Ask HN: What is really wrong with the US economy, really?

$150k x 2 for Seattle, or $200-250k x2 for SFBA, is more like a high-end DINK situation, if you count the value of stock and other benefits. $110k is solidly middle class, and fine if you're in your 20s, but by late 30s I'd consider that on the low end of someone in the software engineering field.

Muni drivers or police/fire/etc. in SF can easily make in the 100-250k range, without college.

(I agree this is all insane, but...inflation. And particularly in the coastal areas. If we were a separate country from the midwest, inflation would be vastly more pronounced. In SF, items e.g. iPhones bought by your employer cost basically 10-20% what they cost in the midwest bought personally for non-business reasons, once you account for taxes, salary differentials, etc. Crazy.)

I just had this conversation with a friend of mine last night. It seems the answer is nothing. You're situation, which is very similar to my own, is a pretty good one.

You've worked so hard. You've gotten so far. Yet something is off. You've made it and then immediately readjusted the goal posts. Now you haven't made it. Your situation sucks and you don't know why. Well, it doesn't suck but something is off.

I believe this desire is born out of those productive creative people you're exposed to; be it your friends in real life or on Facebook or just people you look up to or read about.

The pressure you're feeling is the comparison you make between yourself and others; it's the death knell of ever feeling good about yourself. You'll never feel satisfied because you're not a successful writer or actor or musician or scrabble player or race car driver or etc like your friends are.

I think the pressure you're feeling is WhatApps gets acquired for $19 billion and you go "damn it I'm how old and how creative and fuck I can't even write a damn blog post and these guys carve out some time and make something badass."

You're economic success is not inline with your actual creative output or potential. Bottom line, sounds like you have some creative juices pent up that need to be let out.

Go make something.

Because if the economy is bad you're not feeling it(110k, decent savings, no debt?, paid-off car, etc.), so it might be something else.

I don't mean I live in the middle of nowhere and commute to the city, I mean it's a satellite town of the variety you often find near large cities (To give you an idea). 150,000 people, and I live 200 yards from one of many fire stations.

I moved from my hometown of Winnipeg, Canada to Silicon Valley to build my career. In moving, I tripled my salary. I am definitely better off financially for having moved, but my daily quality of life is lower. Here's some food for thought:

* HOUSING QUALITY AND COST. This is, bar none, the most important aspect of my currently feeling like I'm barely getting by. In Winnipeg, if you're roommating an apartment ~30 minutes bus from downtown, your rent will be around $300/mo. 1br to yourself will set you back $500-$1000 depending where you live. The fanciest 1br penthouse I could find was $1700. Personally, I lived in a rather 'expensive', nice 1br apartment that was in a trendy, gentrifying neighbourhood about 1.5 miles from my work downtown. It cost me $850/mo and that was a luxury. I could've gotten much cheaper if I wasn't so picky about location. Compare with SF: Housing here costs a fortune. And strict rent control + high paying jobs means that the housing they do build is marketed to high income people (read: twitter millionaires). So not only is nothing available in a reasonable price range, but there are many social factors that try to make $3500/mo studios sound normal. In SF, paying a similar percentage of my take-home income as I did in Winnipeg, I get a shitty, tiny, 'jr 1 bedroom' (~400sqft) apartment nestled between a noisy road and a freeway. I can walk to work, but it's 3 miles one way, and takes me through some areas I don't feel comfortable walking alone in.

Housing cost anchors everything else. In Winnipeg I'd be paying $300/mo for what I have and where I have it; in SF I pay $1600. My salary tripled; it didn't quintuple. And because housing costs are the anchor, it makes everything else more expensive by comparison

* KEEPING UP WITH THE HIGH-POWERED JONESES. Tech has a lot of young, rich people in it. And young rich people don't always make the wisest decisions. Consequently, there's a lot of conspicuous consumption going on. I feel like I can't afford to keep up, because I'm financially disciplined and highly value long term stability. I look at other people and assume they do the same. Perhaps they don't. Maybe they're spending 50% of their disposable income on cheap glasses, expensive jeans, and cocktails with PBR in them. I spend almost 50% of my disposable (post-living-expenses) income on savings. Appearances can be misleading, and if you don't consciously keep aware of this, it can be demoralizing

* A NEW NORMAL. I would say that, proportional to cost of living, my real income has not substantially risen by moving. However, it has inflated. And inflation is a good thing when compared against uninflated prices. For example, flights. A flight from YWG to SFO costs ~$700, regardless if I live in Winnipeg ($40k income, $400/mo) or SF ($120k income, $1600/mo rent). As a result, my day-to-day standard of life hasn't increased, but my ability to do things outside of my day to day has. When I lived in Winnipeg, I was unable to take more than one flight per year, anywhere (and I usually spent it on professional develoment-related things). Now, I think nothing of dropping a few hundred dollars to fly to a conference on a weekend. The same goes for nationally-marketed goods such as electronics. My rent might've gone waaay up, but an iphone costs $800USD regardless of where I live. It's easy to overlook this, because it is not a typical everyday thing.

* LONG TERM SAVINGS. This is a little bit more important for me, since I'm paying into SS but as a non-citizen, will never collect a dime. But savings. Savings don't really have an emotional feel to them. They're not tangible, they're just some numbers on pages. If you're pumping a lot of money into savings (like I am), it can feel like that is just money that's disappearing. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Many people live in the US month-to-month, and are one crisis away from bankruptcy. My parents both grew up in households like that. Hell, my parents' households are CURRENTLY like that. I, on the other hand, am squirreling away much of my money. I'm maxing my 401k, so that in my 60s I'll be ok. I'm building up some personal savings, to achieve some personal goals (largely investment related, with the purpose of rescuing me from wage slavery). These are very important things, but they FEEL like money that just disappears