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The salary you need to live comfortably in 15 major U.S. cities
- yuppie_scum 4y agoBased on what they have for my metro, I think you would be living kind of “fake rich” at that income. Renting not owning, lease on a car, etc. you wouldn’t be in a position to build equity, unless you made some serious sacrifices on location and lifestyle.
- phkahler 4y agoThis seems like it can't be considering housing costs or something.
- wildrhythms 4y agoAccording to the article, NYC residents should only be spending $3,271 per month on basic living expenses to live 'comfortably'. I find that a little hard to believe?
- popotamonga 4y agoThe trend nowadays is that you just need a bed and a toilet to be comfortable, so cheaper rent. Same happening here in europe, even on new homes, area is decreasing by the year.
- bradleyjg 4y agoGood luck paying rent and utilities for that much. It’s not impossible but hardly what I’d call easy and comfortable.
- steveBK123 4y ago"metro area"
- 404mm 4y agoThe numbers are less than half of what they should be. I live in one of those areas and number presented is more like a poverty line.
- em500 4y agoThe listed numbers are 5k to 7k per month in take home pay for singles. Calling that "poverty line" sounds like peak HN.
- 404mm 4y agoHi, I don’t mean to sound entitled. Here is my reasoning/ breakdown. Example 1- DFW: $65,000 in a state with not income tax gets you about $4600/month. That does not include medical benefit deductions, HSA or 401k. You can pay easily half of the leftover in rent and utilities on a small apartment. Not much room for saving or car payment. Owning a house is out of question entirely unless you had some previous savings or significant equity. Example 2- LA: The situation is much worse in LA. $75k after taxes gets you $4980, while the costs of living are significantly higher compared to DFW. I see that as surviving, not living comfortably.
- em500 4y agoHere's the minimum expense breakdown for DFW from MIT which the article is based on: https://livingwage.mit.edu/metros/19100 https://livingwage.mit.edu/metros/19100 (totaling $32,371 for a 1 adult 0 child household, for which they use a zero-bedroom apartment). Note that the median household income pre-tax is $58.2k (Dallas, 2.5 persons/household) to $67.9k (FW, 2.8 persons/household). So a single earning 65k after tax complaining that that's near poverty line sounds pretty entitled to me. (For LA the median gross income is $69.8k for 2.75 persons/household.) https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/dallascitytexas,fortworthcitytexas,stpaulcityminnesota,minneapoliscityminnesota/PST045221 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/dallascitytexas... https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/losangelescitycalifornia https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/losangelescitycalifornia
- 404mm 4y agoThese are pre-covid numbers in the MIT breakdown. A lot has changed.
- skywhopper 4y agoCan’t stop laughing that they only named the California gas and sales taxes as reasons why San Francisco is the top of the list. These numbers are highly questionable in a lot of ways, but that level of “analysis” is truly stupefying.
- lizardking 4y ago85k is a poverty wage in SF
- jacknews 4y agoIs this owner-class propaganda? These numbers do not seem realistic 'comfort' wages, and complete fantasy if you have a family.
- em500 4y agoThese are post-tax income numbers for a single individual with no kids.
- thomaslord 4y agoI still think these numbers are too low, at least for my metro area. $60k post-tax in the Philly metro area isn't enough to rent a decent place alone and also save for retirement. Maybe when they say "take-home" they're assuming that number is after paycheck deductions for healthcare and 401k, but they should definitely specify that.
- jacknews 4y agoAnd the video of the guy earning decent money pointedly shows he blows half of it on good food and bars and going out. The subtext seems to be to companies: 'this is what you should pay, anything more is wasted', so I'll say again, it seems like owner-class propaganda.
- pizzaknife 4y agoim not sure 84k is enough to live confortably in Lompoc Ca, let alone SF (at least, if memory serves me)
- bradleyjg 4y agoShould probably sub this link: https://smartasset.com/data-studies/salary-needed-to-live-comfortably-2023 https://smartasset.com/data-studies/salary-needed-to-live-co... The article adds nothing and takes away some.
- em500 4y agoWhich in itself is largely based on expenses given by https://livingwage.mit.edu https://livingwage.mit.edu and adding some fixed percentages for discretionary spending plus savings. The methodology for the expense calculation is described here: https://livingwage.mit.edu/resources/Living-Wage-Users-Guide-Technical-Documentation-2023-02-01.pdf https://livingwage.mit.edu/resources/Living-Wage-Users-Guide...
- ianai 4y agoI can't change the links unfortunately. I'm pretty concerned that this got flagged. Yes, the numbers are low when you look at them without reading the article. But it follows the trend that HN really doesn't like econ/business/finance articles. For reference, 71,000 after tax is around 97,000 (71,000/.73, before tax and without 401k/healthcare). If you want to contribute 401k, add that value on top of the 97,000 so 10k contribution would be 107,000 and if you're contributing 100/pay check to healthcare another 2,600 or 109,600. Divide that by 80*26 for hourly and it's around 52.69/hr (not that many positions offer to pay such an income on an hourly basis). So, sorry for posting this to HN.
- bradleyjg 4y agoI wouldn’t take it personally. There’s a lot of people with the ability to flag.
- em500 4y agoIt seems everyone is skipping the text and going directly to the table and complaining that they're too low. These are post-tax incomes for a single individual with no kids.
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- steveBK123 4y ago"Metro area" is doing a lot of work in this article. Remember metro area is generally a catchment that includes all sorts of outlying suburbs you mentally discount. So $78K "metro area NYC" is going as far out as Suffolk county on LI, Ocean county, NJ and Putnam county, NY... none of which are normal commute-to-NYC residences. Note its also a very narrow definition, that fits people in their early 20s mostly: "SmartAsset’s study analyzed the after-tax income needed to live in the nation’s 25 largest metro areas comfortably. To determine the required salary for a single individual with no kids in each city, SmartAsset employed the 50/30/20 rule, which defines a comfortable lifestyle as one in which 50% of after-tax income is applied to basic living expenses (needs), 30% to discretionary income (wants) and 20% to savings and debt." In other words, a couple with kids probably needs about 2-3x to "live comfortably".. And actual NYC 5-boroughs-only would apply another multiplier. And desirable-to-HN-readers hoods like Manhattan below 96th St, North/West Brooklyn, etc .. yet another multiplier. I still laugh when I think about the guy I worked with who was like "my father in law said we gotta make $1M gross to own a place & raise a family in Manhattan (ie - UES)". Initially I thought he was deranged. Now I think he was probably right or at least within the order of magnitude.
- steveBK123 4y agoI also totally missed the definition as being "post tax". So right off the bat they are basically saying $100-110k for "metro area NYC"..
- bradleyjg 4y agoWithin an order of magnitude is $100k to $10mm. That’s so wide as to be meaningless. I know people in Yorkville with kids and a coop making $300k ish. If you want west of lex and private schools, you probably need to double that. 1mm as the minimum is still outlandish even for the UES.
- otoburb 4y agoMaintaining a NYC lifestyle on $300K household income makes sense for a family with multiple kids attending public school(s). But owning a place in most desirable locations (including Yorkville) seems to require that additional cushion that had to come from somewhere (extreme saving discipline, investments, inheritance, liquidity event, $1MM HH income, etc.).
- beermonster 4y agoI've seen this '50/30/20 rule' recommend before, in the UK press (financial articles) and by banks [1] and financial resources. I'm interested in it's origin, whether it still holds true today (is the advice still valid) and alternatives strategies for comparison (given today's current economical climate, rising inflation and interest rates). [1] e.g. https://www.hsbc.co.uk/financial-fitness/everyday-budgeting/spending-your-income/ https://www.hsbc.co.uk/financial-fitness/everyday-budgeting/...
- zamnos 4y agogiven that it's a 1/3 rule elsewhere, it would be interesting to know indeed. it's split a bit differently than your link, but it's a third of your after-tax income to go toward living expenses, a third toward your home and the last third toward savings and investments.
- gruez 4y ago>but it's a third of your after-tax income to go toward living expenses, a third toward your home so 66% going to necessities rather than 50%?