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In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

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Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#301

Post by geggam »

kcorbitt wrote: post #222
geggam wrote: post #21

Single income, Alameda county ( Fremont ), family of 4 No car payment, No credit card debt, 130k will let you live and eat with a bit of room to go do things once a month. If you have a car payment and or credit cards kiss that once a month thing goodbye 150k will let you have a car and do things Source : I left that area recently

As a counterpoint, my family of 3 is living in San Bruno (San Mateo county, on the peninsula) on a budget of $50k[1], and enjoying life immensely. We do without a lot of things that other people probably take for granted, but it's by choice, not necessity. And even within that limited budget we can afford some great perks that most of humanity can only dream about, like a reliable car for getting around town and the…

Given the effective tax rate in CA and the outrageous rents I would assume you have no housing costs to manage this.

That or you live on the streets

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#302

Post by ac29 »

xxpor wrote: post #226
tastythrowaway wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what were you doing/where were you working that you were pulling in 250k?

Is 250k considered unusual in the bay area for a BigCo for someone for someone 3-5 years out of college? If that's the case, choosing to living in SF is even crazier than I thought.

Yes, that's unusual. Think half that for someone only a few years out of college. And that's for software dev at a large company. The vast majority of employed people in the Bay Area do not make six figures (source: I've lived here for several decades).

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#303

Post by rpiguy »

kevinmannix wrote: post #152
wehadfun wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have mixed feelings about this. People say that state shouldn't have to pay for your kids, but the state can send your kids to war. If the state sends your kids to war and they get killed who reimburses the parent for $100K they invested in the kid?

Can the state currently send your kids to war? By this, I mean forcefully via a draft. I was under the impression that it's a no for now and for the foreseeable future.

Every male has to register for the selective service (the draft) at 18 in the US allowing the government to draft you. If you got a student loan from the government in the US, you registered. You can't get federal loans without it.

Just because they can do it at any time doesn't mean they ever will. We have a large and expensive professional army and people reacted badly to the draft in 1960s I can only imagine what today's kids would do if they were drafted. It would be political suicide to enact a draft.

So technically yes the state can forcefully draft any male between 18-28 to go fight in a war. But practically no, it will never happen again.

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#304

Post by itomato »

douche wrote: post #141
throwa38282 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once upon a time, the woman stayed at home and didn't need a second car. Televisions were prohibitively priced as to make one even a stretch. And, travel was prohibitively priced so that only the ultra-rich could afford planes. When cars hit the scene en masse, it brought rise to car trips. So, I guess you're saying people aren't living within their means? But they weren't necessarily then either... And boy, I sure m…

> Televisions were prohibitively priced as to make one even a stretch. It's just astounding how cheap televisions have become. A 32" flatscreen is like $150, and weighs ten pounds.

Whereas content is $100/month when it used to be $0.

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#305

Post by muninn_ »

enraged_camel wrote: post #297
sideband wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also moved from the the Bay Area to Oviedo, FL not long ago (fun fact about our little town: Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, grew up here). I agree with everything on your list, and I'll add one more item: 9) Greater thought diversity and tolerance for opposing viewpoints. When I lived in the Bay Area it seemed that too many people I interacted with were of similar backgrounds: very educated, high income and s…

With all due respect, I don't really buy that narrative. People often mistake critical thinking skills with close-mindedness. Just because someone uses thought and reason to reject an idea doesn't mean they are close-minded. Not all ideas deserve acceptance. I'm as open-minded as it gets, but if you tell me that vaccines cause autism then you will go down several notches in my book. (Ironically, there are many anti-v…

Right, that's one of the things I have found my fellow liberals struggling with. They don't understand the state of mind of somebody who wants to maintain things how they are, "we like it here" and attribute that to being close-minded, racist, ignorant, whatever. Sometimes that's true, but often times it's not. For example, I'm quite bearish on immigration, for example (I won't get into it here unless asked), and among my fellow liberal friends it's something they don't understand and considered "close-minded" or "unaccepting" but what does being close-minded actually mean?

In my case, for example, I've thought about an issue and have drawn a conclusion based on the facts at hand. I'm very open to new perspectives and new ideas and often challenge people on their own preconceptions because I think it's valuable that people are challenged. But again, I'm not "close-minded", I've just drawn a different conclusion. People need to understand the difference and they largely don't.

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#307

Post by kevinmannix »

ef4 wrote: post #245
kevinmannix wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can the state currently send your kids to war? By this, I mean forcefully via a draft. I was under the impression that it's a no for now and for the foreseeable future.

Yes, they can. Every male between 18 and 25 is still required to register for the draft. The database is sitting there ready to go. The president just has to declare an emergency and convince congress to approve activation of the selective service system. In practice, will they? Probably not. But weirder things have happened.

That's true, my comment was probably short-sighted. I received federal loans, so my name is in that database. Like you said, crazier things have happened.

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#308

Post by [deleted] »

hourislate wrote: post #51

Why would a young professional person want to live anywhere where earning 100k + is not enough when they could live in quite a few other states and earn a 100k + enjoying a cost of living that is 1/3 of what it is in SF or NYC? My wife and I both make well into the 6 figures working at boring corporations enjoying a lifestyle where we would have to earn the equivalent of 7 figures in the Bay Area or NYC. There are a…

[deleted]

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#309

Post by kcorbitt »

geggam wrote: post #301
kcorbitt wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counterpoint, my family of 3 is living in San Bruno (San Mateo county, on the peninsula) on a budget of $50k[1], and enjoying life immensely. We do without a lot of things that other people probably take for granted, but it's by choice, not necessity. And even within that limited budget we can afford some great perks that most of humanity can only dream about, like a reliable car for getting around town and the…

Given the effective tax rate in CA and the outrageous rents I would assume you have no housing costs to manage this. That or you live on the streets

You're right, I was unclear. $50k is our after-tax spending (including housing, which we're renting at market rate). For a couple making $130k like you mentioned above, with the worst-case scenario of 0 deductions or tax credits, total state+federal income tax should come to about $40k, leaving ~$90k after-tax to play with.

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#310

Post by sf_rob »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #287
ryanSrich wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still buy a house in Portland for $500k. I live here. Bought in 2015. It's more expensive in 2017, but not 100% more. Once 1000sqft houses hit a $1mm average Portland will be too expensive. Until then we're doing just fine.

As a point of reference, you can buy a new 3,000+ sq ft house on 5+ acres of land just 30 minutes outside Minneapolis for that! Not impressed.

Sure, compared the the Midwest or South it's not great, but compared to other west coast cities it's not bad. Portland is cheaper than the bay area, Seattle, LA, and San Diego. It has good culture, great nature, and a mid-sized & growing tech sector.
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