21–30 of 53 posts
Discussed in 2008: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363815
The discussion is probably more relevant now than it was in 2008 re: expansion in the ridiculous 'gig economy' sphere since then.
The "typical annual expenses" have a row for housing (as they should), in which the numbers are maybe interesting if you're interested in such things: - Unsurprisingly, a single, childless adult has the lowest housing costs. - A single adult with 1 child pays a lot more for housing, presumably because the child requires its own bedroom. - Adding a second child has no effect on the housing cost, presumably because the…
Kids sharing rooms is somewhat more acceptable than Adult/child sharing a room. Past babyhood anyway.
I suppose the problem is it all depends on genders and ages. A 5 and 6YO sharing is probably fine. A 16 and 17YO of differing genders not so much.
The following is much more useful, and covers many more cities across the world: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/
Numbeo has reputation of being very inconsistent. For some cities and countries it's relatively accurate, for some others it's wrong or outdated. It's partly due to their data collecting methodology. They rely on crowd-sourced user inputs and manually collected data. I also have doubt about their analysis methodology, it's seems very ad hoc and amateurish. You should treat Numbeo with a grain of salt. It's honest att…
- 1 adult, 1 child
- 1 adult, 2 children
- 2 adults, 1 child
- 2 adults, 2 children
The "typical annual expenses" have a row for housing (as they should), in which the numbers are maybe interesting if you're interested in such things: - Unsurprisingly, a single, childless adult has the lowest housing costs. - A single adult with 1 child pays a lot more for housing, presumably because the child requires its own bedroom. - Adding a second child has no effect on the housing cost, presumably because the…
Hmm. Same housing cost ($21,468/yr) in New York county, New York for: - 1 adult, 1 child - 1 adult, 2 children - 2 adults, 1 child - 2 adults, 2 children
I suspect the data presumes 2 bedrooms: 1 room for parents, 1 room for children. The pattern is effectively the same regardless of state/county.
I checked the stats for my current city and I have to question just how their calculating their housing costs... It's not even close to what's actually on the market at the moment.
I just checked, I live in Phoenix, in maricopa county, I’m pretty sure lumping together people living in Maricopa, Phoenix and the suburbs is not valid, you can’t commute across the county, it’s not a single market.
EDIT: Also worth noting that it's a ~45-60 minute commute from Maricopa to Boeing in Mesa. I make an equivalent commute every weekday--at interstate speeds for 60% of the route--and don't even leave my city proper. The commute isn't as unrealistic as you might think.
I agree this seems low. Both housing and additional expenses. How do I know if I'm the victim of an hedonic treadmill?
I assume this is because the data is averaged over what _current_ residents pay which will be dominated by mortgages taken out well in the past and perhaps affordable rentals not on the market. This will bring the average far down.
Anyone moving to or inside of California today could not survive on the Living Wages listed. Even they assume some 2/3 of post tax income going to that lower averaged housing cost.
[1] for example
http://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/06001
vs
https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/ca/al...
Would it be better to ask the mods to change the title to something like “US Living Wage Calculator”? I clicked expecting a worldwide view, and was a bit disappointed.
Perhaps that's one of the best things about code/git submissions to HN - it's often so easy to apply them to any geographic region.