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Comments like this are just so far outside the realm of what I am fairly sure is reality. In the nation called the United States, on the planet Earth, in the p

Comments like this are just so far outside the realm of what I am fairly sure is reality. In the nation called the United States, on the planet Earth, in the prime material plane, the average office worker makes about $40K a year. And the average rent is about $1100/mo. About a third of the office worker's income. Federal taxes are another 11% or so. That leaves more than half of an average office worker's income for essentials like food, clothing and utilities. Entertainment is cheap these days. If you budget there's still enough left over for your 401k/IRA/etc. which goes mainly into the stock market and if you stick with that for 40 years you will do pretty well. Always been the formula, still is. What is this dimension where 24 year olds are running around earning almost a quarter mil and it's not good enough? Is this Valley talk again? I get that this is HN and rent in the Valley and taxes in Cali are high, but so high that this 24 year old on a quarter mil can't make ends meet? If he can't achieve what the office worker on $40K can, why is he in that job and that city? It's more likely in my opinion that these people are worth less than they think they are, or don't know how to manage their finances, or both.

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friedturkey 5y ago
Averages lean upwards due to some people making millions. Federal taxes aren't the only taxes. State and other taxes are factored in. Rent may average at $1100 in an ideal world, but near cities, $1100 is increasingly rare. Every time this is mentioned someone will chime in and say "yeah but I live in rural Nebraska and pay less than that." Which is fine. But then your employment options are slim, most jobs aren't paying $40k a month, not everyone is a tech contractor making 200k a year from their bedroom on a lakefront, not everyone wants to be or can be a tech contractor, and a lot of jobs performed by "normal" people (people on HN are generally highly paid and anything but typical) will involve long commute times unless they're living in the middle of town... in which case rent prices shoot up fast. The average person also needs to pay for health care in the US (even if their company provides insurance, they're fucked when they get sick because insurance covers very little for most people not in very expensive programs). They have car loans. They have college loans. They need to pay deposits just to move. 9-5s are being replaced with 9-6s and people have less free time. When you factor in all of that, the "average office worker" looks like a dream life to a lot of people. What people considered a boring hell of a life in 1965 is a fantasy unobtainable to an increasing number of "average" people. Comments claiming it's "easy" for "average" people here make me think some people live in a bubble detached from all reality.
- piokoch 5y ago
  This most interesting part for me is this "What people considered a boring hell of a life in 1965 is a fantasy unobtainable to an increasing number of >>average<< people". It would be good to analyze what happened between 1965 and 2022, what has changed that instead of progress we see some kind of downward spiral. Or maybe 1965s are idealized? Are there people looking on this? I have zero knowledge to understand all of this, unfortunately.
  - dazc 5y ago
    I was born in '65. My dad had a regular job, mum didn't work and I have 3 siblings. We lived, what would be classed today as, a lower middle-class lifestyle. Aside from earnings and cost of living, the one thing I believe that has changed is that I don't remember knowing of many people living a much better life than I was at the time. Now it seems everyone is, even those earning much less than I do. Driving a car you could never be able to buy outright, multiple foreign holidays, fine dining and designer clothing are pretty much the norm these days because, somehow, people feel entitled to such a lifestyle regardless of their ability to finance it.
    - reducesuffering 5y ago
      > somehow, people feel entitled to such a lifestyle regardless of their ability to finance it. How do you think Google and Facebook are trillion $ companies? They run targeted advertising to induce consumer demand via manipulation-as-a-service ("Hey advertisers, not enough people willingly going out to buy your $70 clothes made for $1? Here's the people susceptible to feeling inadequate when you show them how much sexier they'll be after their purchase). The $ they skim has to come from someone's pockets at the end of the day.
  - mellavora 5y ago
    See: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/12/life-simpsons-no-longer-attainable/617499/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/12/life-simps... The Life in The Simpsons Is No Longer Attainable The most famous dysfunctional family of 1990s television enjoyed, by today’s standards, an almost dreamily secure existence. By Dani Alexis Ryskamp Updated at 11:10 a.m. ET on February 8, 2021.
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csa 5y ago
> And the average rent is about $1100/mo. About a third of the office worker's income. Federal taxes are another 11% or so. That leaves more than half of an average office worker's income for essentials like food, clothing and utilities. This sounds like math done by someone who has never earned an income as low as $40k. Some slightly more realistic numbers (rounding to nearest hundred): Income - $40,000 Federal - $3100 State (variable, this is for CA) - $1000 Social security - $2500 Medicare - $600 Disability (again, CA) - $500 Total tax - $6700 in CA, maybe $5200 in a lower tax state $13k annually for rent (in CA, that’s very cheap). How much for health insurance? Probably $1k-$2k. How much for transportation? That’s car payment/repairs, insurance, and gas in most places. This eats up a lot of disposable income for people. Cable tv, cell phone, etc. also adds up quickly. Oh, you better not have student loans. That will eat up more of your disposable income. I have given some budgeting tips to people who make ~$50k working in California. At best, they can contribute the 5% for matching, but it’s tough. Things like increased gas prices, unexpected car repairs, medical issues, etc. are a huge fear and a major concern. Sure, $40k is very livable in provincial parts of the US, but there are many many people who do not live in those areas but make that income. Just trying to keep it real…
- apatters 5y ago
  Yours is the best rebuttal by far, but I think your reference to "provincial" parts of the US reveals why we arrived at very different conclusions. My #1 non-negotiable for my first job after college was very contrarian at the time, less so now. I've never budged on it. This is it: "Not in California." Why? Because I like having money.
- zuminator 5y ago
  If you're making $40k in a dense urban area you're probably sharing rent with someone. It's still tight but that gives you an extra $100-$200/wk in disposable income (or for necessities, as the case may be.)
RickJWagner 5y ago
Yes, this. Live below your means, invest the difference. Grind for 3 or 4 decades, you end up with a pile of money. It's not easy, but it's true.
- Mezzie 5y ago
  Best hope you don't get sick. And nobody in your family gets sick or dies. That was my plan until I got MS at 26. Oh, and hopefully everything progresses as you foresee. For example, I chose a college (back in 2006) and borrowed 2k my freshman year. Senior year I ended up having to take out 30k because 2008 wiped out my dad (who was helping) + his wife cheated on him and froze all their assets while they had a messy divorce. Or how I went to grad school in Canada because it was cheaper and I calculated whether I should cash out my retirement accounts or borrow more, planned, and managed to live, pay tuition, and save on ~25k/yr in Vancouver, BC. When I was planning my move back, the Canadian dollar crashed literally the week I made the conversion and I ended up 2k short of what I expected (after about a decade of holding steady). Then throw in kids and spouses and hopefully nothing happens to any of them. Better hope you accurately predict the rising costs of healthcare, childcare, etc. too, and hope that nothing else pops up and becomes unaffordable. (College used to be affordable, I wonder what's next?) The idea that you can plan a life out is a nice idea, but things happen, and it's not people's fault.
  - RickJWagner 5y ago
    Sure. Sorry you've had some bad breaks, and some decisions didn't turn out like you'd want. To be sure, some people have bad luck. Some have good. It's nobody's fault, and nobody's responsibility to fix it all. Better luck (and better luck with decisions) to you going forward.
boring_twenties 5y ago
I think you're misreading the parent, I read it as more like if you're 24 and make 200K whilst being chained to an office 5 or more days a week, your peers who make 40k doing odd jobs at their own convenience and enjoy a larger portion of their time in freedom will pity you, not look up to you.
lariati 5y ago
The biggest difference from when I was in my early 20s is that I didn't know Mark Zuckerberg's real time net worth loss and it be a constant news story for that day in the news cycle. I knew Bill Gates was the richest man in the world but I couldn't care less. Actually, I don't think my friends or I even paid attention to the "news" at all in my early 20s. I even worked at an investment firm in college but didn't care at all about investing, the stock market or getting rich. Ultimately, there was so much going on culturally that I knew I was in the prime of my life and the richest old guy in the world couldn't buy what I had. Before 2000, everyone wanted to be in the music industry. Whatever business you ran or how much money you had it wasn't as cool as being in the music industry. Now everyone in the music industry wants to be in business. We have surrendered so much culture to technology that there is just not that much going on at this point besides net worth tracking. There is nothing cool about art besides the net worth value added when it is sold as a NFT or how many views on youtube the piece gets because you know a lot of views add to the person's net worth. When the culture is mostly net worth tracking then of course working a job is not going to make you happy. You can either be a crypto speculator or youtube celebrity. What matters though is net worth number go up. Net worth number go up is the point of existing as a human. That is a brutal situation as a broke college kid when starting life with a net worth of like -$100k at interest from student loans. I think you have to expect some kind of hippie dropout thing . Especially if you picture 5 years forward the 18-23 year old generation covid kids are going to reject the system at mass scale. Edit: I didn't even notice the article is on a site called Making a Millionaire lol. Of course it is.

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friedturkey 5y ago

Averages lean upwards due to some people making millions. Federal taxes aren't the only taxes. State and other taxes are factored in. Rent may average at $1100 in an ideal world, but near cities, $1100 is increasingly rare. Every time this is mentioned someone will chime in and say "yeah but I live in rural Nebraska and pay less than that." Which is fine. But then your employment options are slim, most jobs aren't paying $40k a month, not everyone is a tech contractor making 200k a year from their bedroom on a lakefront, not everyone wants to be or can be a tech contractor, and a lot of jobs performed by "normal" people (people on HN are generally highly paid and anything but typical) will involve long commute times unless they're living in the middle of town... in which case rent prices shoot up fast. The average person also needs to pay for health care in the US (even if their company provides insurance, they're fucked when they get sick because insurance covers very little for most people not in very expensive programs). They have car loans. They have college loans. They need to pay deposits just to move. 9-5s are being replaced with 9-6s and people have less free time. When you factor in all of that, the "average office worker" looks like a dream life to a lot of people. What people considered a boring hell of a life in 1965 is a fantasy unobtainable to an increasing number of "average" people. Comments claiming it's "easy" for "average" people here make me think some people live in a bubble detached from all reality.

piokoch 5y ago
This most interesting part for me is this "What people considered a boring hell of a life in 1965 is a fantasy unobtainable to an increasing number of >>average<< people". It would be good to analyze what happened between 1965 and 2022, what has changed that instead of progress we see some kind of downward spiral. Or maybe 1965s are idealized? Are there people looking on this? I have zero knowledge to understand all of this, unfortunately.
- dazc 5y ago
  I was born in '65. My dad had a regular job, mum didn't work and I have 3 siblings. We lived, what would be classed today as, a lower middle-class lifestyle. Aside from earnings and cost of living, the one thing I believe that has changed is that I don't remember knowing of many people living a much better life than I was at the time. Now it seems everyone is, even those earning much less than I do. Driving a car you could never be able to buy outright, multiple foreign holidays, fine dining and designer clothing are pretty much the norm these days because, somehow, people feel entitled to such a lifestyle regardless of their ability to finance it.
  - reducesuffering 5y ago
    > somehow, people feel entitled to such a lifestyle regardless of their ability to finance it. How do you think Google and Facebook are trillion $ companies? They run targeted advertising to induce consumer demand via manipulation-as-a-service ("Hey advertisers, not enough people willingly going out to buy your $70 clothes made for $1? Here's the people susceptible to feeling inadequate when you show them how much sexier they'll be after their purchase). The $ they skim has to come from someone's pockets at the end of the day.
- mellavora 5y ago
  See: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/12/life-simpsons-no-longer-attainable/617499/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/12/life-simps... The Life in The Simpsons Is No Longer Attainable The most famous dysfunctional family of 1990s television enjoyed, by today’s standards, an almost dreamily secure existence. By Dani Alexis Ryskamp Updated at 11:10 a.m. ET on February 8, 2021.

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csa 5y ago

> And the average rent is about $1100/mo. About a third of the office worker's income. Federal taxes are another 11% or so. That leaves more than half of an average office worker's income for essentials like food, clothing and utilities. This sounds like math done by someone who has never earned an income as low as $40k. Some slightly more realistic numbers (rounding to nearest hundred): Income - $40,000 Federal - $3100 State (variable, this is for CA) - $1000 Social security - $2500 Medicare - $600 Disability (again, CA) - $500 Total tax - $6700 in CA, maybe $5200 in a lower tax state $13k annually for rent (in CA, that’s very cheap). How much for health insurance? Probably $1k-$2k. How much for transportation? That’s car payment/repairs, insurance, and gas in most places. This eats up a lot of disposable income for people. Cable tv, cell phone, etc. also adds up quickly. Oh, you better not have student loans. That will eat up more of your disposable income. I have given some budgeting tips to people who make ~$50k working in California. At best, they can contribute the 5% for matching, but it’s tough. Things like increased gas prices, unexpected car repairs, medical issues, etc. are a huge fear and a major concern. Sure, $40k is very livable in provincial parts of the US, but there are many many people who do not live in those areas but make that income. Just trying to keep it real…

apatters 5y ago
Yours is the best rebuttal by far, but I think your reference to "provincial" parts of the US reveals why we arrived at very different conclusions. My #1 non-negotiable for my first job after college was very contrarian at the time, less so now. I've never budged on it. This is it: "Not in California." Why? Because I like having money.
zuminator 5y ago
If you're making $40k in a dense urban area you're probably sharing rent with someone. It's still tight but that gives you an extra $100-$200/wk in disposable income (or for necessities, as the case may be.)

RickJWagner 5y ago

Yes, this. Live below your means, invest the difference. Grind for 3 or 4 decades, you end up with a pile of money. It's not easy, but it's true.

Mezzie 5y ago
Best hope you don't get sick. And nobody in your family gets sick or dies. That was my plan until I got MS at 26. Oh, and hopefully everything progresses as you foresee. For example, I chose a college (back in 2006) and borrowed 2k my freshman year. Senior year I ended up having to take out 30k because 2008 wiped out my dad (who was helping) + his wife cheated on him and froze all their assets while they had a messy divorce. Or how I went to grad school in Canada because it was cheaper and I calculated whether I should cash out my retirement accounts or borrow more, planned, and managed to live, pay tuition, and save on ~25k/yr in Vancouver, BC. When I was planning my move back, the Canadian dollar crashed literally the week I made the conversion and I ended up 2k short of what I expected (after about a decade of holding steady). Then throw in kids and spouses and hopefully nothing happens to any of them. Better hope you accurately predict the rising costs of healthcare, childcare, etc. too, and hope that nothing else pops up and becomes unaffordable. (College used to be affordable, I wonder what's next?) The idea that you can plan a life out is a nice idea, but things happen, and it's not people's fault.
- RickJWagner 5y ago
  Sure. Sorry you've had some bad breaks, and some decisions didn't turn out like you'd want. To be sure, some people have bad luck. Some have good. It's nobody's fault, and nobody's responsibility to fix it all. Better luck (and better luck with decisions) to you going forward.

boring_twenties 5y ago

I think you're misreading the parent, I read it as more like if you're 24 and make 200K whilst being chained to an office 5 or more days a week, your peers who make 40k doing odd jobs at their own convenience and enjoy a larger portion of their time in freedom will pity you, not look up to you.

lariati 5y ago

The biggest difference from when I was in my early 20s is that I didn't know Mark Zuckerberg's real time net worth loss and it be a constant news story for that day in the news cycle. I knew Bill Gates was the richest man in the world but I couldn't care less. Actually, I don't think my friends or I even paid attention to the "news" at all in my early 20s. I even worked at an investment firm in college but didn't care at all about investing, the stock market or getting rich. Ultimately, there was so much going on culturally that I knew I was in the prime of my life and the richest old guy in the world couldn't buy what I had. Before 2000, everyone wanted to be in the music industry. Whatever business you ran or how much money you had it wasn't as cool as being in the music industry. Now everyone in the music industry wants to be in business. We have surrendered so much culture to technology that there is just not that much going on at this point besides net worth tracking. There is nothing cool about art besides the net worth value added when it is sold as a NFT or how many views on youtube the piece gets because you know a lot of views add to the person's net worth. When the culture is mostly net worth tracking then of course working a job is not going to make you happy. You can either be a crypto speculator or youtube celebrity. What matters though is net worth number go up. Net worth number go up is the point of existing as a human. That is a brutal situation as a broke college kid when starting life with a net worth of like -$100k at interest from student loans. I think you have to expect some kind of hippie dropout thing . Especially if you picture 5 years forward the 18-23 year old generation covid kids are going to reject the system at mass scale. Edit: I didn't even notice the article is on a site called Making a Millionaire lol. Of course it is.