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Comment by dahfizz | Hacker News Reader

The article says that a "Living Wage" for Manhattan is $43.18 / hour, or around $86k base salary.

Maybe Manhattan COL is insane, but I have a hard time imagining that $86k is not enough to live on _anywhere_. Maybe you will have a room mate and cook for yourself every once in a while, but you will be able to support yourself just fine. This makes me seriously question the definition of "Living Wage".

Before we moved in together, my partner was living on just under $80k / year. She could afford a 2 year old car and a nice apartment with 1 roommate comfortably. She couldn't waste money mindlessly, but she did not need to pinch pennies at all.

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> Maybe Manhattan COL is insane,

Manhattan COL is completely ludicrous. I knew a lawyer who lived in an actual closet; it was exactly long enough to hold a small bed and about twice as wide. He shared a bathroom and a kitchen with the owners. He paid $3500/month for this, and he considered it a terrific bargain. (The kitchen was nice.)

One-room appartments in southern Manhattan were being advertised for $1-2 million at the time.

There are some cheaper options in northern Manhattan, and definitely in the other boroughs. But transportation in NYC means the subway and busses (or $$$$$ for taxis and parking), and it's really easy for trips to take 40-60 minutes. So living too far out means a brutal and unpredictable commute.

There are options, obviously. But when living in a literal closet is a good option, plenty of the bad options are pretty awful.

> Manhattan COL is completely ludicrous.

But the general consensus on HN is that density is good, right?

At some point, does it become bad?

Or is density only good for well-paid engineers?

If suburbs were to pay the actual cost for maintaining city-like infrastructure with rural density, the Cost of Living would be equally unreasonable for the suburbanites

Suburbs are not sustainable and requires major and continuous infusion of government aid to be keept afloat

That calculation is for a single person with a child. When rent is ~$2500 bare minimum for a place that can fit 2 people (and that would be a shitty, shitty apartment), you can see how pretty damn quickly $80k / yr doesn't cut it.

I've lived comfortably in Manhattan for well under $80k (as low as $60k) but I didn't have a child, and that was several years ago when rents were lower.

Agree unless you are talking about the living wage for a single parent. Then you need to pay for daycare, might need a two bedroom, a car, etc.

43 an hour is pretty hilarious given that less than half of that gives you the ability to live comfortably anywhere else in the east coast

Damn, you really said I don't believe it, therefore it couldn't possibly be the case. Crazy

Manhattan COL _is_ insane.

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