3 ms·

It's easy to lose perspective, but that amount is 5% of the average net income in the US.

temp_praneshp 4y ago
Any reason to believe that's true for the subset of US residents that are on HN?
noirbot 4y ago
Sure, but not the average net income for people on HN probably, or the author's. The entire article is about them realizing they're probably spending too much!
ghaff 4y ago
It also probably not that different from what a person making that average income pays for their cell phone and possibly cable TV every month.
bussierem 4y ago
No, according to https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2021/demo/p60-273.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2021/demo/p60-27... the median household income is the US is $67,521 in 2020, which $125 a month is about 2.2% of. If you look at "real median earnings", you get a number of $41,535 which comes to 3.6%. Except that number includes "all workers aged 15 and over" which includes high schoolers part time work, so it's a highly skewed statistic when talking about people who might pay for software or a monthly sub like this. Neither of those numbers comes close to 5%, which would be a net income of $30,000/y.
- robocat 4y ago
  The USA usually reports household income as you do, which contains about 2.5 people. So per-capita income is far less than the $67k figure you picked, and 5% is about right. In addition, using the mean (average) is deceptive, because it is skewed by the few people that earn a lot (Jeff Bezos walks into a bar). Using the median would make more sense (although the person you replied to hasn’t, probably because it is harder to find). The mean on HN is possibly higher, making the point moot? There are a lot of international commenters that could swing the number down. Side note: if you want to compare how well you are personally doing you need to compare by other factors. Age cohort especially matters for income and wealth comparisons - even for software dev?
  - bussierem 4y ago
    > In addition, using the mean (average) is deceptive, because it is skewed by the few people that earn a lot (Jeff Bezos walks into a bar). Using the median would make more sense Confused by this comment -- the source I linked IS using median, not mean. I guess that does mean (heh) that the number isn't skewed as much by higher numbers, but can still be skewed by the larger number of part-time high school kids too.

Any reason to believe that's true for the subset of US residents that are on HN?

Sure, but not the average net income for people on HN probably, or the author's. The entire article is about them realizing they're probably spending too much!

ghaff 4y ago

It also probably not that different from what a person making that average income pays for their cell phone and possibly cable TV every month.

bussierem 4y ago

No, according to https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2021/demo/p60-273.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2021/demo/p60-27... the median household income is the US is $67,521 in 2020, which $125 a month is about 2.2% of. If you look at "real median earnings", you get a number of $41,535 which comes to 3.6%. Except that number includes "all workers aged 15 and over" which includes high schoolers part time work, so it's a highly skewed statistic when talking about people who might pay for software or a monthly sub like this. Neither of those numbers comes close to 5%, which would be a net income of $30,000/y.

robocat 4y ago
The USA usually reports household income as you do, which contains about 2.5 people. So per-capita income is far less than the $67k figure you picked, and 5% is about right. In addition, using the mean (average) is deceptive, because it is skewed by the few people that earn a lot (Jeff Bezos walks into a bar). Using the median would make more sense (although the person you replied to hasn’t, probably because it is harder to find). The mean on HN is possibly higher, making the point moot? There are a lot of international commenters that could swing the number down. Side note: if you want to compare how well you are personally doing you need to compare by other factors. Age cohort especially matters for income and wealth comparisons - even for software dev?
- bussierem 4y ago
  > In addition, using the mean (average) is deceptive, because it is skewed by the few people that earn a lot (Jeff Bezos walks into a bar). Using the median would make more sense Confused by this comment -- the source I linked IS using median, not mean. I guess that does mean (heh) that the number isn't skewed as much by higher numbers, but can still be skewed by the larger number of part-time high school kids too.