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Comment by blisterpeanuts | Hacker News Reader

It sure doesn't feel rich to me :(

At the end of the month, after taxes and FICA and health insurance and Medicare and retirement are withheld, and after paying for housing, food, transportation, insurance, utilities, sundry expenses, and student loans--there's not a whole lot of that $100K/12 left!

Raising taxes on $100K would be almost intolerable. I could probably part with a couple thousand more a year, but it would be difficult, and I have very little faith that they'll invest my money wisely....

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In general, I'm sympathetic to the claim that SF/SV is too expensive, particularly with respect to housing, and this represents a legitimate drain on the economy, and that better public policy would go a long way towards fixing that.

With that out of the way, though:

> after paying for housing, food, transportation, insurance, utilities, sundry expenses, and student loans--there's not a whole lot of that $100K/12 left!

That says, "after I spend all my money, I don't have any money left!" Is it really that there isn't enough money or is that your cost base is too high? Millionaires can go broke too, but it isn't because they're not rich.

That is of course "the rub" as they say. 45 degrees doesn't feel cold to someone in Minnesota, but it feels down right frigid to a resident of San Francisco.

So you take the entire US, and you pull these numbers out, and then you call one income "rich" and another income "poor" and if you're not displaced in location you don't feel it as that. The truly poor know who they are, and the truly rich know who they are, and the middle folks rarely do.

In Las Vegas where a new house is $150,000 and gas and food 10% - 15% less expensive, making $100,000 a year might feel pretty darn comfortable. Certainly you'd have some left over to save for a rainy day. But if you're spending $40K/year just on rent, another $20K/year on food and gas, well it doesn't feel like you have a lot of extra.

So the median income is a lot higher (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/06075.html) and that skews the feeling of rich / not rich.

Its unclear though which is cause and which is effect (if there even is a relationship). Did we start paying people more to work in California so the prices of everything went up? (the Mining Town paradox) Or did the rising prices force us to pay people more?

Well just imagine how poor you would feel with just the median household income of 50k (2011 US Census) or worse and you were the bottom 20% making <=25k.

Well just imagine how poor you would feel with just the median household income of 50k (2011 US Census) or worse and you were the bottom 20% making <=25k.

What's your point?

Sounds like you're basically saying, I'm lucky to be making this much. Of course, I know that. Yes, I'm extremely fortunate, compared to someone making $25K or less.

I'm also lucky compared to a paraplegic or a quadriplegic person, or someone dying of cancer. So what?

My point is, $100K doesn't go as far as one would think, when supporting a family and living in a big city on the East Coast. It barely meets expenses, and designating this level of income as "wealthy" or "rich" is a ridiculously dated notion.

> It barely meets expenses

Then cut your expenses; don't live beyond your means. Isn't that the advice that's always being given to poor people? $100k puts you in the top quintile of the US population. It's definitely wealthy.

It definitely is not wealthy.

When you're a little older, and raising a family, you'll learn that $100K is just the average amount that reasonably affluent households are earning, typically based on two incomes, and it doesn't go very far. Sure, it's better than trying to raise 3 children on one $20K income with an absentee deadbeat dad not in the picture, but that's really comparing apples and oranges. We're talking about the definition of "rich" and "wealthy" here, which is really a different thing from affluent-versus-working-poor. If 90% of American households were earning $100K, that would be fantastic. But it's not the same thing as being rich.

> It definitely is not wealthy.

> reasonably affluent households

> it's not the same thing as being rich.

Now you're just playing with semantics. "Wealthy", "affluent", and "rich" are all synonyms with subtly different connotations.

Statistically, if your family is making $100k/year, you have access to more money than the vast majority of American families.

> but that's really comparing apples and oranges

Yes, exactly! It's comparing wealthy people to not-wealthy people.

I get that the money doesn't buy as much as you might hope it would; it doesn't feel "rich" because you imagine "rich" to include luxurious vacations and a huge house or what-have-you. And it doesn't seem "rich" because you measure yourself against even-wealthier people in your social and professional orbit--and you discount not-rich families as "oranges" that are not comparable to your own "apples".

But in terms of raw numbers--not feelings--you're pretty well-off.

People with the median income don't live in silicon valley. 50k goes further in the midwest than 100k in SF.

Median household income in SF in 2011 was $72,947. That is a good deal more than 50k, but far less than 100k.

Now imagine the household isn't one 20-something person, but two adults, closer to middle-aged, with a kid or two. 2.3 people per household in 2011 in SF.

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/06075.html

>Median household income in SF in 2011 was $72,947.

You just proved my point.

I lived in SF on 30k in 2010-2011. It's entirely doable. (Although the fact that it's doable is no excuse for the miserable salary I was paid. I worked in publishing, which everyone with a literature degree wants to break into, and thus, the entry-level pay is notoriously bad.)

> At the end of the month, after taxes and FICA and health insurance and Medicare and retirement are withheld, and after paying for housing, food, transportation, insurance, utilities, sundry expenses, and student loans--there's not a whole lot of that $100K/12 left!

You're an ignorant idiot.

Hundreds of millions of your countrymen would give anything to be able to pay for the things you're paying for, and you have money left over!

Open your eyes man, millions of people are struggling to survive around you.

You summed up everything that's wrong in one little post.

You're an ignorant idiot.

You're obviously a liberal. Keep your hands off my money, redistributionist!

Why isn't there some adjustment to tax rates for regional cost of living differences?

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