Posted on 07/05/2022 8:10:18 PM PDT by lowbridge
You need a personal net worth of at least $1.4 million to be "financially comfortable" in the New York area, according to a survey of 500 local residents in the 2022 Charles Schwab's Modern Wealth report.
To be considered "wealthy" in New York, you need a net worth of $3.4 million — over one million more than the national average.
The survey's New York results are the second highest after San Francisco. Bay Area residents say you need $1.7 million in order to be financially comfortable in the California tech hub and $5.1 million to be considered wealthy, Charles Schwab found.
Comparatively, the survey's national average was $774,000 to be comfortable and $2.2 million to be wealthy.
From soaring rent to costly grocery bills, the Big Apple is consistently ranked as the No. 1 or No. 2 most expensive city in the US. The median asking rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan was $3,950 as of May 2022, Bankrate reported.
As US inflation hits a 40-year high, prices in the greater New York area rose 0.5% percent between April and May and 6.3% over the year, per the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile, the median household income in New York City is $67,046, with 17.3% of the population living below the poverty line, according to US census data.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Sounds about right.
If you only have $3.4 million, you’re not wealthy. Real wealth now starts at $10 million.
Of course, you can live very nicely if you have $3.4 million, but you can’t spend too freely.
agree, true wealth is probably closer to 10 million at the moment.
Are they talking about just New York City, just Manhattan within New York City, the entire New York metropolitan area?
I see they quote Manhattan rent. I know that many in New York want to be in Manhattan, and they pay the price to be there, instead of in the outer boroughs or suburban areas.
Housing costs seem to be way out of line with the incomes needed to support those housing costs. And that is happening in many parts of the country, not just New York and San Francisco.
If you move somewhere else besides NY. At 2% per annum that returns $200,000 per year, a nice living for sure, but that gives you a car and a mortgage, a fair upper middle class income. But wealthy you are not. You could spend $1M on a house and save the mortgage. It's a nice house in a nice neighborhood, but not "wealthy" and now you have $180K for all the other expenses. And inflation is running a lot more than 2%.
$500k for an average American house leaving $2.9M to invest which returns $58k per year at 2% above inflation - if you can find somewhere to get that. You are not living very nicely at all. Maybe buy a reasonably good care - another $50k and there goes more of your capital.
And yet, as of 2019, the average net worth for all American families was $746,820, and the median net worth was $121,760.
Few are “comfortable”.
too bad they don’t say WHICH “net worth”: net worth and LIQUID net worth are two different balls of wax ...
financially comfortable....
An old joke in several versions (this is the Earl Nightingale one) had a middle aged Jewish businessman who was hit by a car in NY. He was brushed by it and fell onto his back.
A cop who knew him ran over and talked to him after calling for a rescue crew and giving him his own coat as he lay there.
“Mr.Birnbaum, are you comfortable?”
“I wouldn’t say I’m comfortable but I make a pretty good living.”
You need that much to afford the property taxes on an average middle-class house in Westchester County
Yep, $3.4 million isn't that much today. I know quite a few with a net worth of that living in a cheap area and they're still watching their pennies shopping at Wal-Mart and Dollar General.
+1
It’s all about cash flow.
If you don’t make enough to cover expenses then you are slowly becoming poor.
Hell I could live on $2-3000 per month and be happy
>>It’s all about cash flow.<<
Bingo.
Wall Street of course wants you to accumulate assets because they’ll gladly (and without any risk of their own) gladly relieve you of 1% per year to “manage” them for you. The more you have, the more they make.
But you live on your cash flow. If you achieve cash flow by drawing down your assets, you’re going to be in trouble sooner or later.
Don’t wait till it’s too late to learn this.
Indians offer beads for NY its all it’s worth.
Talk about a "fat tail" changing the distribution - to get that kind of skew is a really big fat tail. The average person has a wealth of 1/6th of his average share.
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