4 ms·
That you consider yourself upper middle class with an income of 1M a year already says a lot about how skewed your view is (not surprising there was some articl
by cycomanic 5y ago
That you consider yourself upper middle class with an income of 1M a year already says a lot about how skewed your view is (not surprising there was some article on HN recently about research showing that the rich and the poor consider themselves middle class both). Sure you are not a billionaire but you are not middle class anymore, you earn 30 times the median income in the US. Now comparing yourself with the superrich might make you think you're not that rich, but you are.
- rllearneratwork 5y agohave you heard about different cost of living in different places? What if the person plans to fund himself/herself in the retirement and pay for kids college rather than expecting all that "for free" from the government?
- ryandrake 5y agoThere is no metro region on Earth where $1M/year can be considered middle class.
- askafriend 5y agoI'd say in SF, you need 500k to be reasonably middle/upper-middle class if you have kids (let's say 2).
- rllearneratwork 5y ago1M/year is roughly 500K after taxes in Bay Area. Starter house is bad school district (means you need to pay 25K-45K per year per kid for private school) is over 1M.
- ryandrake 5y agoSure, but a 1M mortgage is about 50K a year at today's rates. Let's say 30K for home upkeep, 10K to keep a car on the road, 10K for utilities, 20K for food and dining. So 500K after tax - 90K private school for two kids - 50K mortgage payment - 30K - 10K - 10K - 20K = 290K in totally disposable post-tax income. Still not even remotely close to middle class.
- rllearneratwork 5y agosure 1M is OK in SF Bay area (you need to plan for retirement too). But even based on your calculations suddenly 500K is not enough to allow a middle class lifestyle.
- cycomanic 5y agoA typical multiplier for house price and before tax income is 6. So you are saying a 1M house, but for 1M yearly income we should be taking about 6M house (assuming the spouse is not working). Now I definitely wouldn't call a 6M house middle class.