I know couples living in the San Francisco bay area who clear $175,000 combined income between the 2 of them, and I can tell you they are NOT upper class. The cost of living is so high and taxes are so high, they are comfortable but they are definitely not upper class. No fancy cars. No fancy vacations. They are not living large on $175,000 in the San Francisco bay area. Not even close.
For example, both of them are self employed, so they both pay the full Social Security amount for themselves rather than having an employer to pay half of it for each of them. Just one example. But mostly it is just such high home costs, transportation costs, food costs, parking, fees, local taxes, etc.
Sodom and Gomorrah are expensive places to live.
Agreed. The article does not take into account after taxes dollars. It is the difference between Revenue and Margin. A couple that is making 175k takes home about 120 to 125. That is solidly middle class.
$100K here in northern NJ is not a lot of money; your property taxes alone will take 10% of that (and there are refunds on that), and after state and federal income taxes, social security and Medicare taxes, mortgage/rents payments, etc. - there simply isn’t a whole lot left over.
The days of fancy cars and fancy vacations are over; while the Jersey shore still points to Hurricane Sandy as the source of their woes, the closing of several Atlantic City casinos exposed the truth: There is little discretionary spending, and there has been no economic recovery, here in the northeast.
I was contacted by a headhunter looking for someone to fill an open position in Honolulu. Since we had snow on the ground here, on a lark I thought I’d answer her ‘fishing’ questions honestly - so did the research on a cost of living comparison between here and Honolulu. The factor was over 2.0. When I told here the salary I would require, that was the end of the conversation. ROTFLMAO!