return2ozmaThe salary a single person needs to get by in every U.S. state
AttackBunnyIt is very unlikely a single person is having a comfortable life in San Diego on $80k.
No shit…
It’s state averages so it’s not going to be enough for the most expensive areas in any of the states. That’s how averages work
It’s averaged over the state. So there are places in California where you can, just not in the major cities.
QuestioningEspecialyWhich means commuting longer to most jobs within major cities. 🤷🏿♂️
bob_wileyIt says get by. That can feel a lot different than comfort.
That is a good point. $65k in any city/suburb in Washington State probably puts you in a one bedroom apartment. Maybe two if it’s older or shittier. You’re living but certainly not thriving.
I think the article suggests living wages to live like a king.
The criteria they used is that “50% of income is used to cover necessities, such as housing and utility costs, 30% goes toward discretionary spending, and 20% is left for savings or investments.”.
I don’t know anybody who makes under six figures and saves or invests 20% of their income, and 30% discretionary spending seems like a LOT.
If the article were more realistic, the living wage amounts would be significantly lower than reported. As stated, it would leave people very comfortable.
I never understand if these types of things are gross or net. 50% of gross pay is a lot different than 50% of net pay, depending on the tax bracket. Using percentage, how a person lives should scale with their income, from pauper to prince. Most people don’t want to scale down where they live to the point of fitting in a lot of these guidelines, which is fair, things can get pretty gross.
For me, after taxes, health insurance, and my 401k (which is 12%), my take home is 55% of my gross. If we add the 401k back in, since they have that broken out with the 20, 67% is what someone might have to actually work with.
If someone making $100k has a similar percentage, their gross budget would be $7,692/month, while the net budget would be $5,153/month. That’s $2,539 that goes to Uncle Sam and insurance that so many rules of thumb like to ignore. 50% of the take home pay is $2,500 for all necessities, rent will take a massive bite out of that and I think is the most important factor to control for to make the rest of it work. I assume a car payment would also go into that bucket, as well has groceries. Depending on the city, that may not go as far as people think when they hear 6 figures.
I have a house now, but spent about 15 years moving every year or two to avoid rent increases. I had this idea in my head that rent shouldn’t cost more than $1,000, and yearly increases should be minimal. At some point I went beyond that, but think I maxed out at $1,600 only for 1 year, which was mostly to keep me sane after work fucked me over and I was trying to make the best of it. When I see apartments for $2k+, I can’t even comprehend that. I thought I was living pretty high on the hog with that $1,600 place. Someone making $100k/year can’t really afford these $2+ rents if they’re not making big sacrifices elsewhere.
Someone making $100k/year can’t really afford these $2+ rents if they’re not making big sacrifices elsewhere.
That may be the key, though. I’m not American, but was looking at Canadian household figures, and I’m seeing something like 40% of food spending going to restaurants! “Communications” being over $2600 a year ($216 / month for phone and internet???)! Private transportation being over $11,000 a year (10x what public transportation would cost). Drugs and alcohol accounts for nearly $2000 a year with gambling being another $200.
Sacrifice doesn’t mean to be poor, but it does mean that people need to spend wisely. If done right, you could live an even better life while spending less!
To that, I wonder what the real cost of living would be if people were more reasonable with their spendings.
For sure, a lot of spending is out of control.
I’d say restaurants should go under the 30% discretionary budget, not the 50% necessities section, as eating out is not a necessity. People can easily spend over a grand on food in a month going out to eat a lot and have no idea where the money went.
I’d love to not own a car, but that not possible with the current infrastructure around me, and I think that’s true for most people in North America. I’d like that to change, but that would require actual leadership and cooperation, which apparently isn’t a thing anymore.
I worked with a guy who would often say, it’s not about how much you make, it’s about how much you keep. Another co-worker told me I lived like a poor person, but I don’t think so. I just don’t spend a bunch of money on “status” stuff. I live in a modest place and drive a modest car, eating basic food, and wearing basic clothes. I don’t care about most of that stuff, so why waste money on it? I guess I’d rather have money than look like I have money. Though I could step it up a little. I’ve had homeless guys sit next to me at McDonalds to commiserate about how hard we have it. I didn’t really know what to do, so I just went with it.
I’d love to not own a car, but that not possible with the current infrastructure around me, and I think that’s true for most people in North America. I’d like that to change, but that would require actual leadership and cooperation, which apparently isn’t a thing anymore.
This would go a long way to help people get control of their money.
I’m very fortunate to have access to “pay-as-you-go” insurance, so at most I pay around $250 a year (two drivers) for up to 1000km, and every additional 1000km is around $50-60.
Since I’ve been able to move much of my car driving to cycling, I’m saving in gas and insurance. Easily $3000+ a year.
Even if someone isn’t physically able to cycle, investing in an ebike to offset some of their driving can also have an impact on their wallet.
But if you’re stuck with car payments, a rigid insurance plan, and are forced to buy gas often, then it’s a very tough situation.
Another co-worker told me I lived like a poor person, but I don’t think so.
Haha. I don’t think what they meant was to actually live like a poor person, but to be frugal with your spending. This can have a profound effect on how much money you keep!
Have you seen Peachtree City? They have a whole network of golf cart paths. Even for a lot of mobility issues this would work. They’re way cheaper than cars, easier to electrify without having to go overboard, and I’m sure bikes could use the paths too. It seems great.
youtu.be/pcVGqtmd2wM?si=EwDfdWbEzqqxN0bv
And the co-worker wasn’t telling me to live like a poor person, he was saying I already did. He was trying to tell me I should spend more money… get a bigger/nicer apartment, a faster more expensive car, etc. I was just like, naw… I’m good.
The city of golf carts
Ah, i misread the poor person comment! Spend however you like, but there’s no reason to spend more than you need to.
Peachtree City is delightfully unique. Thanks for sharing that.
Part of me wonders “why not just ride a bike?”, but hey, “anything but a car” also works for me 😂
Cooking is labor, intensive labor at that. Someone working 50 hours a week is going to have a lot less energy to dedicate towards cooking their own food, and will thus likely eat out more.
Truly, I don’t think encouraging people to cook at home is a viable solution. We need low cost, high quality, publicly owned and operated community kitchens.
Hey, even though I love to cook, I’m also SUPER lazy (some might just call it efficient) when it comes to making meals.
For one, investing just a few hundred dollars (or much less if buying used) can get you a pressure cooker and/or a bread maker, and/or a rice cooker, and/or a slow cooker.
Any of these items, especially the pressure cooker, can save a considerable amount of time - most meals are simply “drop in your ingredients and walk away”. It can take less time to make dinner and clean up than it would take to order out.
I’m not exaggerating.
Longer, more elaborate meals are often made on the weekend, so we aren’t missing out on favourites like pizza. Even then, I won’t spend more than 20-30 minutes in the kitchen making a large meal. LOL
Being able to save money on food is a skill, and it’s a skill that everyone should know.
Even making batches of food ahead of time (I do this with beans) can save a considerable amount of money per month, without taking up more than a few minutes of effort.
All I’m saying is that if people are struggling, but they are spending a huge amount of money on restaurants, then making meals at home is a reasonable, easy way to save money.
Hell, even if you really don’t want to put any time into cooking from scratch, premade meals are going to be cheaper than a restaurant meal.
Laziness breeds efficiency, totally with you there. I guess my comment was more pre-empting the inevitable “well if people just ate more at home they wouldn’t be poor” response than it was directed at what you said. I agree that cooking for yourself is way more cash efficient, and using things like crockpots or insta-pots can reduce the time commitment also.
It’s still a struggle for people who work hard labor or any really draining job, and get home exhausted while still having household chores to manage. It’s also still less materially efficient than a centralized food facility, even a private restaurant. Also, for those living alone, the choices are often buy a couple days worth of food every couple days, make big batches of food and eat the same thing every day for a week, or risk food spoilage and waste.
I think individuals cooking their meals is a good way to manage under the current situation, but I like to conceive of better alternatives, and the efficiency gains in terms of time, labor hours, and waste of a community kitchen or pantry are too large for me not to advocate for them anytime I see an opportunity. There would likely be added intrapersonal and community benefits from the increased socialization also. I hope to one day be able to open one locally if I can ever afford to buy a commercial space so as to minimize monthly costs, but I think it would benefit much more from local governmental support and communal ownership and management.
Italy, 22k / year after taxes and health insurance ( public health so taxes ) . 6k / year , 2 room rent. 150-220k, you buy 3 room apartment near city center , medium city. No property taxes on your first house you own. A lot of people complain about cost of houses and rents.
TheMightyCanuckWhat’s the salary before taxes? 40k?
30 k $ ( 27k €)
27% tax seems lower than most nationalized healthcare nations. Neat
This study is averages for entire states, and therefore useless. They should have done it by county.
SanctusDamn I’m not even close
Apathy TreeI’m about 12k/ yr shy, and since my state is on the lower end of cost of living, that’s a sizable gap.
I also have 1 parent staying at home to care for the kids. So technically I need to double mine, which is rather unsavory.
Kids aren’t in the picture for me for largely this reason. Got my tubes tied years ago cuz I just can’t.
🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 🏆$15/hour minimum wage in California. $31,200/year before taxes if working 40 hours a week. I haven’t seen anything I could feasibly get hired for that pays more than $18/hour ($37,440/year).
I seriously have zero motivation to work 40 hours a week and still be fucking homeless.
I’m a disabled veteran in California. I hear you. The government chooses my quality of life and they have chosen poverty.
“Thank you for your service!”
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the pandemic is Americans calls ppl heros so when don’t want to actually pay them. See teachers, retail workers, nurses, doctors, EMTs, soldiers, first responders, mail carriers, delivery drivers, I can keep going
100%. Hero = victim.
I could feasibly get hired for
Tell me you have zero marketable skills without telling me you have zero marketable skills.
The tech sector can’t find workers fast enough. Manufacturing is endlessly looking for workers. People that can string a few coherent words together are being hired on-the-spot. Just say you are lazy and drop the charade.
The tech sector can’t find workers fast enough. Manufacturing is endlessly looking for workers.
I do network engineering and also have worked in manufacturing (mostly driving forklifts). Those things are indeed hiring; but they only want to pay $18/hour. How hard of a concept that is to understand?
But if you wanna pay my tuition, I’d be happy to get a degree in something instead of just being Cisco and A+ certified and just going by years of experience doing the work.
My friend, you gotta get a different job. They are criminally underpaying you. I am currently working Desktop Support making $35/hr, I’d be astounded if any of our network engineers make less than that.
gmtomObvious troll is obvious
The job market is horrendous in tech right now. You have no clue what you’re talking about.
Captain Jimmy T KirkThese are significantly higher than they used to be, but nowhere near some of the most out of touch numbers I’ve seen people claim online.
The other day I saw something that said people self reported they would need $230k/year to be comfortable.
If you want to buy a home in most metro areas while paying off student loans and affording a family, yes, I could see that salary being what you need to be comfortable.
starman2112$14,000 down, $33,000 to go
cries in minimum wage
Then stop crying in minimum wage. The only time I made minimum wage was fast food in high school.
“Have you tried making more money?”
Fund my job search or shut the fuck up
And how long ago was that?
LungWhile couples can usually find some cost savings by splitting mortgage or rent costs, there is no such discount for single people
Hilarious that the author hasn’t heard of roomates
Requiring roommates to live is a joke
Is this a common sentiment? I had roommates until I was 27 and to me it was the normal way for young, single people to live. I never thought of my roommates as a burden or considered living without them a high priority.
elephantium**preferred **to split a much nicer apartment
That’s a valid tradeoff so long as that crappy studio is actually affordable. When even the studio is north of $2k/month, though…
snooggumsOr OnlyFans!
Clearly people need to do things other than live on their regular wages or the author didn't think of it!
Plan to self retire before I need a roommate.
I call bullshit on a definition of “living wage” which claims that someone making $100,000 a year is earning less than a living wage (even in Hawaii).
It looks like it is assuming paying for a mortgage and allowing like 20% for savings. They are definitely not looking at just a living wage, they are assuming home buyers that are actively saving money.
20% savings would be nice. That would be like 1500-2000 extra per month. That’s comfortable.
Can confirm that these figures are very inflated. I currently live in Hawaii on half of that "living wage". Have a nice (by Hawaii standards) 2 bedroom apartment and still have over 1000 in excess income after rent\utils\groceries\gas each month.
112k is around what i would need to be making to afford a house\mortgage, but its possible to "live" without.
I make more than the article listed for my state, but it’s unlikely I could actually get by on my own, at least not without sacrificing some comforts like a well maintained apartment, eating every day, and paying my bills on time. Granted, I do live in the city. If I lived in the middle of nowhere my CoL would be lower, but then I’d be unemployed.
The people who live outside the city are able to find employment too. It’s a myth that jobs are only in the cities. Especially so if you work in tech and can do remote work.
That’s what brings these cost of living averages down - the people not living in big cities whose expenses are less.
I do work in tech, but a lot of what I do now is physical setup. I could not do my current role fully remote, and these jobs only exist in cities or in fairly large companies. Eventually I’d love to move away from the city and work remotely, but that’s not possible right now. I wasn’t trying to generalize to the population as a whole, I was making a comment on my specific experience.
Try having 2 kids in a HCOL. Shit’s fucked.
Honestly how is that even possible. I’m single in HCOL and I budget every item on my grocery list, I cut my own hair, I don’t even use the bus and I’m still near break even some months.
But dual income parent is probably better off than single income solo.
You make it work. Full disclosure, it’s easy for me, personally. Our household earns well. But for many, there are unpleasant compromises.
Can’t. Live in Vancouver.
We both make low six figures but can’t qualify for a mortgage and two bedrooms are 3800/month to start for anything suitable for our needs.
Sucks brah. Sorry.