The annual salary a single person needs to live comfortably in the US is $89,461 (median across all states).
The annual salary a single person needs to live comfortably in the US is $89,461 (median across all states).
To live comfortably in some U.S. states, you'll need to earn nearly double what single people typically make.
Well over $100k in the higher cost of living states, too. And as the article states, that’s typically about double what the median salary is for a single person in most states.
I’d like to point out that AES states - while maybe they didn’t have all the same quality or quantity of consumer goods - were able to able to to provide a comfortable life for everyone without all the predatory that US workers currently have. And don’t take my word for it, take it from the neoliberal queen herself, Angela Merkel. When asked about life in the former GDR, she described it as “almost comfortable”. Now before you mention that “almost” is an important qualifier, note that the context of her quote was her trying to criticize the former GDR but she grudgingly conceded the comment above.
Important to note this is the median, so it's not like it's getting heavily skewed by high cost of living areas. Something I see is cost of living discussions is people will be dismissive because "not everyone lives in an expensive city" and it's probably important to note that over half of the population do in fact live in expensive cities.
Doubling this, we all know how important de-suburbanization will be for the environment AND the inevitability of people moving into cities, anyone who plans cities in a way that they should be luxuries for the rich is amoral.
Yes, I do in fact believe that poor people deserve to exist in "nice" places like San Francisco. Want a community for other wealthy perverts? Go join a country club or something.
Also that outside of those cities wages are much lower anyways so even if rent is cheaper, you're probably still paying the same percentage of monthly income. I think back to when I was splitting a 2-bedroom apartment and paying $425+half the utilities per month as being "easier" but I also made less than a third of what I do now. The real difference is that my optimism for the future hadn't been completely crushed back then.
$89k and rising. My water bill jumped 9% this year, because the pipes have been bursting at record rates thanks years of heat waves. My electricity bill can get north of $600/mo during the worst of the summer. My grocery bills have been steadily climbing while shrinkflation eats into the size of what I'm bringing home. My car is getting towards its last legs and everything on the market appears to be a few grand over MSRP, because every dealership insists "Sorry, we only have a few left in stock!" Can't get out of a vet visit for less than $500.
Seems like everything I buy that I think is an upgrade ends up falling apart faster than what its replacing, too.
Walls really feel like they're closing in everywhere.
Seems like everything I buy that I think is an upgrade ends up falling apart faster than what its replacing, too.
Few months ago I dropped almost $700 for a mattress that replaced a shitty no-name one from 2002. The new one is already sagging in the middle and I'm not even that heavy. Serta won't honor the warranty because the sag isn't significant enough according to them.
My old mattress was pushing 20 years old before it started getting any noticeable sag. But the new one already feels like I'm sleeping in a crater.
As much as I hate boomer-ass "old thing good, new thing bad" takes, there has definitely been a notable enshittification of furniture, appliances and other things that should be lasting closer to a decade and not a fraction of it.
Honestly the boomers are right. The base price for things used to be way higher, but they lasted way longer.
A lot of home appliances already existed in the perfect form, many things have been solved. But we can't have that because then why how would we sell more?
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Washing machines need to have hot/cold settings, and different agitation settings. I don't need wifi telling me it's done because I know how long it takes and can set a timer, or front loading, or fabric softener slots because I don't use that.
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A dryer is solved, it gets warm and it turns around. My dryer from the 80s is front load.
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induction is a pretty good leap in stove tech, but the actual oven part has been solved a while ago. Oven get hot, keep temp within a couple degrees, have lights, maybe have a broiler, maybe have a fan for convection.
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Microwaves are all shit because the popcorn button doesn't work, but apparently some microwaves actually have a usable popcorn button, but how tf are you supposed to know if yours actually has a moisture sensor, or just a preset time?
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Holy fuck $600
Texas electric fuckery. The gas power plants will collaborate to spike the price of electricity from the prevailing $15-30/Mwh up to $3000/Mwh during the hour of peak usage.
similar boat here. over the past 2 years I went from feeling stable and moderately comfortable to feeling like no matter what I do I'm a few years away from being priced out of living. the place I'm renting flooded twice last year but rent has doubled everywhere.
and if the whole world lived like a middle class American, we would need 5 Earths
the article isn't about resource consumption, it's about budgeting (50/20/30) for savings and retirement and how unrealistic that is given the price of housing and food compared to income.
Just ran the numbers for my budget and I get 71/6/23. Fortunately I'm an insane person who hates spending money, but that's just not possible for the average person. I spent $500 on the extremely broad category of "entertainment" last year. The vast majority of that 6% discretionary spending is on my car that I don't drive anymore lol.
The problem is that a lot of the world wants to live like an average American and this will only make climate change worse as more people consume even more. Climate change is something people could work through but it’s not going to happen under capitalism.
Federal minimum wage is under $16,000 a year.
Yes, though where I live that number isn’t relevant due to both state laws and market conditions. There are entry level jobs at places like Target, Amazon, McDonalds, etc that pay around $17-$18 per hour.
But even that is still about HALF of the minimum salary needed to live comfortably. Incredible because it doesn’t feel like it was that long ago where there was the push for $15/hr as a living wage (because it was back then).
I don't have the numbers or anything but when the push for $15 was happening, that was already well below what a min wage should be. It always cracks me up whenever you get into the min wage argument and the chuds are all screeching about $15 being too high, and I'm just like "you sweet summer child..."
Here in TX, the min wage is still $7.25 and places do still exercise that when posting jobs. It's a disgrace.
Something like 0.04% of workers make minimum wage. This country effectively doesn't have a minimum wage anymore.
True. The lowest I see a lot of jobs posted are mostly between $9-12, though I think the other day I saw a Chic-fil-a job on indeed that was local for $7.25.
Precisely minimum wage, yes.
I bet if you tweak it just a little you'll get a dramatically larger percentage: below $8/hour.
This will include three new groups:
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People that work minimum wage but got their mandated $0.10 wage increase or got a job that at least wants to be able to claim it's not minimum wage on paper. I remember being stoked for getting a $0.50 raise above minimum wage at one point... got way fewer overdraft fees that way.
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People who are exempted like tipped workers. The finances of this are fucked, with people doing constant math on what they should and shouldn't report to the feds, but at the end of the day these people are not paid above minimum wage by their employers.
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The economic underclass paid under the table at or below minimum wage (they wouldn't show up in these statistical sources either way).
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Yeah, I guess so. That said, do you really need as much as most places say for retirement? if you have $500,000 inflation adjusted dollars they say that's destitute, but by that point in your life you will own a home full of stuff already. Sure, Healthcare becomes more expensive, but it doesn't sound that deprived if you're content not leaving any inheritance.
Needing healthcare or someone to care for you when you're unable to care for yourself will probably clear you out pretty quick. Maybe
will be merciful, but who knows.
North Dakota: Annual income needed to live comfortably: $52,807
That's way lower than every other state. What's up with that?
The vodka I drink is $19.99 for a 60oz bottle in ND and I pay around $35 for a 40oz bottle where I live so id imagine that makes up the bulk of it
The number in the linked study is about $80k so I think CNBC just fucked up in their regurgitation of the other article.