> Top 15% in SF,LA,NYC areas would put you around 180-225K combined, making his statements true. 75k in a rural small town x2 with a wife would be more than eno

> Top 15% in SF,LA,NYC areas would put you around 180-225K combined, making his statements true. 75k in a rural small town x2 with a wife would be more than enough to buy a house, have kids and have 1k in spare change every month. The parent was specific about a top 15% income on the national scale. However, for interest's sake, if you want to talk about local incomes, $75K puts you in the top 3% in the rural area I come from. I should hope you'd be able to buy a house and still have some money left over being such a high earner, relatively speaking. In my experience, incomes do not migrate well though. If you're making $75K in a rural area, you're probably not going to make $500K, or whatever top 3% is in the cities you mention, just by moving. More realistically, you might move up to $100K or so to account for some rise in cost of living, but not much more. Generally speaking, of course. There are always outliers.