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Excellent detail - we've calculated the required income for the expensive end of common life people would have. A family a 4, with only a single parent choosin

Excellent detail - we've calculated the required income for the expensive end of common life people would have. A family a 4, with only a single parent choosing to work, with fully funded retirement savings, while also saving for college, and possibly even saving for a house. Using the estimate above, that came to 150-200k. So now, 65%+ of households have both parents working.[1] A single parent household is a luxury (without any judgement or whether it should or shouldn't be that way, it is). Assuming dual incomes in the above situation we would half our salary range. Taking the upper end, we'd get 100k as the required livable wage to match this household income. Even more notably it's a calculation for a household income for a family a 4. Not a livable wage for a single-person which would be the other default expectation besides two parents working. Using the same two sources as previously we can see that the income required for a 1 Adult household is roughly 50% that of a family of 4 single breadwinner household. Take our 150-200k estimate multiple by this roughly ~50% factor, take the more generous end and again we end up with the salary in the range of 100k. From this the most reasonable number for a livable wage would be ~100k. 1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/22/the-days-of-stay-at-home-moms-are-long-gone-data-show/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/22/the-d...

bzbarsky 9y ago
> Taking the upper end, we'd get 100k as the required livable wage to match this household income Unfortunately, not quite. If both parents make 100k, your tax burden is higher than if one of them makes 200k and one 0 (because of the social security cap). More importantly, your child care expenses are much higher. So are your food expenses, typically; this part is correctly reflected in the data table you linked to. In practice, I would expect a two-earner household, both earning 100k, to have 10-30k/year more in expenses than a one-earner household; the range mostly depends on how much child care costs. 100k for a single person is certainly pretty comfortable, even in San Francisco. Much more comfortable than 200k for a family of 4, I suspect, because housing is so much simpler.
- BoiledCabbage 9y ago
  > I would expect a two-earner household, both earning 100k, to have 10-30k/year more in expenses Ok, so 105k-115k / yr. I think we're reaching the point (in economic terms) where the marginal cost of corrections or adjustment exceeds the marginal value they provide. The summary though is that 105-115k is not near the 200k originally mentioned and absurdly far from the 300k.

bzbarsky 9y ago

> Taking the upper end, we'd get 100k as the required livable wage to match this household income Unfortunately, not quite. If both parents make 100k, your tax burden is higher than if one of them makes 200k and one 0 (because of the social security cap). More importantly, your child care expenses are much higher. So are your food expenses, typically; this part is correctly reflected in the data table you linked to. In practice, I would expect a two-earner household, both earning 100k, to have 10-30k/year more in expenses than a one-earner household; the range mostly depends on how much child care costs. 100k for a single person is certainly pretty comfortable, even in San Francisco. Much more comfortable than 200k for a family of 4, I suspect, because housing is so much simpler.

BoiledCabbage 9y ago
> I would expect a two-earner household, both earning 100k, to have 10-30k/year more in expenses Ok, so 105k-115k / yr. I think we're reaching the point (in economic terms) where the marginal cost of corrections or adjustment exceeds the marginal value they provide. The summary though is that 105-115k is not near the 200k originally mentioned and absurdly far from the 300k.