As usual, depends on where you live. Most of the time when I see that $250k tossed around it's in reference to couples. Typically for a single person it's $200k

As usual, depends on where you live. Most of the time when I see that $250k tossed around it's in reference to couples. Typically for a single person it's $200k. So a couple only has to reach $125k income each to be taxed at that rate. In some parts of the country it's not hard to imagine that two people can reach that and not be particularly wealthy based on local cost of living. But as you say, I would imagine for most of California this isn't an issue.