but it's eating good food with a roof over your head." That sounds like me as a part time student / part time grocery store minimum wage shelf stocker around 1990 in the greater Chicago land area (well, within a very distant orbit of Chicago). I suppose most people would have considered me very poor at that time. I was on no government programs (other than uni student loans like everyone else). I had no medical insurance but I ate good food when I wanted. On the other hand I couldn't afford good steak, it was cheaper, but good and healthy, food. I was financially very hand to mouth no savings couldn't afford to "go out". Probably why I don't go out drinking now, never got in the habit when I was young. There are certainly poorer people, but the best case scenario being I'd have to downgrade to a starving student lifestyle is incredibly unappealing. In summary it sounds like if you work full time plus at Facebook in CA (admittedly in 2016), your standard of living will be the same as working part time as a grocery store shelf stocker outside CA (admittedly in 1990). Of course my commute was better, but the CA guy has already graduated so he doesn't have to balance work and school like I did, so it kinda balances out.
  - pmiller2 10y ago
    > In summary it sounds like if you work full time plus at Facebook in CA (admittedly in 2016), I don't know by direct experience, but I hear even entry level hires are doing significantly better than $100K at Facebook.
    - FilterSweep 10y ago
      It's 2016 though - before IPO, Facebook, like many other startups, could afford to pay employees less salary with the options. On that same note, the author should count his blessings. He received options. He was able to sell those options (a move many of us are criticizing) to buy a luxury car. Most people don't, or leave before they vest years later.
  - Grishnakh 10y ago
    Thank you, this is my point exactly. Why should anyone work hard to get an advanced education and build a good professional resume, then go to work at a job that pays far above the average family income for the US, just so he can live like a part-time grocery store worker?
- skybrian 10y ago
  You could probably do better than that. East bay rents aren't that high (yet) and I'm guessing Facebook has shuttle buses.
  - pmiller2 10y ago
    I doubt you can do much better. You'll have to compromise on either the commute or the rent. Live near BART and you'll pay up for the convenience. Oakland is the 4th most expensive city to rent in the US; further out and you start looking at even longer commutes. You literally can't get less than an hour commute by public transportation into SF from the East Bay. Trust me, I've tried. Live by yourself, and you won't find a decent place for less than $2k/month anywhere. Accounting for taxes, that's about $40K/year, which is more than someone with a $100K income should be paying for rent if they want to stay financially stable. And while Facebook might have East Bay shuttle buses (though I don't think they do to any meaningful extent), what about all the other companies that aren't Facebook?
    - skybrian 10y ago
      I believe you but your constraint is getting to SF. For someone working at Facebook (like in the article), they are on one end of the Dumbarton bridge. The East Bay is not that far away.
colmvp 10y ago
I'd hardly call buying a car that's less than 40k "near-poverty.'
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  It's not that, it's the part about having to live with roommates in a tiny apartment. I did that in college. Why would I want to go back to that lifestyle? Why should I? If that's all you can afford by working at a super-high-end job these days, then what is the point? (Again, remember that $100k is well above the average family income in the US right now; a single guy making that much should be able to live very, very well.)
  - bbctol 10y ago
    Part of the reason he's making that much is because he's in the Bay Area; Facebook would pay their employees less if they were based elsewhere. He can't say he deserves a certain lifestyle based on salary, and is being punished unfairly by location, because those are not at all separate factors.
    - Grishnakh 10y ago
      I don't buy it. He deserves that lifestyle because the job he does requires an advanced education, and we're constantly told these jobs are critically important to society and that there's a massive shortage of these workers. Hence, they deserve pay high enough to afford an upper-middle-class lifestyle, which definitely does not mean living in a small apartment with roommates or anything like that. If you're saying that he does not deserve an upper-middle-class lifestyle with a higher-than-median-price car, then we've been sold a bill of goods. If I wanted to live in a tiny apartment with roommates and never get married and have a family (because what woman is going to do that with you when you can't afford your own place?), then why would I bother going to college for a difficult degree, racking up student loan debt, and working hard in a difficult profession to build up a professional resume and quality work experience? I could just go work at a grocery store, and/or get on welfare, right? What exactly is the point of striving to accomplish something if you're not going to be rewarded for it at all?

refurb 10y ago

Wow. Not being able to drive a new $40K car, live in a big house with a yard (in the most expensive area of the US) and only have one spouse work is near poverty?

bradfitz 10y ago
I want all my spouses to work!

pmiller2 10y ago

Let's not exaggerate. $100K/year in the Bay Area (as a single person) isn't living it up, but it's not "a near-poverty lifestyle." It's a "living in the East Bay with roommates, commuting at least an hour, (very) occasionally going out," lifestyle but it's eating good food with a roof over your head. If that sounds like poverty, well, you should see real poverty sometime.

cmiles74 10y ago
The choice of words was poor, but living with roomates and commuting an hour when your salary is $100/year is, in my opinion, unreasonable. There's good food and roofing available all over the country.
- colmvp 10y ago
  But the living expenses in cities like SF and NYC are entirely different compared to the rest of the country. 100k is not really a magical number aside from the fact that it's six digits instead of five. You see similar things in other countries.
- pmiller2 10y ago
  $100K/year is an entry level salary at many places these days. If you're not entry level and don't have absurd amounts of student loans, then you can afford to do better. You can have less of a commute, or maybe not live with roommates, and actually put some money into savings. It's still nowhere near poverty wages.
VLM 10y ago
""living in the East Bay with roommates, commuting at least an hour, (very) occasionally going out," but it's eating good food with a roof over your head." That sounds like me as a part time student / part time grocery store minimum wage shelf stocker around 1990 in the greater Chicago land area (well, within a very distant orbit of Chicago). I suppose most people would have considered me very poor at that time. I was on no government programs (other than uni student loans like everyone else). I had no medical insurance but I ate good food when I wanted. On the other hand I couldn't afford good steak, it was cheaper, but good and healthy, food. I was financially very hand to mouth no savings couldn't afford to "go out". Probably why I don't go out drinking now, never got in the habit when I was young. There are certainly poorer people, but the best case scenario being I'd have to downgrade to a starving student lifestyle is incredibly unappealing. In summary it sounds like if you work full time plus at Facebook in CA (admittedly in 2016), your standard of living will be the same as working part time as a grocery store shelf stocker outside CA (admittedly in 1990). Of course my commute was better, but the CA guy has already graduated so he doesn't have to balance work and school like I did, so it kinda balances out.
- pmiller2 10y ago
  > In summary it sounds like if you work full time plus at Facebook in CA (admittedly in 2016), I don't know by direct experience, but I hear even entry level hires are doing significantly better than $100K at Facebook.
  - FilterSweep 10y ago
    It's 2016 though - before IPO, Facebook, like many other startups, could afford to pay employees less salary with the options. On that same note, the author should count his blessings. He received options. He was able to sell those options (a move many of us are criticizing) to buy a luxury car. Most people don't, or leave before they vest years later.
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  Thank you, this is my point exactly. Why should anyone work hard to get an advanced education and build a good professional resume, then go to work at a job that pays far above the average family income for the US, just so he can live like a part-time grocery store worker?
skybrian 10y ago
You could probably do better than that. East bay rents aren't that high (yet) and I'm guessing Facebook has shuttle buses.
- pmiller2 10y ago
  I doubt you can do much better. You'll have to compromise on either the commute or the rent. Live near BART and you'll pay up for the convenience. Oakland is the 4th most expensive city to rent in the US; further out and you start looking at even longer commutes. You literally can't get less than an hour commute by public transportation into SF from the East Bay. Trust me, I've tried. Live by yourself, and you won't find a decent place for less than $2k/month anywhere. Accounting for taxes, that's about $40K/year, which is more than someone with a $100K income should be paying for rent if they want to stay financially stable. And while Facebook might have East Bay shuttle buses (though I don't think they do to any meaningful extent), what about all the other companies that aren't Facebook?
  - skybrian 10y ago
    I believe you but your constraint is getting to SF. For someone working at Facebook (like in the article), they are on one end of the Dumbarton bridge. The East Bay is not that far away.

colmvp 10y ago

I'd hardly call buying a car that's less than 40k "near-poverty.'

Grishnakh 10y ago
It's not that, it's the part about having to live with roommates in a tiny apartment. I did that in college. Why would I want to go back to that lifestyle? Why should I? If that's all you can afford by working at a super-high-end job these days, then what is the point? (Again, remember that $100k is well above the average family income in the US right now; a single guy making that much should be able to live very, very well.)
- bbctol 10y ago
  Part of the reason he's making that much is because he's in the Bay Area; Facebook would pay their employees less if they were based elsewhere. He can't say he deserves a certain lifestyle based on salary, and is being punished unfairly by location, because those are not at all separate factors.
  - Grishnakh 10y ago
    I don't buy it. He deserves that lifestyle because the job he does requires an advanced education, and we're constantly told these jobs are critically important to society and that there's a massive shortage of these workers. Hence, they deserve pay high enough to afford an upper-middle-class lifestyle, which definitely does not mean living in a small apartment with roommates or anything like that. If you're saying that he does not deserve an upper-middle-class lifestyle with a higher-than-median-price car, then we've been sold a bill of goods. If I wanted to live in a tiny apartment with roommates and never get married and have a family (because what woman is going to do that with you when you can't afford your own place?), then why would I bother going to college for a difficult degree, racking up student loan debt, and working hard in a difficult profession to build up a professional resume and quality work experience? I could just go work at a grocery store, and/or get on welfare, right? What exactly is the point of striving to accomplish something if you're not going to be rewarded for it at all?