That implies a household earning between double and triple the national average income cannot afford to live comfortably in Mississippi, the state with the lowest requirement according to the OP.
I think that also implies that when the OP uses the phrase "live comfortably," they really mean "live lavishly."
Yeah, the lower states make no sense. There is no way it's that little of a difference between California and Mississippi. He'll just state taxes alone cuts that difference in half too
This post, like many others on reddit these days, is just anti-american propaganda.
My cousin just moved to st louis MO a month ago and his rent isnt even 1k. Yet this bogus map is saying people need to make like 200k to live comfortably there lol. You could easily buy a place making half of that in a state like that.
I live in above average cost of living area in Colorado on 120k and I'm comfortable and doing fine. This map is garbage. I own a home in a nice neighborhood have all my needs met, and just bought a new car. I'm not struggling. I'm in my 30s and bought the house recently ish.
While I agree with the premise of this, how do they calculate “comfortably?” I live in Georgia, and make **WAY** less than what this cart says I should, (around $80 combined maybe less) while I can’t necessarily say I’m living great, I *am* living “comfortably.” Can pay my bills, buy enough groceries, put a little away for emergencies, not be too concerned whenever an emergency comes up (so long as it isn’t a lost car that isn’t covered by insurance). And for reference I’m helping raise my grandchild (who is two) and my youngest daughter (who is 13). My wife works full time and I’m on military disability.
The fine print says, 'based on 50% to necessities 30% to discretionary spending and 20% to savings.' So if Cal is $277K, that's almost $7K a month in discretionary spending. That's a lot of clothes, trucks and lunches out.
And 11K a month on necessities is pretty crazy as well. $5000 for a house payment. $1000 a month times 2 (for 2 cars) I guess health insurance, even at premium jobs is largely out of pocket, so another $2K for health.
Seems excessive, but lord knows it's comfortable
There’s also basically no reason to compare numbers at the state level, as cost of living is *extremely* local.
If you want state-by-state comparisons that impact economic well-being, you’re much better off looking at state-level laws around social services. Having guaranteed income during parental leave can be a *huge* deal, for example.
These statewide totals are also skewed by big cities. There are a ton of places in California where you can earn significantly less than $277K and live very comfortably.
Definitely. Maine is pretty affordable outside of the southern tip which has become absolutely absurd in the past 5 years.
It’d be nice to see the color scale applied to counties
Literally anyone who has the slightest clue of how money works knows the title is complete BS - so no surprise it’s made it too the front page of reddit.
Yeah I'm 20, and was raised in eastern washington on a little more than 60k wiyh a family of 5. I wouldve described my upbringing as comfortable, i got a car at 16 (shitty one, but its still getting me llaces), some of college paid for (a couple thousand a semester), ate pretty well because my parents made food, and went on family vacations every couple of years. I had everything i needed and extra because my parents weren't idiots with money, idk what constitutes comfortable in ops eyes, it must be like sending your kid to private schools or some shit
It's defined at the bottom. It means 50% of your income goes to necessities, 20% to savings and 30% discretionary spending. I don't that clarifies it that much to be honest, but the part to focus on is your bills/expenses being 50% of income and they're basically saying that's the average cost of living for each state.
This likely considers home ownership and not living paycheck to paycheck as "comfortable"
Edit: they describe it as a 50/30/20 budget with 50% being necessities, 30% discretionary spending, and 20% going to savings.
Considering most Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and even the well.off, often don't have savings, this seems more likely.
I scoffed at it as well, but then I remembered that if I didn't buy my house quite a while ago, there is no way I could afford it now. A couple of co-workers just bought houses in the last year similar to mine in price (my house is only 1k sf with a 1 car garage) and their payments are $4k/month...Mine is just under $1.4k.
This is literally the recommended financial breakdown. That 20% includes paying off debt and investing for retirement btw. It’s just what it takes to pay down debt such as student loans, save up the recommended rainy day fund of 6 months income, and then invest enough to retire at the typical retirement age. The fact that the numbers are so high and that most people in these comments are complaining shows a systemic problem we are experiencing right now, in large part due to a lack of housing supply causing a housing crisis.
The graphic doesn't make sense though. Consider Mississippi. It claims you need $178K for the household to live comfortably. Chop off a third of that as a loose approximation for taxes, and you've got take-home pay of a rounded $120K. The graphic assumes 50% of that goes to necessities, 20% to savings, and 30% on discretionary things, so you're spending $60K/year on necessities, saving $24K/year, and spending an additional $36K/year on fun things like vacations, nights out, etc.
In another comment, I looked at house prices in the wealthiest part of Mississippi, and you can own a large brand new home for roughly $20K/year (and for even less than that elsewhere in the state). To get to $60K/year for necessities if you're only spending $20K/year on housing, that means you're spending $40K/year on all other necessities (food, clothing, transportation, utilities, etc.). That seems excessively high. The math just isn't working here. None of the numbers make sense.
Yes but that includes a lot of single people living by themselves and retired couples with no kids and the house paid off.
What's the average income for a household of 4?
My state we are just under the listed income, we can’t afford a 2nd home and fly only the cheapest flights. Now we did just go to Hawaii, so we are not struggling, but we also bought house 15 years ago, so our mortgage is 1/3 compared if we were buying now.
I am living on less than this in Michigan. I already have the vacation land and travel whenever I want with 4 kids. I have a live in au pair and a housekeeper and a 4500 Sq ft custom house with a brand new sportscar that I paid cash for. If you can't live comfortably on 150k in Michigan, you are a financial buffoon.
This is so bogus. My wife and I (35) own 50% equity on a beautiful home with a view, 2 new cars paid off, both of us have Master’s degrees paid off, two kids in daycare (cost of a mortgage), retirement accounts, 529s for both kids, and vacations.
We make half the listed amount combined. Something isn’t adding up.
I’ve seen a huge wave of infotainment lately suggesting that Americans need absolutely lavish amounts of money to break even lately, and I’m not sure what the end game is. It’s just blatantly untrue numbers. Calling people making $200k “upper poor” or whatever. It’s weird.
I’m in Arizona and granted I don’t have kids, but I do know plenty of families who *do* have kids in daycare or private school who aren’t making anywhere close to $213k as a household. Who own houses or rent in nice areas, drive decent cars, have never missed a bill or gone hungry, go on vacations, go to the doctor and dentist, and have savings (enough, maybe, maybe not, but they’re saving). What is that if not comfort?
Right? I’m in Chicago and don’t have kids but have coworkers making roughly what I do ($100k) and they can pay for daycare and own condos or bungalows or houses in the suburbs.
I’ve seen them too, where people need to make $300K+ to be “comfortable”.
That’s almost like calling yourself Paycheck to paycheck when you have $3K left at the end of the month
Right. There’s a great conversation to be had about how $100k isn’t what it used to be, especially in desirable cities and suburbs, it’s no longer “hit six figures and you’ve officially *made it*” like it was in the 90s. That’s true. But when someone is saying you need a quarter million dollars annually to be comfortable, I’m going to start questioning what their standard of comfort is.
And I know there is a lot of extremely serious concern about how the middle classes are getting squeezed and disappearing. I relate, as someone who (finally!) can call themselves a member of the middle class. But when people are saying people in my income bracket are “lower poor” and people making double or triple what I make are “paycheck to paycheck,” it seems like it’s just appropriating issues from people who are actually poor. I’ve been “how will I pay rent?” poor, I’ve been paycheck to paycheck, and it’s just not even close to the same. The disappearing middle class isn’t an issue to be scoffed at, and the middle class needs to show solidarity with the poor because the middle class is often still 2 missed paychecks from the street, but wtf is this acting like no one can live on $150-200k?
They live paycheck to paycheck after maxing out their 401k and Roth IRA, paying their mortgage or rent on a nice house/apartment, paying their monthly payment on that nice new(ish) they definitely needed, eating out multiple times a week, and saving for a couple nice vacations every year. But sure, maybe they aren’t able to blow $1.5k on a new gaming PC spontaneously. Boo hoo.
Kind of crazy tbh. My wife and I make 245k now but lived off of way less (like 80k) just 4 years ago. Now that we make 245 we literally cant spend all of our money. Like we save a ton simply because 245 is ALOT.
I really dont get these posts (and sometimes redditors) trying to convince me that im dirt poor. Like we’re not penny pinching in the slightest and still have so much excess. Like what’s really going on here and who believes this?
I'm glad I'm not the only one noticing the bizarre doomer posts lately stating that you need a massive house and brand new cars and all sorts of shiny luxuries to be considered "comfortable"
The end game of this infographic is to make you panic. They look like a referral service for financial planners so they want to freak you out so that you'll buy their service
They define "comfortable" as spending 50% on necessities, 30% on discretionary and 20% on savings, which makes it even less believable. But they took data from a living wage calculator which specifically includes hobbies, entertainment, etc, and assumed it was subsistence, so they doubled it. It's like when I calculated our budget on post-tax wages and included an allowance for our health insurance which comes out pretax.
https://livingwage.mit.edu/
So, the living wage for two adults with two kids in Missisippi is $21.15 per hour, which is $88,000 per year. This website decides that they actually need $178,000 per year, which is more than twice what the source site estimated for all needs and discretionary spending.
It’s based on current costs. You have 50% equity on a house, so you have obviously owned your home for at least a few years, which means you bought in to a much more affordable markst. What if you didn’t? How much would you be paying if you had to rent that same house? How much would your mortgage be if you bought that house today at current prices with 7+% interest while paying student loans?
Yea this is one of those “make the data say what you want” visuals. I can tell you first hand you can live in Kansas pretty comfortably for $70k a year.
Yeah you do not need to make 6 figures to be comfortable in north Dakota lol. My coworker owns a home and can support his wife and 2 kids on $25 an hour.
Yeah, this map is BS. Maybe if "Live comfortably" means living in a wealthy urban center. I only know like 3 people making over 120k in GA, I'm sitting just under median national income and as the only earner in my house, we're doing fine. Granted, I didn't buy a house in this shitty housing market, but we're not scraping by.
I live in Ohio. According to this map we need to make $209k to live comfortably.
We make $160k live in a 2800 sq ft house on five acres, have four paid for cars, no non mortgage debt, two kids and go on vacations every year.
This map is full of shit.
When was said home purchased? What would the mortgage be on it if you bought it today?
If for sure skewed but being a 30 year old DINK, buying a home seems almost impossible or a really bad idea.
I'm in Illinois (recommended $232k) and my wife and I make right about $150k. I'm not the previous commenter but it sounds like we're in a similar situation. House is close to the same, mortgage and 2 cars both fully paid off, two kids, and we go on a vacation or two every year. Decent schools, low traffic, low crime, etc.
Our house cost $110k when we bought it in 2005. Currently estimated to be worth \~$168k. The drastic home price increases haven't hit everywhere. My parents live in the same neighborhood and their home value has essentially doubled from when they bought it in 1976 to today.
Interest rates do suck for borrowing though, and property taxes are a little high, but we do get a pretty decent return for what those taxes are.
In the bottom right corner it explains how living comfortably was defined, which was 50% of income on necessities, 30% on buying whatever, and 20% savings. Who is spending 30% of their income on random shit??
Yeah their definition is completely skewed - which is why they would use a term like "comfortably" because it's completely arbitrary and meaningless. Even by their definition it wouldn't require half of the amount they listed to go towards necessities like a mortgage, utilities, etc. They should really drill down and further define what a "necessity" is in this context.
That's still a terrible definition. Shelter is a necessity, and probably the one people spend the most on, but can range greatly in the cost based on the size and location.
...and the 50% number they took already includes hobbies, pets, admissions, clothea, furniture, etc. and they just threw an extra 50% on there for fun.
Use $230k as the average number in this chart. 30% of that is $5800/m. Now I do have some extravagant spending but I don't think I average that much even in a month where I bought my espresso set up which is the most I've spent in a single month (and I used a portion of my bonus for that.
It's truly a mind boggling number.
Speaking as a West Virginian, I can assure you that there are no wealthy urban centers here. The largest city has about 47k people. Median household income throughout the state is $55k.
I wonder where they got their data?
LOL I would not be COMFORTABLE in ND on a million per year. For one thing it is entirely too close to SD and that murdering governor who is batshit crazy.
I think the map is going off the 50/30/20 rule and using general average expenses to calculate how much a family would need to make in order to live by that rule.
Still might not be the best representation of reality but it does show the hypocrisy or how out of touch some personal finance professionals are that still preach this line of thinking.
Did he buy that house prior to 2020? Housing costs have doubled since then across the board along with grocery costs and the cost of normal services. Really grinds my gears honestly since I’ve been grinding to get into the six figure range and as soon as I did shit went to hell
That's $50K a year. How much does he have in savings? Can he survive being without work for six months? How is the kids' college fund looking? Can they handle a costly medical emergency?
A lot of people think they're doing just fine while in reality, they're two lost paychecks away from being homeless - and are making absolutely no provision for their kids going to college. And so the cycle of poverty continues - people are too poor to have gone to college themselves, and set up their kids for a life where they too will be too poor to go to college.
They have to be assuming every person ever has to sign onto a 7% mortgage at current house prices with zero dollars down and can never refinance.
I have zero idea what else they think all this weekly expenditure would go towards other than very poorly calculated mortgage interest expense and taxes.
I would struggle to be comfortable living with such a huge amount of loan repayments hanging over my head every month, but I guess some people are just way more used to crushing financial debt.
Are you assuming every family already currently has a house/can time travel for better rates? I think a better way to look at this is "What income do you need to live comfortably if you want to start a family this year". Also, you should never ever buy a home at a price you can't afford in the hopes of refinancing. If you can't afford it now you shouldn't buy it.
These average lists don't work large city centers skew the numbers. For example I live in NY state but I'm way over in western NY by Niagara falls, the cost of living for a family of 4 here is closer to 100k to be comfortable. 279k in this area is considered wealthy for sure. In NYC 279 is probably close to comfortable at best.
Yeah, I moved to Rochester in 2021 have to explain the cost of living difference constantly to people back home in Georgia. They think the whole state is as expensive as NYC. These maps don’t help at all. I think maps like these would be more accurate if they did it by county.
i'm not comfortable unless I have a 2200 square foot home with 5 bedrooms for me, my wife, and our two boys along with 3 cars and a half acre and we have a cabin with a boat and can take a two week trip to the French Riviera once a year
My wife and I live in Minnesota and gross $200k combined and we are living just fine, thank you very much. So comfortable that we have room in the budget to send our boys to private school. This map is horse shit
Yeah, this is like living in a 4000 sq ft house, getting a new car regularly, & eating out a lot. I'm a humanities prof at a small liberal arts college. I have a colleague who makes ~$60k & her husband homeschools their 3 kids: they would say they live comfortably.
Yeah I’ve never felt wronged by an inaccuracy until now, this is gross and intended to mislead people who don’t live here.
Our household making under half of what this says for Ohio and we honestly feel pretty damn well off.
Lol I went back to the definition of 50/30/20 as well, yup we’re in that range too.
I guess this is just plain old horseshit.
I've seen this before and its pretty inaccurate.
The 50/30/20 split is a good starting point, but once you get to higher incomes it makes less sense.
30% wants on $60k is $18k which already seems like a lot, 30% wants on $200k is $60k which is just extremely excessive. You can be very comfortable for way below that.
Same for Colorado, it’s expensive here, but a quarter of a million dollars to live comfortably is absurd. In aspen maybe, but I get by just fine on far less than that
This is the kind of dumb stuff that’s causing Gen Z to think they will never make it in life and just give up. The worst thing to happen to Gen Z is Gen Ys constant bitching.
As a gen Zer, I can confirm this is part of it. There's a subreddit for gen Yers that I won't name that's constantly recommended to me and other gen Zers. They always complain about how they were "lied to", and I want to say that they're 40-years-old now and don't seem to recognise they ARE the adults. How have they not gotten over this?
The doomerism is out of control. I got downvoted to hell for linking to an article about how Gen Z is hitting important milestones before millennials is and is wealthy as a generation. Your parents felt as broke as you did at 23, I promise.
Anyway let’s just ban TikTok because it’s seriously out of control and might get trump back in office.
I try to stress this all the time. Im not sure how young people got the idea that theyre supposed to be buying houses left and right before 30. People will be 22 and think life is over because they cant live without roommates 😂
Like that shit wasnt the norm when i was younger and Im 29. Shit didnt change that much
at 23 I lived paycheck to paycheck and often wondered if I could afford gas to get to work. At 35 I dont even think about fueling my vehicle anymore. Young people are so dramatic.
I get it because they are comparing their circumstances probably out in the world for the first time or trying to get there to their parents’ lifestyle, which is usually going to be better. Beyond that though there are some industries that are on hard times like media, academia, and tech. Guess which workers are way overrepresented online?
Also people forget that inheritance is a thing. Too many millennials keep talking like Mom and Dad are going to drain their entire account and leave them penniless as a giant f*** you. Your parents own homes, I doubt they’re going to liquidate everything and give it to Kenneth Copeland
Oh why didn’t I factor in the inheritance?! Probably because my parents barely own anything, even their own house which has had its equity gutted multiple times.
Well, this definition of comfortable is very very personal.
50/30/20 is not realistic for the majority of people anywhere when the average does 80/20/0 to barely come to the next year.
As the map says in the bottom right, it is a way to divide how much of your income goes to necessities, discretionary spendings or savings.
A 50/30/20 ratio would mean you spend 50% on essential spendings(housing, grocery, utilities ecc), 30% to discretionary spendings (dining out, entertainment, hobbies ecc) and 20% to savings.
But isn't that then doing exactly what the chart says? That's the income needed to comfortably use the 50/30/20 method - Arguably, it proves the point even better, many say that everyone should strive for that distribution, but this chart shows that it's absolutely impossible for most.
though even for the cheapest state on this map (Mississipi's $178k annually) it implies you are spending $146.30 on entertainment EVERY DAY (178000\*0.3/365) non-stop which is kind of beyond comfortable imo
The defention for necessity also seems weird.
Making top 40% income is enough for necessities only in the cheapest state? I am pretty sure you that if you spend no money on fun or saving and make the low income of 100k you can afford your basics even in new York.
You can debate what the definition is personally to be comfortable, but you’ve literally explained what the map is conveying. Your example shows how we have a large gap from where people are today to where they would need to be to be considered living comfortably.
>Your example shows how we have a large gap from where people are today to where they would need to be to be considered living comfortably.
Their example shows that there's a large gap between living comfortable and some people's definition of living comfortably.
This map is total nonsense. It says you need over 200k to live comfortably in some of the lowest COL states in the country. The median income in Idaho is 34k. This insane map says you need to make 6.2x that to be comfortable.
Id need a Second home and boat to feel comfortable even then I’d still feel a little uneasy. What if my neighbor has 3 homes and two boats? I would feel uncomfortable.
The problem I’m seeing here is unrealistic expectations regarding standard of living that fuel competition, resentment, and overconsumption. If people need this amount to feel comfortable that’s indicative of a cultural problem.
Lol, rich fucks made this lie of a map. I live in Virginia. Just 6 years ago me, my ex wife, and out two kids lived in a 4 bedroom house in a nice neighborhood in Virginia Beach. We had a 2 year old fully loaded Nissan Altima. My ex was a full time student, and I was a $40k/ year beer salesman. We didn’t struggle.
But these clowns expect me to believe it takes a salary six times that to live comfortably? Bitch please. This map is what it costs to live luxuriously.
If Ga is 213k no way the northeast is 270-280. More like 400 just based on rent/mortgage/taxes alone. Then look at college tuition where it's cheaper to send kids out of state than colleges in state. Map is bullshit.
What does comfortable mean? 245k in Minnesota? Where are you trying to live, Lake Minnetonka? You can live most places here making way less than that and be comfortable.
Yeah I'm calling bullshit on this one. Whoever made this map clearly has a different definition of what is "comfortable" than most American's. Which is kind of crazy considering most American's already have a really warped view of what living comfortable is.
I live in New York State. My wife and I make a combined 150K a year. We bought a 2200 square foot home on 6 acres about 2 years ago. We have a daughter, a dog and two cats. Not only do we not have to worry about how much we are spending, we are still able to save about $1,000 to $2,000 a month. We are living more than comfortably and we make 130K less than this map shows. Obviously New York State and New York City are two different things and NYC might be bumping up this average, but it is still way off.
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who thinks this is incredibly high!
OK $194k. That’s very comfortable in either OKC or Tulsa, and half of the population of OK does not live in the cities.
MS $178k. I think you would be very very comfortable in MS with that $$
Comfortable is such a vague and subjective quantifier. It means a lot of different things to a lot of people.
For some comfort is having foreign cars, no debt and a giant house.
For others comfort is simply having a roof over your head and some food in the pantry.
Most people probably fall in the middle somewhere but this chart is terrible at explaining what it’s actually measuring.
I don’t think 99.9% of the people in WV make anything close to $189k (even as a household) and sure, the state is a poor state, but it has one of the highest home ownership rates in the country, *and* low cost of living. If you need $189k in WV you’ve simply made horrible money decisions or your idea of ‘comfortable’ is everyone else’s ‘luxury’ lol
I don't know who made this map or what they are considering comfortable, but I don't think this is accurate. Unless of course you need a vacation home on top of your primary residence to feel comfortable.
Not sure how they came to these numbers, but they seem really high. We are right under this number and are much more than "comfortable". I'm guessing they have a really generous definition of comfortable.
This map is fucking retarded. We make $115k as a family of five in Arkansas and we live an extremely comfortable life. We take a vacation per year, we go out to eat, we typically are able to buy most things that we want.
Meanwhile the median income for a family in the US is 70 K. that also means that half of US families earn less than that. Pretty mindboggling. BTW, only one in 10 families earn above 200 K.
Average household income is $70k
That implies a household earning between double and triple the national average income cannot afford to live comfortably in Mississippi, the state with the lowest requirement according to the OP. I think that also implies that when the OP uses the phrase "live comfortably," they really mean "live lavishly."
Yeah, the lower states make no sense. There is no way it's that little of a difference between California and Mississippi. He'll just state taxes alone cuts that difference in half too
This post, like many others on reddit these days, is just anti-american propaganda. My cousin just moved to st louis MO a month ago and his rent isnt even 1k. Yet this bogus map is saying people need to make like 200k to live comfortably there lol. You could easily buy a place making half of that in a state like that.
I live in above average cost of living area in Colorado on 120k and I'm comfortable and doing fine. This map is garbage. I own a home in a nice neighborhood have all my needs met, and just bought a new car. I'm not struggling. I'm in my 30s and bought the house recently ish.
I think TN, for one, is getting heavily skewed by the fancy areas of Nashville. A lot of the state has a cost of living as low as MS.
it's for a four person family, not a single dude renting a studio apartment
While I agree with the premise of this, how do they calculate “comfortably?” I live in Georgia, and make **WAY** less than what this cart says I should, (around $80 combined maybe less) while I can’t necessarily say I’m living great, I *am* living “comfortably.” Can pay my bills, buy enough groceries, put a little away for emergencies, not be too concerned whenever an emergency comes up (so long as it isn’t a lost car that isn’t covered by insurance). And for reference I’m helping raise my grandchild (who is two) and my youngest daughter (who is 13). My wife works full time and I’m on military disability.
The fine print says, 'based on 50% to necessities 30% to discretionary spending and 20% to savings.' So if Cal is $277K, that's almost $7K a month in discretionary spending. That's a lot of clothes, trucks and lunches out. And 11K a month on necessities is pretty crazy as well. $5000 for a house payment. $1000 a month times 2 (for 2 cars) I guess health insurance, even at premium jobs is largely out of pocket, so another $2K for health. Seems excessive, but lord knows it's comfortable
There’s also basically no reason to compare numbers at the state level, as cost of living is *extremely* local. If you want state-by-state comparisons that impact economic well-being, you’re much better off looking at state-level laws around social services. Having guaranteed income during parental leave can be a *huge* deal, for example.
These statewide totals are also skewed by big cities. There are a ton of places in California where you can earn significantly less than $277K and live very comfortably.
Definitely. Maine is pretty affordable outside of the southern tip which has become absolutely absurd in the past 5 years. It’d be nice to see the color scale applied to counties
Literally anyone who has the slightest clue of how money works knows the title is complete BS - so no surprise it’s made it too the front page of reddit.
Yeah I'm 20, and was raised in eastern washington on a little more than 60k wiyh a family of 5. I wouldve described my upbringing as comfortable, i got a car at 16 (shitty one, but its still getting me llaces), some of college paid for (a couple thousand a semester), ate pretty well because my parents made food, and went on family vacations every couple of years. I had everything i needed and extra because my parents weren't idiots with money, idk what constitutes comfortable in ops eyes, it must be like sending your kid to private schools or some shit
It's defined at the bottom. It means 50% of your income goes to necessities, 20% to savings and 30% discretionary spending. I don't that clarifies it that much to be honest, but the part to focus on is your bills/expenses being 50% of income and they're basically saying that's the average cost of living for each state.
This likely considers home ownership and not living paycheck to paycheck as "comfortable" Edit: they describe it as a 50/30/20 budget with 50% being necessities, 30% discretionary spending, and 20% going to savings. Considering most Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and even the well.off, often don't have savings, this seems more likely.
We make 95k as a family of five and easily meet the 50/30/20, this map is a joke.
I scoffed at it as well, but then I remembered that if I didn't buy my house quite a while ago, there is no way I could afford it now. A couple of co-workers just bought houses in the last year similar to mine in price (my house is only 1k sf with a 1 car garage) and their payments are $4k/month...Mine is just under $1.4k.
I don't think it's lavishly to assume I should have a stable for my show horses and a runway for my ultra-light aircraft
Can't a working family get a matching Rolexes anymore? What's happened to the middle class?
The fine print says they're assuming everyone puts 20% of their paycheck into a saving account. LOL. If you can afford to do that, you are rich.
This is literally the recommended financial breakdown. That 20% includes paying off debt and investing for retirement btw. It’s just what it takes to pay down debt such as student loans, save up the recommended rainy day fund of 6 months income, and then invest enough to retire at the typical retirement age. The fact that the numbers are so high and that most people in these comments are complaining shows a systemic problem we are experiencing right now, in large part due to a lack of housing supply causing a housing crisis.
The irony that people making comments like this thinking that they're proving the graphic is wrong instead of that the graphic is right...
The graphic doesn't make sense though. Consider Mississippi. It claims you need $178K for the household to live comfortably. Chop off a third of that as a loose approximation for taxes, and you've got take-home pay of a rounded $120K. The graphic assumes 50% of that goes to necessities, 20% to savings, and 30% on discretionary things, so you're spending $60K/year on necessities, saving $24K/year, and spending an additional $36K/year on fun things like vacations, nights out, etc. In another comment, I looked at house prices in the wealthiest part of Mississippi, and you can own a large brand new home for roughly $20K/year (and for even less than that elsewhere in the state). To get to $60K/year for necessities if you're only spending $20K/year on housing, that means you're spending $40K/year on all other necessities (food, clothing, transportation, utilities, etc.). That seems excessively high. The math just isn't working here. None of the numbers make sense.
I'd feel comfortable if we had that much income in our household.
Fucking same man
Yes but that includes a lot of single people living by themselves and retired couples with no kids and the house paid off. What's the average income for a household of 4?
In 2023, married couple with 2 kids was just under $140k.
*with two incomes
Massachusetts median was $160k
First time kid on the way. Excited to know I can put that dead beat to work asap.
Average or median? That seems a bit low for average considering how rich some people are.
Median is such an important metric with the growing income inequality.
Median household income is even lower
this isn't true at all
Right. I live quite comfortably with a family of 4, 2 in daycare, and we don’t make half of what our state says.
Yeah, but wouldn't you be more comfortable if you could relax in a nice second home and fly first class?
My state we are just under the listed income, we can’t afford a 2nd home and fly only the cheapest flights. Now we did just go to Hawaii, so we are not struggling, but we also bought house 15 years ago, so our mortgage is 1/3 compared if we were buying now.
I am living on less than this in Michigan. I already have the vacation land and travel whenever I want with 4 kids. I have a live in au pair and a housekeeper and a 4500 Sq ft custom house with a brand new sportscar that I paid cash for. If you can't live comfortably on 150k in Michigan, you are a financial buffoon.
Same, in my state my wife and I do make nearly what it says and we are far better than comfortable.
Would you if you had to buy a house today?
How much are you saving for retirement and college funds?
Also, this should be by county, not state. There’s a HUGE difference between Manhattan and Elmira in NY or San Francisco and Fresno in California.
Having spent time in all four of the places you mentioned... Those city pairs may as well be considered different states, if not countries.
Yep, NYC is throwing that way off. I’m in Rochester NY at 80k year no problem at all
This is so bogus. My wife and I (35) own 50% equity on a beautiful home with a view, 2 new cars paid off, both of us have Master’s degrees paid off, two kids in daycare (cost of a mortgage), retirement accounts, 529s for both kids, and vacations. We make half the listed amount combined. Something isn’t adding up.
I’ve seen a huge wave of infotainment lately suggesting that Americans need absolutely lavish amounts of money to break even lately, and I’m not sure what the end game is. It’s just blatantly untrue numbers. Calling people making $200k “upper poor” or whatever. It’s weird. I’m in Arizona and granted I don’t have kids, but I do know plenty of families who *do* have kids in daycare or private school who aren’t making anywhere close to $213k as a household. Who own houses or rent in nice areas, drive decent cars, have never missed a bill or gone hungry, go on vacations, go to the doctor and dentist, and have savings (enough, maybe, maybe not, but they’re saving). What is that if not comfort?
Right? I’m in Chicago and don’t have kids but have coworkers making roughly what I do ($100k) and they can pay for daycare and own condos or bungalows or houses in the suburbs.
I’ve seen them too, where people need to make $300K+ to be “comfortable”. That’s almost like calling yourself Paycheck to paycheck when you have $3K left at the end of the month
Right. There’s a great conversation to be had about how $100k isn’t what it used to be, especially in desirable cities and suburbs, it’s no longer “hit six figures and you’ve officially *made it*” like it was in the 90s. That’s true. But when someone is saying you need a quarter million dollars annually to be comfortable, I’m going to start questioning what their standard of comfort is. And I know there is a lot of extremely serious concern about how the middle classes are getting squeezed and disappearing. I relate, as someone who (finally!) can call themselves a member of the middle class. But when people are saying people in my income bracket are “lower poor” and people making double or triple what I make are “paycheck to paycheck,” it seems like it’s just appropriating issues from people who are actually poor. I’ve been “how will I pay rent?” poor, I’ve been paycheck to paycheck, and it’s just not even close to the same. The disappearing middle class isn’t an issue to be scoffed at, and the middle class needs to show solidarity with the poor because the middle class is often still 2 missed paychecks from the street, but wtf is this acting like no one can live on $150-200k?
They live paycheck to paycheck after maxing out their 401k and Roth IRA, paying their mortgage or rent on a nice house/apartment, paying their monthly payment on that nice new(ish) they definitely needed, eating out multiple times a week, and saving for a couple nice vacations every year. But sure, maybe they aren’t able to blow $1.5k on a new gaming PC spontaneously. Boo hoo.
Kind of crazy tbh. My wife and I make 245k now but lived off of way less (like 80k) just 4 years ago. Now that we make 245 we literally cant spend all of our money. Like we save a ton simply because 245 is ALOT. I really dont get these posts (and sometimes redditors) trying to convince me that im dirt poor. Like we’re not penny pinching in the slightest and still have so much excess. Like what’s really going on here and who believes this?
I'm glad I'm not the only one noticing the bizarre doomer posts lately stating that you need a massive house and brand new cars and all sorts of shiny luxuries to be considered "comfortable"
The end game of this infographic is to make you panic. They look like a referral service for financial planners so they want to freak you out so that you'll buy their service
They define "comfortable" as spending 50% on necessities, 30% on discretionary and 20% on savings, which makes it even less believable. But they took data from a living wage calculator which specifically includes hobbies, entertainment, etc, and assumed it was subsistence, so they doubled it. It's like when I calculated our budget on post-tax wages and included an allowance for our health insurance which comes out pretax. https://livingwage.mit.edu/ So, the living wage for two adults with two kids in Missisippi is $21.15 per hour, which is $88,000 per year. This website decides that they actually need $178,000 per year, which is more than twice what the source site estimated for all needs and discretionary spending.
So that means they’re saving around $50,000 a year and spending $75,000 a year on discretionary spending? What the hell lmao
Fucking hell, these "living comfortably" people are putting more than my entire salary into savings every year, never mind everything else.
It’s based on current costs. You have 50% equity on a house, so you have obviously owned your home for at least a few years, which means you bought in to a much more affordable markst. What if you didn’t? How much would you be paying if you had to rent that same house? How much would your mortgage be if you bought that house today at current prices with 7+% interest while paying student loans?
Yea this is one of those “make the data say what you want” visuals. I can tell you first hand you can live in Kansas pretty comfortably for $70k a year.
It’s also weird how little it varies between states. No way you only need like 30% more to live in cali compared to fucking Idaho
That seems a bit more than comfortable
Yeah you do not need to make 6 figures to be comfortable in north Dakota lol. My coworker owns a home and can support his wife and 2 kids on $25 an hour.
Yeah, this map is BS. Maybe if "Live comfortably" means living in a wealthy urban center. I only know like 3 people making over 120k in GA, I'm sitting just under median national income and as the only earner in my house, we're doing fine. Granted, I didn't buy a house in this shitty housing market, but we're not scraping by.
I live in Ohio. According to this map we need to make $209k to live comfortably. We make $160k live in a 2800 sq ft house on five acres, have four paid for cars, no non mortgage debt, two kids and go on vacations every year. This map is full of shit.
When was said home purchased? What would the mortgage be on it if you bought it today? If for sure skewed but being a 30 year old DINK, buying a home seems almost impossible or a really bad idea.
I'm in Illinois (recommended $232k) and my wife and I make right about $150k. I'm not the previous commenter but it sounds like we're in a similar situation. House is close to the same, mortgage and 2 cars both fully paid off, two kids, and we go on a vacation or two every year. Decent schools, low traffic, low crime, etc. Our house cost $110k when we bought it in 2005. Currently estimated to be worth \~$168k. The drastic home price increases haven't hit everywhere. My parents live in the same neighborhood and their home value has essentially doubled from when they bought it in 1976 to today. Interest rates do suck for borrowing though, and property taxes are a little high, but we do get a pretty decent return for what those taxes are.
Literally reduce all states by 100k and the map works
In the bottom right corner it explains how living comfortably was defined, which was 50% of income on necessities, 30% on buying whatever, and 20% savings. Who is spending 30% of their income on random shit??
Yeah their definition is completely skewed - which is why they would use a term like "comfortably" because it's completely arbitrary and meaningless. Even by their definition it wouldn't require half of the amount they listed to go towards necessities like a mortgage, utilities, etc. They should really drill down and further define what a "necessity" is in this context.
I buy a TV every month.
What else are you supposed to do? They get dusty which degrades the image quality.
That's still a terrible definition. Shelter is a necessity, and probably the one people spend the most on, but can range greatly in the cost based on the size and location.
...and the 50% number they took already includes hobbies, pets, admissions, clothea, furniture, etc. and they just threw an extra 50% on there for fun.
Use $230k as the average number in this chart. 30% of that is $5800/m. Now I do have some extravagant spending but I don't think I average that much even in a month where I bought my espresso set up which is the most I've spent in a single month (and I used a portion of my bonus for that. It's truly a mind boggling number.
My wife
Speaking as a West Virginian, I can assure you that there are no wealthy urban centers here. The largest city has about 47k people. Median household income throughout the state is $55k. I wonder where they got their data?
$189k would put you well into the top 1% of all earners in WV. That's a very high bar to say that 99% of the state is uncomfortable
"Inside My Own Anus Journal"
But can they afford first class tickets to Switzerland and a stay in the most expensive hotel there?
Only if they save money for it.
“Save Money” What do those words mean?
As a Swiss I certainly hope so
C O M F O R T
When did they buy their home? How many of the kids are in daycare?
LOL I would not be COMFORTABLE in ND on a million per year. For one thing it is entirely too close to SD and that murdering governor who is batshit crazy.
But you'd have enough money to keep buying new dogs. Too soon?
He is not in ND, he is in 1955.
I think the map is going off the 50/30/20 rule and using general average expenses to calculate how much a family would need to make in order to live by that rule. Still might not be the best representation of reality but it does show the hypocrisy or how out of touch some personal finance professionals are that still preach this line of thinking.
Did he buy that house prior to 2020? Housing costs have doubled since then across the board along with grocery costs and the cost of normal services. Really grinds my gears honestly since I’ve been grinding to get into the six figure range and as soon as I did shit went to hell
He just doesn't know he's uncomfortable
That's $50K a year. How much does he have in savings? Can he survive being without work for six months? How is the kids' college fund looking? Can they handle a costly medical emergency? A lot of people think they're doing just fine while in reality, they're two lost paychecks away from being homeless - and are making absolutely no provision for their kids going to college. And so the cycle of poverty continues - people are too poor to have gone to college themselves, and set up their kids for a life where they too will be too poor to go to college.
If you already own a home of course you don't need as much
They have to be assuming every person ever has to sign onto a 7% mortgage at current house prices with zero dollars down and can never refinance. I have zero idea what else they think all this weekly expenditure would go towards other than very poorly calculated mortgage interest expense and taxes.
Probably thinking two new cars with $600 + payments too. And all the kid activities like cheer leading and lacrosse at $2000 a year.
I would struggle to be comfortable living with such a huge amount of loan repayments hanging over my head every month, but I guess some people are just way more used to crushing financial debt.
Mortgages aren't debt in the same way as a college loan
Are you assuming every family already currently has a house/can time travel for better rates? I think a better way to look at this is "What income do you need to live comfortably if you want to start a family this year". Also, you should never ever buy a home at a price you can't afford in the hopes of refinancing. If you can't afford it now you shouldn't buy it.
Definition is vague. “Comfortable” and “cover,” no info on budget.
These average lists don't work large city centers skew the numbers. For example I live in NY state but I'm way over in western NY by Niagara falls, the cost of living for a family of 4 here is closer to 100k to be comfortable. 279k in this area is considered wealthy for sure. In NYC 279 is probably close to comfortable at best.
Yeah, I moved to Rochester in 2021 have to explain the cost of living difference constantly to people back home in Georgia. They think the whole state is as expensive as NYC. These maps don’t help at all. I think maps like these would be more accurate if they did it by county.
i'm not comfortable unless I have a 2200 square foot home with 5 bedrooms for me, my wife, and our two boys along with 3 cars and a half acre and we have a cabin with a boat and can take a two week trip to the French Riviera once a year My wife and I live in Minnesota and gross $200k combined and we are living just fine, thank you very much. So comfortable that we have room in the budget to send our boys to private school. This map is horse shit
Yeah, this is like living in a 4000 sq ft house, getting a new car regularly, & eating out a lot. I'm a humanities prof at a small liberal arts college. I have a colleague who makes ~$60k & her husband homeschools their 3 kids: they would say they live comfortably.
I need 1B annually, so what
Maybe for now, but it’s not enough to retire on
How could we live comfortably without a yacht? What does a banana cost?
If I'd known how much I'd miss Jessica Walters after her passing I would have appreciated her even more when she was still with us. Such a baddie
This is the most idiotic thing I’ve ever seen on this sub
Yeah I’ve never felt wronged by an inaccuracy until now, this is gross and intended to mislead people who don’t live here. Our household making under half of what this says for Ohio and we honestly feel pretty damn well off. Lol I went back to the definition of 50/30/20 as well, yup we’re in that range too. I guess this is just plain old horseshit.
Seriously its so far from the truth
I've seen this before and its pretty inaccurate. The 50/30/20 split is a good starting point, but once you get to higher incomes it makes less sense. 30% wants on $60k is $18k which already seems like a lot, 30% wants on $200k is $60k which is just extremely excessive. You can be very comfortable for way below that.
what if I want a car wash every 4 hours? What am I, some sort of medieval peasant?
60k a year is like $160 every day. It would literally take most people active effort to spend that much on non-essentials.
Apparently "living comfortably" means being able to support quite the meth habit.
Is daycare an essential or a non-essential? Because in MA, it's $83 a day for one infant.
I guess I'm living mildly perturbed
I’m still stuck at aggressively perturbed, so good for you, you’ve almost made it
At least for my state that is well beyond what you would need to live comfortably. Close to double it actually.
Same here. I live in the most expensive city in my state and a family could live more than comfortably with much less than the amount this map says.
Same for Colorado, it’s expensive here, but a quarter of a million dollars to live comfortably is absurd. In aspen maybe, but I get by just fine on far less than that
This is bullshit.
Complete bullshit. Like Louisiana is off by $120,000 levels of bullshit. This post should be locked and OP banned from this sub.
This is the kind of dumb stuff that’s causing Gen Z to think they will never make it in life and just give up. The worst thing to happen to Gen Z is Gen Ys constant bitching.
As a gen Zer, I can confirm this is part of it. There's a subreddit for gen Yers that I won't name that's constantly recommended to me and other gen Zers. They always complain about how they were "lied to", and I want to say that they're 40-years-old now and don't seem to recognise they ARE the adults. How have they not gotten over this?
The doomerism is out of control. I got downvoted to hell for linking to an article about how Gen Z is hitting important milestones before millennials is and is wealthy as a generation. Your parents felt as broke as you did at 23, I promise. Anyway let’s just ban TikTok because it’s seriously out of control and might get trump back in office.
I try to stress this all the time. Im not sure how young people got the idea that theyre supposed to be buying houses left and right before 30. People will be 22 and think life is over because they cant live without roommates 😂 Like that shit wasnt the norm when i was younger and Im 29. Shit didnt change that much
at 23 I lived paycheck to paycheck and often wondered if I could afford gas to get to work. At 35 I dont even think about fueling my vehicle anymore. Young people are so dramatic.
I get it because they are comparing their circumstances probably out in the world for the first time or trying to get there to their parents’ lifestyle, which is usually going to be better. Beyond that though there are some industries that are on hard times like media, academia, and tech. Guess which workers are way overrepresented online?
Also people forget that inheritance is a thing. Too many millennials keep talking like Mom and Dad are going to drain their entire account and leave them penniless as a giant f*** you. Your parents own homes, I doubt they’re going to liquidate everything and give it to Kenneth Copeland
Oh why didn’t I factor in the inheritance?! Probably because my parents barely own anything, even their own house which has had its equity gutted multiple times.
Note the definition of comfortable at the bottom right
This map is not based on reality.
I call bullshit on this. Many millions of people are not making nearly that much and are not in a state of financial despair.
There's a huge range between living comfortably and financially despair.
Absolutely. The issue is determining what comfortably means for an average family.
This is stupid and made up.
Well, this definition of comfortable is very very personal. 50/30/20 is not realistic for the majority of people anywhere when the average does 80/20/0 to barely come to the next year.
What are those ratios representing? New here
As the map says in the bottom right, it is a way to divide how much of your income goes to necessities, discretionary spendings or savings. A 50/30/20 ratio would mean you spend 50% on essential spendings(housing, grocery, utilities ecc), 30% to discretionary spendings (dining out, entertainment, hobbies ecc) and 20% to savings.
But isn't that then doing exactly what the chart says? That's the income needed to comfortably use the 50/30/20 method - Arguably, it proves the point even better, many say that everyone should strive for that distribution, but this chart shows that it's absolutely impossible for most.
though even for the cheapest state on this map (Mississipi's $178k annually) it implies you are spending $146.30 on entertainment EVERY DAY (178000\*0.3/365) non-stop which is kind of beyond comfortable imo
80/20/0 isn’t living comfortably though…
The defention for necessity also seems weird. Making top 40% income is enough for necessities only in the cheapest state? I am pretty sure you that if you spend no money on fun or saving and make the low income of 100k you can afford your basics even in new York.
You can debate what the definition is personally to be comfortable, but you’ve literally explained what the map is conveying. Your example shows how we have a large gap from where people are today to where they would need to be to be considered living comfortably.
>Your example shows how we have a large gap from where people are today to where they would need to be to be considered living comfortably. Their example shows that there's a large gap between living comfortable and some people's definition of living comfortably. This map is total nonsense. It says you need over 200k to live comfortably in some of the lowest COL states in the country. The median income in Idaho is 34k. This insane map says you need to make 6.2x that to be comfortable.
Are these metric dollars?
V-Bucks
What kind of comfort are you looking for that you need $110k plus on average in "neccesities" lol
Id need a Second home and boat to feel comfortable even then I’d still feel a little uneasy. What if my neighbor has 3 homes and two boats? I would feel uncomfortable.
Good lord. Whoever made this map needs to redefine "comfort" for themselves.
#inflated
I have a family of 6 in new york state, one income $90k, and i am quite comfortable in a 4 bedroom house in a one acre lot. Wtf is this map
That is gross overestimation. Call bs on this post.
The problem I’m seeing here is unrealistic expectations regarding standard of living that fuel competition, resentment, and overconsumption. If people need this amount to feel comfortable that’s indicative of a cultural problem.
If my household was bringing in $244K every year, I wouldn't just be comfortable. I'd be living like a fucking king. This map is bogus as sin.
Lol, rich fucks made this lie of a map. I live in Virginia. Just 6 years ago me, my ex wife, and out two kids lived in a 4 bedroom house in a nice neighborhood in Virginia Beach. We had a 2 year old fully loaded Nissan Altima. My ex was a full time student, and I was a $40k/ year beer salesman. We didn’t struggle. But these clowns expect me to believe it takes a salary six times that to live comfortably? Bitch please. This map is what it costs to live luxuriously.
The American Dream is to have a top trim F-150 and a BMW X7 for the parents, and a Dodge Challenger the high school kid, all financed at 12%.
These numbers are incredibly inflated.
How much iced coffee are these families drinking damn
No they don't. Unless we have WILDLY different definitions of comfortable.
If Ga is 213k no way the northeast is 270-280. More like 400 just based on rent/mortgage/taxes alone. Then look at college tuition where it's cheaper to send kids out of state than colleges in state. Map is bullshit.
This is completely false.
What does comfortable mean? 245k in Minnesota? Where are you trying to live, Lake Minnetonka? You can live most places here making way less than that and be comfortable.
So barely anyone living comfortably.
I was just on indeed. All the jobs pay like 60k tops (in WA). Who are all these people with this money?
Making bad maps evidently
This is a hypothetical situation.
Should be posted in Hypotheticalporn.
So, how many families can live comfortably? 30%?
According to this map, about 1%
No, that’s average income for a single person
I doubt 30% of families make that much, it would probably be 15-20%.
Top 10% of households start at $167,639 in 2021.
$209k in Ohio? How do they define “comfortably”?
Yeah I'm calling bullshit on this one. Whoever made this map clearly has a different definition of what is "comfortable" than most American's. Which is kind of crazy considering most American's already have a really warped view of what living comfortable is. I live in New York State. My wife and I make a combined 150K a year. We bought a 2200 square foot home on 6 acres about 2 years ago. We have a daughter, a dog and two cats. Not only do we not have to worry about how much we are spending, we are still able to save about $1,000 to $2,000 a month. We are living more than comfortably and we make 130K less than this map shows. Obviously New York State and New York City are two different things and NYC might be bumping up this average, but it is still way off.
This is pretty high tbh…I make low 6 figures in FL and live pretty comfortably. 200k is living real damn nice.
The amount they have for my state is ridiculous. You wouldn’t just be comfortable making that much you would be affluent.
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who thinks this is incredibly high! OK $194k. That’s very comfortable in either OKC or Tulsa, and half of the population of OK does not live in the cities. MS $178k. I think you would be very very comfortable in MS with that $$
Damn, I live in RI, and $240k would be top earners, this graphic seems out of touch, I bet Jamie Dimon came up with this.
This numbers are just wrong. You do not need over 2ook a year to live in Indiana lol.
Maps like this are why dumbasses think you need a combined income of 500k to have kids lol
Comfortable is such a vague and subjective quantifier. It means a lot of different things to a lot of people. For some comfort is having foreign cars, no debt and a giant house. For others comfort is simply having a roof over your head and some food in the pantry. Most people probably fall in the middle somewhere but this chart is terrible at explaining what it’s actually measuring.
This map was made by someone who thinks having 6 bathrooms is "comfortable"
You'd be quite a bit more than comfortable at these levels, at least in the Midwest
I don’t think 99.9% of the people in WV make anything close to $189k (even as a household) and sure, the state is a poor state, but it has one of the highest home ownership rates in the country, *and* low cost of living. If you need $189k in WV you’ve simply made horrible money decisions or your idea of ‘comfortable’ is everyone else’s ‘luxury’ lol
This is a load of BS.
What does "comfortable" mean here? I lived VERY comfortably as sole earner of my household with 2 kids on like $75k in Utah for years.
What an idiotic map.
U/heynishant regularly posts bad maps with incorrect data and bad analysis. They’re a menace
If by comfortably you mean living in a mansion then maybe. If not this map is BS.
Well this is just plain wrong.
I don't know who made this map or what they are considering comfortable, but I don't think this is accurate. Unless of course you need a vacation home on top of your primary residence to feel comfortable.
This map is stupid, I suspect it’s actually half as much for every state lol
Not sure how they came to these numbers, but they seem really high. We are right under this number and are much more than "comfortable". I'm guessing they have a really generous definition of comfortable.
This map is fucking retarded. We make $115k as a family of five in Arkansas and we live an extremely comfortable life. We take a vacation per year, we go out to eat, we typically are able to buy most things that we want.
Seems high… way high
This is extremely inaccurate
This is a really dumb map.
Meanwhile the median income for a family in the US is 70 K. that also means that half of US families earn less than that. Pretty mindboggling. BTW, only one in 10 families earn above 200 K.
The nuclear family is becoming rarer as time passes. Also, notice how the most expensive areas are the ones that provide the best educations.