this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2024

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A Boring Dystopia

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Americans say they need to earn $186K to live comfortably — but is it enough? (www.thehill.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by return2ozma@lemmy.world to c/aboringdystopia@lemmy.world

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[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

My annual income is barely 13k Canadian. While a level of income that produces crushing poverty here, it is in fact roughly the global median income.

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 74 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

About ten years ago or so that number was 75k to live comfortably without any worries.

[–] FenrirIII@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I was so excited when I got a big raise (10%), thinking it would change things. Then inflation happened and I'm back to watching my finances.

[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 weeks ago

I got a decent raise. Multiple required insurances I have immediately inflated.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I don't think that $75k was to live comfortably, I think the $75k was to feel happy about your income.

Ninja edit: found it:

...Daniel Kahneman, who in 2010 published an influential study with fellow Nobel Prize-winner Angus Deaton. The 2010 study found that money could only boost happiness up to a point — about $75,000 in annual earnings. Beyond that figure, the researchers concluded, money had little impact.

but...

Now, new research from a Nobel Prize-winning economist and fellow researchers provides a fresh answer. Money does appear to boost happiness — at least for most people — up to earnings of $500,000, according to the new paper published in this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/money-happiness-study-daniel-kahneman-500000-versus-75000/

[–] classic@fedia.io 21 points 2 weeks ago

Wow, yeah that headline gave me that nausea of despair feeling

[–] TargaryenTKE@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

Uhm, is that supposed to be achievable?

[+] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org -7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (10 children)

$186k? Yeah, uh, where exactly in the US? I'd venture a guess in most places anything over $100k is pretty comfortable, if you're financially responsible.

EDIT: I've come to the conclusion that a good chunk of Lemmy users either live in Seattle, or have no actual concept of money.

[–] dariusj18@lemmy.world 44 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Housing prices have gone insane

[–] SquishyPandaDev@yiffit.net 29 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

But my housing prices in Bum Fuck Nowhere are fine, so that must mean it's true every where else. /s

[–] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

That's the whole point; location. The amount necessary to be comfortable is very dependent on your location.

[–] sunzu@kbin.run 12 points 2 weeks ago

Property prices correlate strongly with local income levels. Owners know how much you make and they fix prices of wages, rent and other cost.

Hence why u can make objectively high income and feel like a peasant.

Buying power is eroded to the point where 100k is just getting by wage in Seattle or some shit

[–] Mojave@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah and I'm not getting this fat ass cloud SE job while living in fucking Yoder, Wyoming

[–] jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 19 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Here's my experience. I make $180,000/yr. Family of five. Wife stays home and has a consulting gig she does when she wants to. We live in Northwest Arkansas. Far from the most expensive place in the country but experiencing massive growth and becoming increasingly expensive. Our only debt is our mortgage and a loan on our minivan. We own our other vehicle outright.

We live reasonably comfortably. Definitely not extravagant. We're also tightwads and I stay in top of our finances. We paid $345k for a fixer-upper home. Average home price in our area for similar homes is probably closer to $450k. It's liveable but ultimately needs a full remodel. I figure it will take about 5 years doing most of it myself. If I had to pay contractors to do all of it, it would not be feasible. Most of them are so busy they don't even give you the time of day anyways.

Material costs are insane. I mean absolutely bonkers. I would guess I'm spending double what I did for the same materials I used for my last remodel project on our previous house, four years ago. The five year plan is partly because we can't afford to go any faster.

If I made $100k/yr, we would never have bought a house. Wouldn't have even been able to save enough for the down payment. I also seriously doubt we would have had our last two kids.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I'm pretty fortunate. I have things I worry about but money isn't one of them. I know where my next paycheck is coming from and if it doesn't come, we have enough money in the bank to get by for a while.

The same cannot be said for the vast majority of Americans, even ones making $100k/yr, which is not nearly as good a salary as it used to be.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 weeks ago

I mean… lots of people would refuse to live in Arkansas even if you straight up gave them a house.

[–] ShepherdPie@midwest.social 15 points 2 weeks ago

I've come to the conclusion that a good chunk of Lemmy users either live in Seattle, or have no actual concept of money.

More likely that most of the people making 6 figures are living in moderate to high cost of living areas plus the inherent draw of tech-minded people on a platform such as this.

[–] return2ozma@lemmy.world 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

cries in Los Angeles

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago

hides the inner pain in Boston

[–] FoxyFerengi@lemm.ee 12 points 2 weeks ago

I live in an extremely rural part of the US on about $65k/yr. It's absolutely not enough. I moved here specifically so I wouldn't need roommates to pay my bills, but I'm looking at that after only two years into my mortgage anyway.

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago

Where most people live. That's how averages work.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago

or have no actual concept of money

Right here.

[–] LazerDickMcCheese@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago

Nailed it

[–] fishpen0@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

Population of top 10 most expensive cities

New York City, New York: 8,467,513
Los Angeles, California: 3,849,297
San Francisco, California: 815,201
Honolulu, Hawaii. Population: 1,000,890
Washington, D.C. Population: 670,050
Boston, Massachusetts: 654,776
San Diego, California: 1,381,611
San Jose, California: 983,489
Seattle, Washington: 733,919
Miami, Florida: 439,890

Total Poulation: 18,996,636
Total US population: 33,300,000
Minimum Total percent of US population living with this issue: 57%

What you fail to grasp is just how very many people live in very very few places.

This gets even crazier when you account for the greater Boston population. Boston being an ancient city relative to America, has an incredibly small size. The metropolitan area extends far beyond it as the second most densely populated part of America after NYC with 4.9 million people living in greater Boston. If you account for that the 10 most expensive regions account for nearly 70% of the us population.

[–] skyspydude1@lemmy.world 17 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Uh, you're off by a factor of 10 there. Population of the US is closer 330 million, so it'd be 5.7%

[–] fishpen0@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Oh fuck me I missed that zero. Thanks, this is what I get for doing all that math on my phone scratch pad

Well, I’ll just grab the top 50 cities and it’s the same point.

The whole point is a shit load of people live in a very tiny space relative to the total size of the country as a whole. This drives online conversion around how expensive things are since online we actually interact with people from all over

[–] auskast@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

Did you drop a 0 on US population?

[–] scoobford@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 weeks ago

I agree, but a significant portion (maybe even most) of our country's population do live in very high cost of living areas such as the west cost, DC, Boston, and Miami.

The situation is vastly different in most of the country's less remarkable cities, like San Antonio, Minneapolis, Oklahoma City, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, or Nashville, and I think articles like this only ever account for one side of the equation or the other.

To someone living in DFW (my home), "needing" almost $200k is insane. Honestly I doubt I'd know what to do with that money unless I just bought a bunch if shit I don't want.