Stop arguing if people making 150k a year should be fine.
It’s the billionaires. Look at them.
I mean by all standards they should be completely fine.
I make less than $30k/year and make it work without credit. I honestly want to see their bills and what their living situation looks like because if you can’t manage $150k/year comfortably you’re definitely doing something wrong.
Other places may have higher cost of living. Hard to tell. But it does sound like a lot of money.
I make a lot less than $150k in CAD and live in one of the most expensive cities in the world and I’m doing fine. But yeah obviously billionaires are the problem.
I don’t disagree, but $150k is just not that much money any more for a household. My wife and I make probably around $110 or so. I got lucky and bought a house 6-8 years ago (I’d never be able to afford interest rates or what that house appraises at now) we have a couple of <$20k used cars with good rates, and a household of 6-8 depending on which of my kid’s friends basically live with us this week.
if I were buying my house today, we’d need to make much closer to the 150 just to maintain our current middle class lifestyle, and trust me, it’s not like we’re eating steak every night (or probably even every month.) I mean, sure, there are things we can do to make that money go further, and we will likely have to do as my kids get older/more expensive.
You get used to the money and spend more until you are broke. Maybe it’s peer pressure, irresponsibility or a lack of financial education.
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I mean by all standards they should be completely fine.
I read it as whether it’s fine (moral) that they make that much money, not whether they could live off it. Else, what context for billionaires being mentioned?
I’m a software developer, a couple years outta college. My girlfriend and I are living together, and make about $120k/yr combined. We have no problem, I save a lot of my income and still have a bunch left over for hobbies. She has maybe a couple grand in student debt left and I’ve never been in debt in my life. I’d be willing to bet that a large portion of the issue is car payments and payments on a house that’s fancier than they need.
It’s also wild that roughly the same percentage (36%) of people making $50k-$150k are also living paycheck to paycheck. Live within you means. It isn’t hard.
Now live in San Francisco, have 2 kids and a house.
Probably not even possible on 120k
Edit: im not in San Francisco, but I don’t think you could own where i am with a dual income of 120k and have a place that would work for 2 kids. At least moving here today. 5-10 years ago it’d work no problem. Cheapest 3 bedroom condo is 525k, but almost all of them are 700k+
If I had kids, I wouldn’t live there. If I lived there I wouldn’t have kids until I was able to move.
It obviously isn’t as simple as that, and it’s a personal choice, but that’s how I see it. Kids isn’t just an emotional choice, you’ve gotta be able to raise them within your means.
Where I live, we could own a house and have a couple kids, but it makes more sense to rent right now. Where we currently live, we could have a couple kids, and they’d each have their own room, but it’d be a bit tight.
That’s part of the problem though. We should all be able to have a house and kids. Those are not luxuries. The fact that you’re arguing that income is fine if you forego those means the corporations and billionaires have successfully convinced you to fight against your own class and self interests.
I’m not arguing that it isn’t bullshit, I’m just arguing that it’s possible, considering the situation. Just because it’s bullshit that I can’t afford kids doesn’t mean I’m going to accumulate credit debt by having kids.
Yes and no.
Yes the economic rigging is the billionaire class. But at 150k assuming. Single and not joint income, this is interesting. At that point you are 78th percentile of income. How is the top 25 percentile not able to cover expenses? I think that is a question worth asking.
Also read the article. It talks about paycheck to paycheck as not being able to cover full credit card expenses monthly.
I think a more apt question is: what is it about our economic system that creates a situation where the people in the top 25 percentile of earners are incapable of supporting themselves financially?
That said, with a few lifestyle changes, I believe someone making $150k per year could make it work in most, if not all, major US cities. It might be a small one bedroom apartment, and you might need to walk or take a subway to work, but it can probably be done.
I think a lot of people who grew up in the 90s and early 00s working class kind of saw $100k/year something to aspire to (at least where I grew up). Like, if you could make that much, then that would mean you’d be more than set. These days, not so much. It’s hard (for me at least) to remember sometimes that it’s really not that much money anymore.
I think a lot of people who grew up in the 90s and early 00s working class kind of saw $100k/year something to aspire to
Oh absolutely. Looking at median home prices by state and even then choosing a lowball estimate for a mortgage ($275k, 0 down) at today’s rates (7-8%) you’re looking at nearly a $3k/mo house payment. So, like 30-40% of your income. This doesn’t include taxes/insurance, so that $3k is probably $3500 being again extremely generous, so that’s just about half of your income. And that’s for a house with no heat, water, electric…
I have a family of 6-8, and make just over this amount between our incomes, and it’s tricky. Absolutely wouldn’t be possible for us if we hadn’t bought our home 6-8 years ago.
Exactly. People need to remember that $100k in 2023 is different than $100k in 2003.
They don’t realize that they’re falling right into the trap of class infighting. You can absolutely make $150k and still be a “working class family” in certain areas of the US in 2023. These aren’t the people we should be focusing on.
Don’t let this sensational headline fool you. These are not the 1% not even close.
Such a rusty axe head
They couldn’t afford a new one
I mean you can make any income be paycheck to paycheck by spending too much.
Yep, my mother used to manage pays for engineers making up to 300k and for some of them it was a disaster if a mistake lead to 200$ being missing from their cheque and they would be in her office first thing in the morning in full panic mode…
I mean, if my cheque was off by a couple of hundred dollars, I’d want to follow up on the discrepancy (not in panic mode though). My wife’s a high earner and some pay was delayed a month due to staff turnover.
Leadership was like “it shows financial stability to be able to wait for pay,” but people have budgets and plans for that money. Otherwise it’s an interest free loan to the organization - the money should be paid out timely.
But I do agree, overall, that folks should be able to manage their budget, especially as a high earner.
Adam Smith observed in his epic that when people get more money they generally spend it on more/better housing. Today we have a few more luxury goods, to add to a house, but a house is still something people spend more and more money on when they get it.
I’m not sure that is bad. My dad died at 65 - what was the point of all the retirement savings he had saved up (at least my mom can enjoy it). Even if you live for much longer, most old people I know have failing bodies and so they can’t really enjoy those old years. More and more my advice to people is save for a rainy day and an okay retirement, but don’t save for a rich retirement - instead enjoy that difference now.
Sorry about your dad - I hope you got to enjoy some good times together before he passed.
Oh boo hoo. Try making about half that, like me and my wife do (combined). It isn’t fun.
Dude. Get a grip. These people are far closer to you in wealth than the people who fund SuperPACs or own news organizations. You have much more in common with someone who makes $150k/year than you do with Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, George Soros, Warren Buffet, Rupert Murdoch, or whoever the fuck else has obscene amounts of money. Those people, the billionaire class, the 0.01%, are the people using their larges to influence politics and media.
These people making $150k/year are overextending themselves, I get it, but if I actually spent the money I wanted to spend on improving my life, especially in relation to things like my health, I would be looking at needing to spend that kind of money each year. My teeth are falling out of my god damned head and I’ve gotten the cost of such things shared with me and it’s out of fucking control. I’m talking like $10k for one of the many problems I have in my mouth. The others aren’t cheaper. All it means is that we are so poor that we’re literally putting off life-saving medical care because it’s fucking unaffordable. All people making $150k a year are doing is just barely scraping by while actually getting that care.
Oh no, they own a single super shitty, hollowed out house that is busted as hell and needs massive repairs constantly. Yeah, man, they’re doing so much better than us just because they have a house. /s Like maybe take a minute and understand a lot of those people just bought their house, and it’s not like they were buying it in their 20’s.
People making this much are not your enemy, they are the people you have to convince that the system is broken and get them on your side.
People whose entire wealth and income comes from investments are the people who are your real fucking enemy.
Because guess what, these $150k/year stiffs still work for a fucking living.
Because I get it, it feels like they have so much more when they’re making over $100k a year more than you, but like, they’re still treading water, just like us, just like this article points out. Trust me, if you were making that money, you’d still be pretty broke unless you didn’t have kids.
Source: my broke ass sister, a lawyer who lives in a fucking hovel that needs tons of repair and is being bled dry by medical bills, child care, a psychopathic narcissist of an ex-husband (who literally lives off of credit cars and spends like Paris Hilton) and housing costs. She didn’t buy her home until she was over 50, she’s Gen X. She’s on thin ice just like me, even though she’s doing better by a lot of measures. The only “investments” she has is her fucking 401K to try to have a halfway decent retirement (ha, as if).
EDIT: Second Source: Just remembered a conversation I had with a friend years ago when I worked at a local mexican restaurant. He was upset at the owner, because he had like a million dollars in the bank. I explained that a lot of that was because he had been in business a long time, and frankly, you need that kind of money to keep a restaurant running (thin margins). I told him at the time that any huge disruptive thing could eat into that million and make a lot of it go away fast. COVID hit, and that restaurant nearly bit the dust, but only JUST scraped through the other side. I bet they don’t have a million in the bank now, they had to shut down to satellite stores where they sold their tortillas.
they’re still treading water, just like us
I currently have 1200 dollars and live in my mother’s basement, because I’m her full time carer while she recovers from cancer. My current retirement plan is a rope. I have a master’s degree in STEM, but you’d be surprised how many homeless people have those too.
Someone earning 150k would have to work thousands of years to become a billionaire, true.
The ultra rich are the true enemy, true.
But Jesus Christ, people earning 150k are not ‘just scraping by’.
Seriously. Get a grip. How out of touch do you have to be to think that? No concept of what true poverty looks like.
As a 40-something guy who literally has cancer and no retirement savings and is wondering how he can even stay alive and has had a year of nothing but suicidal ideation, I still have the capacity to have compassion and not blame other working stiffs for how bad things are for me. I have a degree and I work at a fucking pizza place.
Out of touch my ass, I’m literally living a similar experience. Sorry I have the ability to consider other people’s situations instead of just my own. It’s called empathy, motherfucker. Have you heard of it??
Look, I’m really not in a good place either, as I assume you gathered. It’s been so long for me. At one point I found myself crying into the toilet I was cleaning for one of my night time temp jobs. Like you, I’m basically hanging on by a thread. It’s been going on so long, I no longer know where depression ends and I begin or if the original me still exists.
I don’t know about you, but I really shouldn’t be having this discussion, so we’ll leave it at that.
I’m just going to wish you luck, strength, or whatever gets you through today and tomorrow. Even if it’s drowning out the noise, even if it’s spite, anger or curiousity about something like the conclusion of a dumb tv show you don’t even really like.
Maybe things will get better for us, even if right now we perhaps don’t really believe in it anymore.
Thanks for that, friend. Life is hard, and I don’t blame you for being in a low place because of it. I appreciate your candor, openness, and willingness to hear me.
I wish and hope for the best for you, too. All of us deserve better.
Also, unrelated, dope username.
I’m not who you were replying to, but I just want to wish you the absolute best of luck in your health battle. Empathy is in short supply at the best of times, but showing empathy when you’re in the middle of something so hard is next level. I bet you also make an excellent pizza, even if that’s not where you expected to be working.
I’ll have my fingers crossed for you, friend. Fuck cancer and everything that it entails.
Cheers, mate. I hope for the best for all of us. It can happen to any of us at any time, and that’s part of why it’s so stressful. Making good money isn’t some sort of panacea against your life falling apart.
I mean, Christ, just think of all the people who have chronic pain that became opiate addicts who also had real, productive jobs who ended up on the street due to addiction to the solution to their chronic pain. Life isn’t fair, and even having money saved away can’t protect you from everything.
Many of them bought this on themselves
If these people are financially struggling, it’s by choice (e.g. buying property).
And I don’t feel sympathy for them. They can reduce their spending and survive.
Now we can’t even buy property at $150k without being called out for making bad choices? Holy shit the working class is lowering their expectations way too much.
People used to be able to have a house, a car, hobbies, have medical help, all the house appliances, and yearly vacations on one income at some mindless factory job. Expect more, people. Demand more. You only can’t have it because the rich are hoarding everything and stealing your money. Don’t shrug and take it. Don’t criticize others for expecting it. Fucking demand it for yourself. It’s your work making them rich.
People could literally say the same things about my financial situation, which is dire. I was on the verge of homelessness earlier this year. I have heard plenty from discompassionate people who say I could have tried harder/worked harder/done more and that my shortcomings are things I brought on myself.
They wouldn’t be entirely wrong, but I would still think they are kind of a stuck up asshole.
Same difference. Do you talk about the homeless the same way?
Do I talk about the homeless the same way as the top 20% of income earners?
No.
Do you have any more bad faith leaps you want to take here?
The only way I could reasonably see that is if those people bought houses when rates went up. I live in a high cost of living area and $150k would not be living paycheck to paycheck for my family (wife, 2 kids, and a dog). I guess I also don’t have expensive tastes.
I’m somehow sure that plenty of people were still buying houses when rates went up. Once again, people blaming choices and circumstances. It feels eerily similar to how people judge the homeless and talk about their “bad choices.”
I don’t see how that’s possible unless you have a huge family, you have some sort of chronic disease that insurance doesn’t cover, or you’re wildly irresponsible. Even in a high cost-of-living area, a normal family of four could live quite comfortably on that much money and still save some of it.
(I don’t think that many high-earning people are wildly irresponsible. I suspect that this statistic isn’t right.)
Seeing this first hand between myself and some of my close coworkers who all earn similar incomes with similar sized families, I’d be willing to bet a majority of those 32% (who don’t live in the bay area or Manhattan) are financially illiterate and live paycheck to paycheck because they blow all their money on stupid shit.
I still manage to save, pay my credit card off each month, and pay all the household bills while still having money for stupid hobbies and yearly vacations while they constantly take out loans, loans to pay for other loans, finance even small purchases, have multiple maxed out credit cards, and keep kicking the can down the road on paying off their 20 year old student loans. I’d have a little more sympathy if they didn’t make snide comments like “must be nice” when I mention an upcoming trip, or argue that I’m stupid for upping my 401k contributions during our recent market dip while suggesting its better to sell it off when the market is down so you don’t lose your money.
Boo hoo? I make a bit over half of half of that, and I’m getting by just fine. Maybe cut back on the avocado toast if you make 4x what I make and can’t manage to live within those means.
Fucking GREAT for you, no one asked, thanks for being an asshole.
This is a completely unfair assessment. I make way less than that, and this is what results they get? Either they didn’t try hard enough with more taking the test, or they are THAT financially tone deaf. Soo stupid
I make less than a third of that and make it work (barely). Some people need to seriously reassess their priorities or something.
You don’t get any sort of financial assistance?
I grew up on the poverty line. Food Stamps and Affortable Housing programs got us by.
I worked my ass off to get above the threshold of qualifying for any sort of assistance, and now I live at about the same level because food and rent eat up the difference between what I make and what my parents made.
Nope, no direct financial assistance. Though my parents are close by, and do help with things like inviting me over to dinner like once a month and helping me buy used furniture, if that counts. I shop very frugally and don’t have expensive hobbies. The only thing I’m really missing is savings.
We are cut from different cloths.
I hope you the best.
Maybe. At least I’m not making $150k and somehow still struggling lol
Ya.
You can’t figure out how to make 150k, but you think you are better than people who have.
Tried to end it nice, but fuck you are a raging asshole.
Do you make $150k and are struggling to make ends meet? Please clue me in to the struggles, I’m all ears.
Household, not solo, income of about 150k.
About same quality of life as I had growing up.
No kids.
Bottom barrel health insurance is a LOT more expensive than it is for people who make less. Drive a Honda Civic, but I still pay more for car insurance than my buddies that make less and drive Mustangs/Chargers/etc. My mom got WIC. I don’t. My mom qualified for Affordable Housing. I don’t.
I mean… I endorse you punching up, but I don’t think you aim those punches high enough, which makes you look like the kind of asshole who it makes sense that you can’t find actual gainful employment to advance yourself.
If this conversation proceeds, I need to know if you have reproduced, if you have been divorced, and if you are on any form of public assistance.
I’m no divorce/no kids/ can’t qualify for public assistance and my rent, food, and insurance costs have me living paycheck to paycheck.
At a current household income of, specifically, about 130k, far higher than I ever thought I’d pull off, there is NO shot at me getting a mortgage and I’m still living at the standard of life whose tax statements include kids, divorces, far lower paying jobs, and public assistance.
What’s even the point of your comment, I’m not trying to be rude it just seems unhelpful and the attitude is prevalent. Sure, if people adjust their habits they could make due, but the problem is the fucking robbery of all working people so it’s just wasting time bickering with points like this.
The point is that there is something fishy going on if you make $150k and still can’t make ends meet.
My hunch is that there is obvious excess spending on things that aren’t needed, and downsizing is the best solution. Families don’t need a $80k SUV when a sedan would do for example. Joneses be damned.
Your 150k number continues to highlight how oblivious you are to the current state of the economy.
1 mil… maybe that has gotten past the orphan crushing machine/boring dystopia threshold, but there is almost no physical quality of life difference between someone making 50k a year and someone making 150k a year.
How does the old adage go?
Mo money mo problems.
The $150k was literally in the OP lol?
You’ve called me an asshole multiple times yet you’ve been incredibly toxic in this comment thread.
Many probably live in higher cost of living areas.
And it’s entirely possible/likely if they move to a lower cost of living area they will suddenly not make anywhere near as much and still live paycheck to paycheck.
Yeah, I was making a flat 50k a few years ago, and seeing some college classmates making three times as much complaining about how poor they were could only make me laugh.
I’m doing much better now, but it still drives me nuts when people don’t know how to appreciate what they have.
Someone can appreciate what they have and still struggle to support a family, repair and maintaine a house, pay deductibles and co-pays for medical treatments, support an unemployed or ailing family member, pay student loans, pay car loans, send remittances to family in a home country, etc. They could simply live in a HCOL area. There are many not unusual scenarios that could have a household making $150k/year struggle.
It drives me nuts when people think their circumstances define someone else’s, too.
