The USD 90% income is 200K USD. That's 300K AUD. The Australian 90% percentile income is 131,000 AUD per tax office stats. [1] That's less than half that of the

The USD 90% income is 200K USD. That's 300K AUD. The Australian 90% percentile income is 131,000 AUD per tax office stats. [1] That's less than half that of the US 90%. In fact, the threshold to move to a 99% income in Australia is lower than the US 90% income. And that's even before taxes. Even a high tax US state like California has a lower total tax Australia. But it's not just income, outside of health care, things are much cheaper in the US too. Sydney is an odd choice for talking about cheap housing. As you said, a median house price of 1 million USD. My local US city of comparable size has a median home price of $375K USD. I spot checked comparable vehicles, and they cost about 33% about more in Australia after currency conversion than in the US. Food, electricity, petrol, all more expensive than the US averages. Government retirement plans is a similar story. As far as I can tell from [2] the maximum Australian pension payouts for a couple is 41,704 AUD per year. The US equivalent maximum social security would be 74,356 AUD. But Australian pension payments reduce based on your assets. As far as I can tell, having 1.5 million USD (2.2 million AUD) would zero out your pension payments. [1] https://static.ffx.io/images/$width_1240/t_resize_width%2Cq_52%2Cf_auto/ed4ce6d56ad3717c34ab034fd809ab946c228c4f https://static.ffx.io/images/$width_1240/t_resize_width%2Cq_...