Hacker News Reader

That's great, but maybe you know exceptionally high earners with good money sense?

Or maybe I just know exceptionally low earners with poor money sense.

Given the constant furor surrounding housing affordability in California's desirable cities, I'm leaning towards the former.

And 30-50% is A LOT more in absolute dollars than it is outside of Cali.

Would that mean that, since California + Federal taxes are something like 46%, post tax income is roughly 54% salary?

If so, they're saving only roughly 15-25% income?

> California + Federal taxes are something like 46%

49.3% is the top rate you'd pay in California at the highest bracket (or 50.3% if you make over a million) .

If your income is over 2 million a year you'd pay an effective rate of 44%.

If your income is $200K, your effective rate is about 34%.

at higher and higher incomes, it makes more and more sense to try and deduct income via investment costs (such as interest on borrowing). So your optimized effective tax rate would be a lot lower.