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Comment by thr1234567 | Hacker News Reader

> NYC and SFBA $130k

Really ? Surely it can't be that expensive ?

It is not. I am lost of what 'barely living' here means.

130k is totally decent, however it is also not rare. For entry level job to big companies/good startups, the market price is between 110k-120k, and it usually takes 2 years or so to bump up your salary to 130k level(one raise is good enough), assuming you are a reasonable(above average but maybe not excellent) engineer.

So, no, I completely disagree with this 'barely living salary' bullshit, it makes us software engineers look like spoiled ungrateful whiny babies. Not GOOD!

shrug

I may be out of touch, or perhaps everyone else has adjusted their expectations downward to account for how expensive everything is, or think that long commutes are normal.

Maybe I'm just in a bad mood today.

I kinda of figure what you mean by 'barely-living', is actually worry free living style(good housing, close to workplace, go to decent places for dining/partying) in SF/NYC. And yes, 130k may knock the door for that standard, but not quite there.

But saying 130k is 'barely-living', if not bad wording, is close to insulting, and helps little in the conversation.

Is keeping your commute under 30m considered "close"?

Anyway, swap out dining/partying for cooking good food at home, add in rainy-day/retirement savings as well as saving for kid's college (even if you don't have kids yet). So, you know, you're actually following standard financial advice.

I mean, sure you can sacrifice quite a bit (don't save, eat crap, waste your time commuting, live in a shoebox) to get by on less, but at some financial point you (and your family) will just be treading water over the long term at best in order to work in SF/NYC. Especially considering that $130k is total compensation (ie. including bonuses that you might not even get, or in a form that is actually worth the face value).

TL/DR: COL in SF is bonkers.

I think it's a combination of hyperbole and being out of touch.

$130K is not "barely a living wage". It's a very good salary in the Bay Area and 1.5 times the average wage in SF.

OK, it is a bit exagerated, but try living on $130k in SF (as opposed to, say, East Palo Alto), paying off student loans, saving a bit, etc.

$130k is a very good salary if you moved to SF a couple of decades ago and bought a house then.

H1B holders don't have student loans

argument fails. you can rent, max out your 401k, and enjoy all the frivolousness you want on a 130k salary. downpayment? yeah not gonna happen. better off than 95% of the population? immediately gonna happen.

I don't get this perspective.

SF is one of the most expensive cities in the US. The very fact you live there means you're well off. People with the mean (or median) US wage, couldn't even fathom living within the city limits.

It's kind of like someone who lives in Beverley Hills saying "I make $500K per year, but I'm only middle class since I can't afford an average home in Beverley Hills". Well no shit, the homes there are tens of millions of dollars.

OK, I'm going to try and keep this simple, rather than a rant.

Big expensive cities (like NYC) usually have inexpensive areas inside them. SF basically has the Tenderloin, and rents there are still nuts.

Edited to add: BTW, aside from the fact that Beverly Hills has less expensive neighborhoods within city limits (south of Wilshire? I forget) there are other even less expensive areas practically next door (just go downhill to where nobody has a view).

Oh, and comparing to the average probably isn't what you want to use to make your argument, you probably want to compare to the median.

The median would definitely be lower. I'd wager money on this. The mean is skewed upwards thanks to executives earning USD 1 million+ . The median would just treat these people as being above the 50th percentile.

Of course the median would be lower. That's why I said that it is the figure you should be using to better make your argument.

It's not. Maybe he's assuming a stay at home wife and/or children which would be a stretch on $130k, it's true.

You can live well and have savings as a single guy on $130k in both those areas.

How do the non-tech denizens manage ? I thought waitresses (and people in similar low-skilled jobs) barely made $30k ?

Yeah 130k being barely a living wage is an absurd thing to say. Tons and tons of people in NYC do not make 130k — even half of it would be a great salary for most — and they seem to still be living just fine.

Well, to me, a living wage isn't just living just fine, but actually managing to get ahead, at least generationaly.

"living just fine" is pretty much the definition of living wage. Having extra is having more than living wage. Having enough to get ahead is earning a really nice wage.

> How do the non-tech denizens manage ?

Co-habitation (2+ people per Bedroom), long commutes, and no savings.

Yes, this is an issue. On h1b your (non-citizen) wife cant legally work without getting her own working h1b or other visa which can be tricky.

I thought that this changed recently? It's now, at least theoretically, quite easy for spouses of H1B visa holders to apply for permission to work.

Spouses of certain H-1B holder - those you are in the green card backlog - can get work permit. This is typically called H4EAD. Here is the relevant notice from USCIS: https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-worker...

This provision came into existence in 2015. There are rumors that Trump administration might rescind this provision.

Could be. My coworker's experience with that was a while back.

Yeah, I am assuming kids aren't being deferred until someone is in their 30s.

I am also assuming you want to live in something larger than a matchbox, and don't want a commute over 30m.

This is complete hyperbole. $130k is considered a good salary in NYC.

Again, mostly due to eroded expectations over several decades.

Well, I may be exagerating the 2h commute part, but RE prices in SF (and therefore rents) are completely ridiculous at this point, and East Bay places near any BART (light rail) station are too. Sharing an apartment doesn't help much since the sharing seems to be built into the price of apartments with more rooms.

Taxes in CA are a bit higher than elsewhere in the US as well, but at least there you're getting a halfway decent safety net. Rents are high only due to the suppression of the housing supply.

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