Same idea, but for income: https://howrichami.givingwhatwecan.org/how-rich-am-i
Most people are blown away when they do this.
Most people are blown away when they do this.
Yet this site says I am in the top 1%. Makes me hard to believe such stats sadly.
It doesn't take into account the cost of living, especially the cost of land, that said living in Tokyo you'll have a far higher standard of living than someone living in rural China even setting aside cost of housing.
Choosing to live in a very expensive place doesn't alter how wealthy you are, only how you spend that wealth.
either you inherit or you made some very smart (lucky) investments or you stay "poor".
and then there is the purchasing power and the size of the middle class in an economy.
i could live in china and be there the top 20%, but would be able to afford massages on a daily basis. i am here in germany the top 10% (nominally top 1% in china) and yet, i need to think if i can spend 500 euro per month on massages (once a week).
Then, with that money I took a 3-year break in Romania just like that. Not the wisest investment, but I could have lived 4 years off that money.
In any case, saving is difficult with so much inflation, don't hold cash but something giving you a return. (Don't fall for bank products with 1-2% fees; they are no better than a 0.2%-fee index fund).
A basic book on personal finance that I recommend is The Richest Man in Babylon.
There’s a whole market of cheap consumer goods produced for that income level. Household goods, electronics, clothing, etc.
As an example, if you are reading this your kitchen is probably stocked with ceramic plates. Why did you buy ceramic plates rather than plastic plates? Probably because at your income level, ceramic plates are an insignificant expense. However at $3000/year having a kitchen full of ceramic plates would be an extreme waste of money for insignificant benefit.
Multiply this by every purchasing decision. Why did you buy a $1000 phone instead of a $150 phone? Why do pay for eggs instead of keeping chickens? Why do you buy branded clothes instead of unbranded clothes that cost a fraction of the price?
I’m not saying that you should go out and buy plastic plates and a chicken. Just that not everybody on $3000 a year is living in poverty.
The biggest issue with earning that much is healthcare, which doesn’t scale well with income. Even if the doctor may be earning 5x less than they would in a rich country, the MRI machine certainly doesn’t cost 5x less.
Take mattresses: My parents just bought a $700 mattress. My own mattress is a $200 IKEA model. Meanwhile a guy who does odd jobs for me sleeps on a hand-me-down I got him for free. We're all equally comfortable at night I'm guessing.
Another example: I tried to get rid of an old armoire from the 50s some time ago. Had to throw it in the garbage, couldn't give it away for free. I tried.
I'd much rather be wealthy than not, but you can definitely make a no-frills budget work if you get rid of the niceties as long as you have your health.
Well actually it is plastic plates for us in Tokyo. Good ones, not the dollar store kinds - but not ceramic. We use consumer grade items.
The biggest chunk goes into rent & insurance along with city taxes (separate from income taxes). It scales non-linearly with income.
"Yeah I make 2 million a year, but my mortgage is 25 thousand and my Aston Martin costs 4 grand!"
Truth is places are expensive beacuse they are desirable. Living in a tin shack in Africa without indoor plumbing isn't comparable to living in a posh flat in central London. We like to pretend that it is and call it cost of living, but it's really the standard of living that is different
With globalization this is even more true, with the rise of remote work doubly so.
American poverty for a family of four, $26,500, and it's 6%.
This is more making the point that West is incredibly wealthy than anything about you in particular.
Looking at my own info (previous comment in thread), and therafter going through public data, I believe most of us in HN are already in that bracket due to disproportionate poverty seen in S Asia, Africa, S America & LATAM. That 1% number is presenting itself as a feel-good-number. We share the same bracket as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos & Elon Musk - which does not make much sense, because they are 6-orders richer than us.
Wealth isn't seen in any linear/quasi-linear scale. The last few percentages are incredibly dense. Maybe the lifestyle near poverty line to moderate wealthy is easier to model from economics PoV, but beyond some thresholds, is hard to rationalize.
I don't think that's the point at all. The point is to show perspective that many people lack on how their income lines up with the majority of the world. I don't need a application to tell me that I make less than Jeff Bezos or where he ranks in terms of global income.
And makes perfect sense that we share the top 1% with the hyper rich because... We do!
The mean is around $2,000
The top 10% is around $15,000
The top 1% is around $44,000
The top 0.1% is around $100,000
The top 0.01% is around $200,000
the top 0.001% is around $350,000
To me, 160k vs 10 billion should show some difference. Do they do this to make as many people as possible have "one percenter" guilt? ( $130k returns 1.7% so there's at least one decimal point available )
Really, almost 1 in 10 households with 2 people in the world make more than $33,000 USD/month after tax?
Not convinced, this isn't even close.
Edit: yes, I see now this is monthly. Leaving it as-is so the replies make sense.