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I see this sentiment a lot. What I've never heard along with it is how much money the single-earner of the household pulls in. Care to share?

Ancapistani 2y ago
Just shy of $180k. ETA: but our oldest is 15. When we started this in 2008, I was making $12.75 / hour.
- silverquiet 2y ago
  That's 2.4X the median household income in the US; it seems very doable. Do you think it would be doable if your 2008 wage had only been adjusted for inflation?
  - Ancapistani 2y ago
    Yes. We moved to a very low COL area to make the most of our resources. We wouldn’t be nearly as comfortable, but it’s doable.
qingcharles 2y ago
When I was doing it, about $120K/yr.
- bluefirebrand 2y ago
  So double the American national average?
  - anon291 2y ago
    There's no such thing as the 'american average'. Your wage's utility largely depends on your local factors, because when buying a home, no where do you possibly buy the 'average American house', the 'average American grocery bill', the 'average American appliance costs', etc. Each local market can be very different.
    - bluefirebrand 2y ago
      ??? I'm very puzzled at your comment, but anyways here: Bureau of Labor Statistics release about American National Average salaries for Q1 of 2024, with quite a lot of breakdowns for demographics https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.t03.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.t03.htm
      - swatcoder 2y ago
        They're saying it's not an informative measure in discussions about affordability or lifestyle because no individual lives some national average life, not that it can't be calculated or used in policy analysis.
      - anon291 2y ago
        Suppose you have town A where food costs $10/unit and housing costs $2/unit and town B where food cost $2/unit and housing costs $10/unit. According to statistics, the average cost of food and housing in the country of ABCland (consisting only of town A and town B) is $6/unit food, $6/unit housing. From this one concludes completely incorrectly that food and housing are as expensive for the average resident of ABC land. Except... that's not true at all. No matter where you are in ABC land, housing and food have extremely different costs. Now suppose, wages are $12 in both A and B. Do you think the results will look the same in town A and town B? Why? or why not? Will both suffer the same problems? Why or why not? And that's the point, if DOL says that wages are on average $60k, that says nothing about what the cost of living is in any particular area. For all you know the poster above could live in a high cost of living area, in which case, this is a modest wage. Or he could live in a low cost of living area where this is exorbitant. Or he could live in a place where food is cheap, but housing expensive, or vice versa. Without knowing the details of where the wage is being used, it's impossible to form a coherent narrative.
        bluefirebrand 2y ago
        > Without knowing the details of where the wage is being used, it's impossible to form a coherent narrative We use the average because we do not know the details of where the wage is being used. I'm aware that I've even made a pretty big assumption that the OP we're talking about is even living in America, but lacking any more specific information all we have to fall back on is probability. Hacker News is majority American users, so I feel it's a reasonable assumption. America is made up of many small markets, sure. But the nature of averages is such that some people will be below the average, most will be clustered around the average, and some will be higher, regardless of which market they live in Some markets may have a higher income floor than others, but the highest minimum wage in the USA right now is 17 an hour, which is roughly 35k per year if you're full time. That means there are no markets in the country that have a higher yearly income floor than the national average. So here's my narrative: It actually does not matter what market this person lived in, whether it was super high cost of living or otherwise. They were still earning a salary that was likely 2-3x more than what many other people in their market were likely making, which is a pretty privileged spot to be in no matter where you live It also is important to remember the context. This OP was talking about living on just one income, allowing their wife to not work a job and be a full time child raiser instead. Having someone making 2x the average means they are earning as much in one income as 2 average earning parents would be, even in the same market. That was the intention of my criticism in the first place: It's relatively easy to say "just have one partner stay home and raise the kids" when you earn as much as two average people! This is true regardless of the market you live in because you will still be able to afford a much higher quality of life than a single income making the "average". Adjusted for the market you live in, of course, but still!
swatcoder 2y ago
It's really sensitive to lifestyle expectations and local costs, but it doesn't need to take that much if its the priority and part of a shared vision. Many couples even find their way into that dynamic involuntarily when one spouse becomes disabled, often in an even more challenging way, but still find a way to make things work.
- anon291 2y ago
  > Many couples even find their way into that dynamic involuntarily when one spouse becomes disabled, often in an even more challenging way, but still find a way to make things work. This is one of the big 'unseen' risks with dual income couples. Elizabeth warren talks about it a lot in her book 'The Two Income Trap'. While it seems having two incomes makes you more robust against any job loss.. The opposite is true, and the data bear it out. Essentially if you both earn 100k, then you will adjust your lifestyle to depend on 200k in income. Now if one spouse loses their job, the other spouse has to make up the 100k somehow. Most cannot and go bankrupt. It is actually very hard to increase your earnings when you start hitting the upper income levels. While easy to go from 120 k to 150k for example, it becomes harder when you're earning 200k to go to 250k. On the other hand, if you have a working spouse and a non-working spouse (realistically, most non-working spouses have some work experience) and are earning 100k, then you create lifestyle expectations around 100k. If the 100k guy loses his job, then, in most cases both historically and today (and again, Warren gives substantial data to support this claim), the non-working spouse is often able to find a job that will pay almost as much. Either way, in the single income case, they new gap between expectations and earnings is much less than the gap in the dual income case. Historically, much fewer single income couples go bankrupt. Now, obviously, if you both work and depend on only one income, that's fine, but most people (and again, the data bear it out unequivocally) cannot do this.
anon291 2y ago
I belong to a Catholic parish in the downtown area of a HCOL west coast city (median income 79k). Men at the parish earn anywhere from 70 to 200k+ (I know as the head of a men's group... the guys talk to me, come to me for career advice, etc). Most of the families have a stay at home mother (some have stay at home fathers, usually if the wife is a nurse / doctor). Sometimes the stay at home spouse has a 'hobby' job that gets done when dad (or working mom) is at home (light online sales, etc). Either way, all of them make it work on these incomes, and almost all own their home. It truly is do-able I believe. I do think having a strong support network helps.
aidenn0 2y ago
Given that single-parents manage (sort-of), it seems logical that adding reliable free child-care into the mix shouldn't make things harder. I do have a friend who was making little enough to qualify for SNAP that made it work. It was definitely tight for him for a while, but after a series of promotions he's making a lot more. My wife is also a SAHM, but we are in a rather unique position (I make a lot of money and we fostered and adopted children with attachment issues). Now that the kids are old/emotionally stable enough she's looking at working again and the earnings would be less than 1/4 mine; with us already in a high tax-bracket the total added income is an even smaller amount. Still probably going to do it though because she wants to work, and no matter the budget adding even just a few thousand on the margins can make a big difference.
aaronax 2y ago
Myself and my three siblings all have young and growing families with stay-at-home moms. Incomes ranging from 80k to 200k (guessing some), fairly LCOL in North Dakota. Most of the parents involved are what may best be summed up as "good with money" but not crazy wealthy, more like work hard / save hard / be wise, and set their children up well for success. We went to state colleges and have practical degrees: engineering, biology, business, and education.
Spinnaker_ 2y ago
My brother does it for about 70k a year. 3 kids. He lives just outside a 10k person town. It's quite a nice life they live.
ndriscoll 2y ago
My wife has been a homemaker since I got my first career job. For the first few years (~2013-2016) I was making $64k. I've maxed my 401k every year. I started making more in 2017 and now make pretty well into six figures, but we still don't spend more than $60k or so in a year, and IMO we've always lived quite well (now with two young kids). I didn't, but if you saved up for a few years living with your parents in your early 20s, you could buy a house and then do pretty okay on 60k+. Especially if both people worked and saved before moving out. $60k seems to be just above the median individual income for men 25-34 (1134*52=58968): https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2024/median-weekly-earnings-of-full-time-workers-were-1145-in-the-fourth-quarter-of-2023.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2024/median-weekly-earnings-of-... When I analyzed this a couple years ago, the minimal yearly expenditure to live a more Spartan version of our lifestyle (without compromising on things like food or heating) but with the same home was a little over $40k. Everything over that for us is just prioritization. Covid inflation may have altered the cutoff since then, but I don't think it changes the qualitative picture significantly.
- antisthenes 2y ago
  > the minimal yearly expenditure to live a more Spartan version of our lifestyle (without compromising on things like food or heating) but with the same home was a little over $40k. Everything over that for us is just prioritization. The mortgage alone for a house to fit a family of 4 would be close to $40k in many medium-high COL places.
  - ndriscoll 2y ago
    Well yeah but obviously, don't try to live in a HCOL area if you're not going to economically win out. Local electrician apprenticeship programs here advertise ~55k wages at the end of a residential apprenticeship and ~86k for commercial (assuming 40 hrs/week; I don't know whether that's a reasonable assumption). You need a high school diploma or GED, and need to pass an aptitude test to qualify for the commercial apprentice program.
    - antisthenes 2y ago

Ancapistani 2y ago

Just shy of $180k. ETA: but our oldest is 15. When we started this in 2008, I was making $12.75 / hour.

silverquiet 2y ago
That's 2.4X the median household income in the US; it seems very doable. Do you think it would be doable if your 2008 wage had only been adjusted for inflation?
- Ancapistani 2y ago
  Yes. We moved to a very low COL area to make the most of our resources. We wouldn’t be nearly as comfortable, but it’s doable.

qingcharles 2y ago

When I was doing it, about $120K/yr.

bluefirebrand 2y ago
So double the American national average?
- anon291 2y ago
  There's no such thing as the 'american average'. Your wage's utility largely depends on your local factors, because when buying a home, no where do you possibly buy the 'average American house', the 'average American grocery bill', the 'average American appliance costs', etc. Each local market can be very different.
  - bluefirebrand 2y ago
    ??? I'm very puzzled at your comment, but anyways here: Bureau of Labor Statistics release about American National Average salaries for Q1 of 2024, with quite a lot of breakdowns for demographics https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.t03.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.t03.htm
    - swatcoder 2y ago
      They're saying it's not an informative measure in discussions about affordability or lifestyle because no individual lives some national average life, not that it can't be calculated or used in policy analysis.
    - anon291 2y ago
      Suppose you have town A where food costs $10/unit and housing costs $2/unit and town B where food cost $2/unit and housing costs $10/unit. According to statistics, the average cost of food and housing in the country of ABCland (consisting only of town A and town B) is $6/unit food, $6/unit housing. From this one concludes completely incorrectly that food and housing are as expensive for the average resident of ABC land. Except... that's not true at all. No matter where you are in ABC land, housing and food have extremely different costs. Now suppose, wages are $12 in both A and B. Do you think the results will look the same in town A and town B? Why? or why not? Will both suffer the same problems? Why or why not? And that's the point, if DOL says that wages are on average $60k, that says nothing about what the cost of living is in any particular area. For all you know the poster above could live in a high cost of living area, in which case, this is a modest wage. Or he could live in a low cost of living area where this is exorbitant. Or he could live in a place where food is cheap, but housing expensive, or vice versa. Without knowing the details of where the wage is being used, it's impossible to form a coherent narrative.
      - bluefirebrand 2y ago
        > Without knowing the details of where the wage is being used, it's impossible to form a coherent narrative We use the average because we do not know the details of where the wage is being used. I'm aware that I've even made a pretty big assumption that the OP we're talking about is even living in America, but lacking any more specific information all we have to fall back on is probability. Hacker News is majority American users, so I feel it's a reasonable assumption. America is made up of many small markets, sure. But the nature of averages is such that some people will be below the average, most will be clustered around the average, and some will be higher, regardless of which market they live in Some markets may have a higher income floor than others, but the highest minimum wage in the USA right now is 17 an hour, which is roughly 35k per year if you're full time. That means there are no markets in the country that have a higher yearly income floor than the national average. So here's my narrative: It actually does not matter what market this person lived in, whether it was super high cost of living or otherwise. They were still earning a salary that was likely 2-3x more than what many other people in their market were likely making, which is a pretty privileged spot to be in no matter where you live It also is important to remember the context. This OP was talking about living on just one income, allowing their wife to not work a job and be a full time child raiser instead. Having someone making 2x the average means they are earning as much in one income as 2 average earning parents would be, even in the same market. That was the intention of my criticism in the first place: It's relatively easy to say "just have one partner stay home and raise the kids" when you earn as much as two average people! This is true regardless of the market you live in because you will still be able to afford a much higher quality of life than a single income making the "average". Adjusted for the market you live in, of course, but still!

swatcoder 2y ago

It's really sensitive to lifestyle expectations and local costs, but it doesn't need to take that much if its the priority and part of a shared vision. Many couples even find their way into that dynamic involuntarily when one spouse becomes disabled, often in an even more challenging way, but still find a way to make things work.

anon291 2y ago
> Many couples even find their way into that dynamic involuntarily when one spouse becomes disabled, often in an even more challenging way, but still find a way to make things work. This is one of the big 'unseen' risks with dual income couples. Elizabeth warren talks about it a lot in her book 'The Two Income Trap'. While it seems having two incomes makes you more robust against any job loss.. The opposite is true, and the data bear it out. Essentially if you both earn 100k, then you will adjust your lifestyle to depend on 200k in income. Now if one spouse loses their job, the other spouse has to make up the 100k somehow. Most cannot and go bankrupt. It is actually very hard to increase your earnings when you start hitting the upper income levels. While easy to go from 120 k to 150k for example, it becomes harder when you're earning 200k to go to 250k. On the other hand, if you have a working spouse and a non-working spouse (realistically, most non-working spouses have some work experience) and are earning 100k, then you create lifestyle expectations around 100k. If the 100k guy loses his job, then, in most cases both historically and today (and again, Warren gives substantial data to support this claim), the non-working spouse is often able to find a job that will pay almost as much. Either way, in the single income case, they new gap between expectations and earnings is much less than the gap in the dual income case. Historically, much fewer single income couples go bankrupt. Now, obviously, if you both work and depend on only one income, that's fine, but most people (and again, the data bear it out unequivocally) cannot do this.

anon291 2y ago

I belong to a Catholic parish in the downtown area of a HCOL west coast city (median income 79k). Men at the parish earn anywhere from 70 to 200k+ (I know as the head of a men's group... the guys talk to me, come to me for career advice, etc). Most of the families have a stay at home mother (some have stay at home fathers, usually if the wife is a nurse / doctor). Sometimes the stay at home spouse has a 'hobby' job that gets done when dad (or working mom) is at home (light online sales, etc). Either way, all of them make it work on these incomes, and almost all own their home. It truly is do-able I believe. I do think having a strong support network helps.

aidenn0 2y ago

Given that single-parents manage (sort-of), it seems logical that adding reliable free child-care into the mix shouldn't make things harder. I do have a friend who was making little enough to qualify for SNAP that made it work. It was definitely tight for him for a while, but after a series of promotions he's making a lot more. My wife is also a SAHM, but we are in a rather unique position (I make a lot of money and we fostered and adopted children with attachment issues). Now that the kids are old/emotionally stable enough she's looking at working again and the earnings would be less than 1/4 mine; with us already in a high tax-bracket the total added income is an even smaller amount. Still probably going to do it though because she wants to work, and no matter the budget adding even just a few thousand on the margins can make a big difference.

aaronax 2y ago

Myself and my three siblings all have young and growing families with stay-at-home moms. Incomes ranging from 80k to 200k (guessing some), fairly LCOL in North Dakota. Most of the parents involved are what may best be summed up as "good with money" but not crazy wealthy, more like work hard / save hard / be wise, and set their children up well for success. We went to state colleges and have practical degrees: engineering, biology, business, and education.

Spinnaker_ 2y ago

My brother does it for about 70k a year. 3 kids. He lives just outside a 10k person town. It's quite a nice life they live.

ndriscoll 2y ago

My wife has been a homemaker since I got my first career job. For the first few years (~2013-2016) I was making $64k. I've maxed my 401k every year. I started making more in 2017 and now make pretty well into six figures, but we still don't spend more than $60k or so in a year, and IMO we've always lived quite well (now with two young kids). I didn't, but if you saved up for a few years living with your parents in your early 20s, you could buy a house and then do pretty okay on 60k+. Especially if both people worked and saved before moving out. $60k seems to be just above the median individual income for men 25-34 (1134*52=58968): https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2024/median-weekly-earnings-of-full-time-workers-were-1145-in-the-fourth-quarter-of-2023.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2024/median-weekly-earnings-of-... When I analyzed this a couple years ago, the minimal yearly expenditure to live a more Spartan version of our lifestyle (without compromising on things like food or heating) but with the same home was a little over $40k. Everything over that for us is just prioritization. Covid inflation may have altered the cutoff since then, but I don't think it changes the qualitative picture significantly.

antisthenes 2y ago
> the minimal yearly expenditure to live a more Spartan version of our lifestyle (without compromising on things like food or heating) but with the same home was a little over $40k. Everything over that for us is just prioritization. The mortgage alone for a house to fit a family of 4 would be close to $40k in many medium-high COL places.
- ndriscoll 2y ago
  Well yeah but obviously, don't try to live in a HCOL area if you're not going to economically win out. Local electrician apprenticeship programs here advertise ~55k wages at the end of a residential apprenticeship and ~86k for commercial (assuming 40 hrs/week; I don't know whether that's a reasonable assumption). You need a high school diploma or GED, and need to pass an aptitude test to qualify for the commercial apprentice program.
  - antisthenes 2y ago