I'm not sure where you're going with that. My point was really that being at the top is nice but the 30th %-ile aren't enthusiastic. 120k is going to be like 8

I'm not sure where you're going with that. My point was really that being at the top is nice but the 30th %-ile aren't enthusiastic. 120k is going to be like 85k after tax so assuming they use the median rent rate they went from 21% to 28% of their post-tax salary going to rent. That's certainly going to be noticed (5.5k / month to 5k / month; 10% drop) And the median household definitely noticed considering their income decreased [1]. [1]: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/09/median-household-income.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/09/median-househ...