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Comment by encoderer | Hacker News Reader

> $200k for a household is not affluent. Its just two people with good jobs.

Yes, and 2 earners with good jobs makes one affluent :)

Affluence is one of those words, it all matters of perspective. But I try to use the test of "would an average guy on the street" consider a HHI of $200k affluent. I think yes, they would.

Remember, that income level puts a couple in the 96th percentile.

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It's illustrative of the wealth divide in our society that engineers think 96th percentile wages are middle class.

I wonder how much of that is due to "upgrades" that don't really improve quality of life all that much. Get top tier internet access, couple that with expensive vehicles and a gaudy house, and you've got no more real saving potential than the guy four neighborhoods over who makes half your salary.

Or, it's illustrative that what used to be truly middle class lifestyle can now be afforded only by people in top income percentiles, whereas the median income probably implies a lifestyle pretty close to poverty.

This, Exactly This.

Also, cost of living needs to be applied to these numbers, 100k in the Bay Area is 65k in Florida is 45k in Georgia.

You refer to the costs of living on the coasts as just the cost of living. Most of America can't make salaries to get by in the Bay Area, so they live elsewhere. That makes living in the Bay Area a luxury good.

Affluence is about how much you can afford relative to the rest of your society. If you're only comparing yourself to San Franciscans and New Yorkers, doesn't that mean you don't consider the flyover Americans your peers? As if there were some large divide in wealth in this country?

Charles Hugh Smith does a quick calculation and comes up with an income of $111k to have what the middle class of the last generation took for granted:

http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2013/12/what-does-it-ta...

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