6 ms·

US cost of living is ridiculous. You shouldn't just compare two numbers one to one. 150k in California is basically just scraping by.

dv_dt 6y ago
Plus one carries a huge high side uncertainty in costs from healthcare in the US.
- fanciestManimal 6y ago
  This is true for people in the middle to the bottom of the pay spectrum in the US. From experience where insurance paid ~1 million for a significant healthcare expense and my out of pocket was $4k -- when you are in a field with such a low unemployment rate and generally good benefits, it's a non issue. The month premium we pay is a non-issue. The maximum out of pocket is a non-issue. That being said, the way healthcare is paid for in the US is complete garbage for basically everyone that doesn't have that same (more or less) guarantee of employment (with benefits) and is a huge problem. It just isn't for upper middle income (and above) workers. Same with college. In my experience most SW engineers in the US make enough money to drop money in some kind of investment account for their children monthly so that college isn't so burdensome unless their children go to the absolutely most expensive places or they have a ton of kids. Again, it's the people in the middle and bottom that are getting screwed. The top 20% of earners in the US come out ahead i think. EDIT: I'm not advocating this as a positive thing or anything, just noting that I think SW engineers in the US have a pretty good gig compared to many other people both globally and at home.
  - dv_dt 6y ago
    I think if you read the fine print, it is quite possible to get hit by high out of pocket costs in surprising circumstances, but also if you have an extended illness. You may very well have had great coverage, but it's all to easy to end up in a uncovered circumstance. Most medical bankruptcies are people who have health insurance. Also as the average age of many high tech companies increases, expect more cost limiting changes from offered benefits.
- dahfizz 6y ago
  Only if you're uninsured. Any halfway decent health insurance plan has out of pocket maxes that a software engineer can easily cover. I'm general, QOL is going to be better in Europe if youre in a low income bracket because you get so much as a public service. But if you make real money, you're going to be better off in America.
  - aidenn0 6y ago
    I have never seen a health-care plan in the US with real out-of-pocket maxes. The fine-print is crazy on those clauses. We got burned by going to an ER while traveling, and while the ER bill was covered under out-of-pocket maxes, both doctors who saw our son in the ER were not employees of the ER, and so counted as neither in-network nor emergency room care. Basically 90% of the bill was not subject to the out-of-pocket maximum on our plan.
    - dahfizz 6y ago
      I have always had an option for a plan that has an explicit out of pocket max for out of network costs. Maybe that's not very common.
      - aidenn0 6y ago
        We have that option to, and I looked at switching to it, but the list of exceptions to the out-of-network costs was still fairly long and contained words that I wasn't sure what they meant in the context of a legal document. Considering we'd be paying about $20k more out-of-pocket with that plan in a typical year, I wasn't sure if "getting a smaller list of exceptions" was worth it.
    - ptmcc 6y ago
      Washington state passed a law making this sort of balance billing illegal, effective Jan 1 2020. It's a huge problem nationwide, though, and ultimately needs to get addressed at the federal level. It's absolutely insane and fraudulent that an in-network hospital has out-of-network providers within it.
    - 6y ago
veilrap 6y ago
The cost of living in California IS high. But $150k is much better than just scraping by. Assuming 40% tax rate, and a montly rent of $3000, that's $54,000 remaining with the two biggest expenses already accounted for.
- baron816 6y ago
  $150k/yr would be taking home $8k month (source https://www.paycheckcity.com/calculator/salary/california/ https://www.paycheckcity.com/calculator/salary/california/), so would have $60k/yr after taxes and rent at the end of the year.
pengaru 6y ago
> 150k in California is basically just scraping by. That's complete nonsense. 150k is scraping by when attempting to live in any of the most desirable cities of the USA, some of which happen to reside in California. It's a huge state, there's plenty of housing outside of Santa Monica and San Francisco.
colinmhayes 6y ago
Most game dev seems to be in LA which is quite a bit cheaper than the bay. 150k is solidly upper middle class in most of LA. I think only Roblox is in the bay.
- Impossible 6y ago
  There is way more gamedev in the Bay Area than Roblox...
aidenn0 6y ago
I live in CA, and raise 4 kids while the total pay, including my wife's, just recently surpassed 150k (she works very low hours part-time). Not in the bay area though. We would probably need about $20k more for the same lifestyle had we not gotten lucky with timing buying a house (we bought in 2011, right before a big increase in prices). Alternatively we could have kids sharing a bedroom and live otherwise the same.
- the_only_law 6y ago
  What do you and your wife do for a living, if you don’t mind?
smus 6y ago
If you aren't at least living in a comfortable 1 bedroom apartment in a desirable location while contributing 30-40k in savings every year off 150k, you are seriously mismanaging your finances. I guess 150k is scraping by if you blow 50k on gacha games a year or something? I can't envision another scenario where you aren't incredibly comfortable off that much
darth_avocado 6y ago
Okay most of the replies I see in here claim here that 150k is a luxurious living are assuming a lot. First and foremost, most these 150k game dev jobs are near big cities, the remote ones at least pre covid never paid that much. Second, yes after taxes your take home pay per month is ~8k, and a little more if you have dependents. But here's a couple of things to put into perspective: 1. It's not a lot of money if that's your household income and you have kids. Buying a house is nearly impossible with that salary and the average rent for a two bedroom apartment goes 3.5k which also includes a significant commute. Houses are even more expensive to rent. You can definitely get cheaper deals, there's no shortage of shitty housing in California. There's also rent control deals if you never moved out of a house for a decade. 2. A decent employer sponsored health insurance costs about 350 a month for the family. 3. Car payments and insurance on an average are about 400 per month. 4. you put about 500 per month to 401k if you want any decent future savings. 5. Utilities (Internet, water, electricity, gas) comes to about 300 per month 6. That leaves you about 3000 for groceries, gas, medical expenses, school related expenses, recreation, clothing, and bunch of other expenses for say a family of 3-4. That's not a lot of money tbh if you want to save anything at all. Sure 150k is a great salary if you're fresh out of college and share an apartment with other people. But 150k isn't a starting game dev salary. And it isn't a remote part of CA salary either. This is a salary paid in big cities that are too freakin expensive to stay in. PS: most of these estimates are conservative, it can easily exceed the cost. For eg, we only have one internet service provider in our area. And if you want the worst plan with bad speed and data caps, you still shell out 80$/month after they finish adding all the bs fees.
- the_only_law 6y ago
  How do people who aren’t a software developer, doctor, or in a high paying financial sector get buy in CA metros. From what I’ve seen, even other highly technical engineering fields rarely make it to $150k
  - darth_avocado 6y ago
    The short answer is, it's tough to do it on a single income that's 150k as a family. The lower you are the tougher it gets. There is a reason why even the lowest of the city employees get paid six figure salaries, a plumber charges you $250 and driving lessons are $60/hour. For example, in the city of San Fracisco, to qualify as "low income household", the limit is almost $120k for a family of 4 or $82k for a single person.

dv_dt 6y ago

Plus one carries a huge high side uncertainty in costs from healthcare in the US.

fanciestManimal 6y ago
This is true for people in the middle to the bottom of the pay spectrum in the US. From experience where insurance paid ~1 million for a significant healthcare expense and my out of pocket was $4k -- when you are in a field with such a low unemployment rate and generally good benefits, it's a non issue. The month premium we pay is a non-issue. The maximum out of pocket is a non-issue. That being said, the way healthcare is paid for in the US is complete garbage for basically everyone that doesn't have that same (more or less) guarantee of employment (with benefits) and is a huge problem. It just isn't for upper middle income (and above) workers. Same with college. In my experience most SW engineers in the US make enough money to drop money in some kind of investment account for their children monthly so that college isn't so burdensome unless their children go to the absolutely most expensive places or they have a ton of kids. Again, it's the people in the middle and bottom that are getting screwed. The top 20% of earners in the US come out ahead i think. EDIT: I'm not advocating this as a positive thing or anything, just noting that I think SW engineers in the US have a pretty good gig compared to many other people both globally and at home.
- dv_dt 6y ago
  I think if you read the fine print, it is quite possible to get hit by high out of pocket costs in surprising circumstances, but also if you have an extended illness. You may very well have had great coverage, but it's all to easy to end up in a uncovered circumstance. Most medical bankruptcies are people who have health insurance. Also as the average age of many high tech companies increases, expect more cost limiting changes from offered benefits.
dahfizz 6y ago
Only if you're uninsured. Any halfway decent health insurance plan has out of pocket maxes that a software engineer can easily cover. I'm general, QOL is going to be better in Europe if youre in a low income bracket because you get so much as a public service. But if you make real money, you're going to be better off in America.
- aidenn0 6y ago
  I have never seen a health-care plan in the US with real out-of-pocket maxes. The fine-print is crazy on those clauses. We got burned by going to an ER while traveling, and while the ER bill was covered under out-of-pocket maxes, both doctors who saw our son in the ER were not employees of the ER, and so counted as neither in-network nor emergency room care. Basically 90% of the bill was not subject to the out-of-pocket maximum on our plan.
  - dahfizz 6y ago
    I have always had an option for a plan that has an explicit out of pocket max for out of network costs. Maybe that's not very common.
    - aidenn0 6y ago
      We have that option to, and I looked at switching to it, but the list of exceptions to the out-of-network costs was still fairly long and contained words that I wasn't sure what they meant in the context of a legal document. Considering we'd be paying about $20k more out-of-pocket with that plan in a typical year, I wasn't sure if "getting a smaller list of exceptions" was worth it.
  - ptmcc 6y ago
    Washington state passed a law making this sort of balance billing illegal, effective Jan 1 2020. It's a huge problem nationwide, though, and ultimately needs to get addressed at the federal level. It's absolutely insane and fraudulent that an in-network hospital has out-of-network providers within it.
  - 6y ago

veilrap 6y ago

The cost of living in California IS high. But $150k is much better than just scraping by. Assuming 40% tax rate, and a montly rent of $3000, that's $54,000 remaining with the two biggest expenses already accounted for.

baron816 6y ago
$150k/yr would be taking home $8k month (source https://www.paycheckcity.com/calculator/salary/california/ https://www.paycheckcity.com/calculator/salary/california/), so would have $60k/yr after taxes and rent at the end of the year.

pengaru 6y ago

> 150k in California is basically just scraping by. That's complete nonsense. 150k is scraping by when attempting to live in any of the most desirable cities of the USA, some of which happen to reside in California. It's a huge state, there's plenty of housing outside of Santa Monica and San Francisco.

colinmhayes 6y ago

Most game dev seems to be in LA which is quite a bit cheaper than the bay. 150k is solidly upper middle class in most of LA. I think only Roblox is in the bay.

Impossible 6y ago
There is way more gamedev in the Bay Area than Roblox...

aidenn0 6y ago

I live in CA, and raise 4 kids while the total pay, including my wife's, just recently surpassed 150k (she works very low hours part-time). Not in the bay area though. We would probably need about $20k more for the same lifestyle had we not gotten lucky with timing buying a house (we bought in 2011, right before a big increase in prices). Alternatively we could have kids sharing a bedroom and live otherwise the same.

the_only_law 6y ago
What do you and your wife do for a living, if you don’t mind?

smus 6y ago

If you aren't at least living in a comfortable 1 bedroom apartment in a desirable location while contributing 30-40k in savings every year off 150k, you are seriously mismanaging your finances. I guess 150k is scraping by if you blow 50k on gacha games a year or something? I can't envision another scenario where you aren't incredibly comfortable off that much

darth_avocado 6y ago

Okay most of the replies I see in here claim here that 150k is a luxurious living are assuming a lot. First and foremost, most these 150k game dev jobs are near big cities, the remote ones at least pre covid never paid that much. Second, yes after taxes your take home pay per month is ~8k, and a little more if you have dependents. But here's a couple of things to put into perspective: 1. It's not a lot of money if that's your household income and you have kids. Buying a house is nearly impossible with that salary and the average rent for a two bedroom apartment goes 3.5k which also includes a significant commute. Houses are even more expensive to rent. You can definitely get cheaper deals, there's no shortage of shitty housing in California. There's also rent control deals if you never moved out of a house for a decade. 2. A decent employer sponsored health insurance costs about 350 a month for the family. 3. Car payments and insurance on an average are about 400 per month. 4. you put about 500 per month to 401k if you want any decent future savings. 5. Utilities (Internet, water, electricity, gas) comes to about 300 per month 6. That leaves you about 3000 for groceries, gas, medical expenses, school related expenses, recreation, clothing, and bunch of other expenses for say a family of 3-4. That's not a lot of money tbh if you want to save anything at all. Sure 150k is a great salary if you're fresh out of college and share an apartment with other people. But 150k isn't a starting game dev salary. And it isn't a remote part of CA salary either. This is a salary paid in big cities that are too freakin expensive to stay in. PS: most of these estimates are conservative, it can easily exceed the cost. For eg, we only have one internet service provider in our area. And if you want the worst plan with bad speed and data caps, you still shell out 80$/month after they finish adding all the bs fees.

the_only_law 6y ago
How do people who aren’t a software developer, doctor, or in a high paying financial sector get buy in CA metros. From what I’ve seen, even other highly technical engineering fields rarely make it to $150k
- darth_avocado 6y ago
  The short answer is, it's tough to do it on a single income that's 150k as a family. The lower you are the tougher it gets. There is a reason why even the lowest of the city employees get paid six figure salaries, a plumber charges you $250 and driving lessons are $60/hour. For example, in the city of San Fracisco, to qualify as "low income household", the limit is almost $120k for a family of 4 or $82k for a single person.