4 ms·
Honestly I think a global or national percentile is not very informative. If you make $40k in a small town, you’re doing okay. If you make $80k in a mid-major
by burlesona 6y ago
Honestly I think a global or national percentile is not very informative.
If you make $40k in a small town, you’re doing okay. If you make $80k in a mid-major city like Indianapolis or Raleigh, you’re doing okay. If you make $160k in San Francisco you’re doing okay. From my own life experience, all of those feel like about the same amount of purchasing power after you’ve paid your bills.
However if you’re making $40k in SF your housing situation is borderline desperate. At $80k you’re just scraping by.
The US has really fractured into a few different economies, and it’s as hard to make comparisons of income, wealth, and quality of life between San Francisco and rural Kansas as it is to make comparisons between the rural US and rural Guatemala (or any number of other countries).
- bumby 6y agoI agree 100%. That’s why I don’t think statements like “$X amount is really not that much” are very useful. In many places in the US $200k is doing really, really well. Sometimes those arguments are still used in those areas, but I think it says more about lifestyle inflation than the ability to live on that income. (E.g., it’s not much IF you get a new car every few years and IF you have a mortgage on a 4K Sqft home and IF you send your kids to private school). The tone deaf comment relates to how those self-imposed lifestyle constraints are out of touch for most people anyway.