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Comment by jononomo | Hacker News Reader

I decided about four years ago that it just doesn’t make sense to live in NYC if you’re not making $200k/year consistently. Also, I was surprised at how many people without an original thought in their head earn $200k/year in NYC —- the city rewards a sort of dull ambition. Do you want to hang out with people who are intelligent and ambitious yet somehow fail to be interesting? If so, then NYC is for you!

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The median individual income in NYC is $34k. In Manhattan, it's $52k. Making 200k puts you in the top 5% of earners in New York City.

Regardless of how true it is, this statistic feels impossible.

That actually blows my mind when I think about the lifestyles I see walking around the West Village every day.

The West Village is also one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the wealthiest borough of NYC

The top 5% in NYC is still close to a half-million people.

a lot of people living those lifestyles are living off of credit cards or their trust fund

Ok, I'll revise my statement: it doesn't make sense to live in Manhattan if you're not making at least $200k/year consistently and you're over the age of 30.

It might make sense if you're 24 and you're happy living with roommates in a $3k/month studio that has been converted into a 3-bedroom (which I have actually seen).

And if you want to have a family with 3 kids, then you'd better be pulling down $800k annually.

A lot of people in New York get by with a lot less. $800k for a family of 5 is nearly six times the median income for that family size in NYC. If that's your idea of "getting by", your perspective is wildly distorted from the average New Yorker, much less the average American.

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/hpd/services-and-information/area-...

I specified Manhattan

Hey now, we can't all be entrepreneurs working on the cutting edge stuff. Lots and lots of boring work needs to be done, and that's why you pay bankers, lawyers, consultants, etc. hefty sums.

You don't need to be original to do that kind of work, but it still needs to be done.

How much is the take-home pay if you make $200k a year? About 12K a month? A rent of 5k would take away almost half of that. A $4K rent would be at the limit of the 1/3 recommendation but not sure what you can find these days for a $4K rent. It's doable, but I don't think it's sustainable if you want to save money or live comfortably

Very few people at that income level are renting a 4k/month appt - they probably have a partner. Or if they are, it's like a 1-2 yr thing.

You can get very nice (NYC level nice) 1bd in a good spot easily for $4k. So a 30 year old professional working at bigcorp as a senior _____, they can afford it. I wouldn't want to pay that though. It's just 4k a month being thrown away to do the NYC thing. Good for 1 year if you're single, but after that it's like been there done that.

Closer to $10k. There are calculators online to figure this out btw.

i’d say there is a pretty big difference between Manhattan and the other boroughs in this regard though it’s still too expensive. i’ve found reason to go to Manhattan only a couple times in the past few years.

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