alt Hacker NewsI live in a borderline HCOL/VHCOL city, and arguments like this get thrown around a lot on local boards. But yet the median household income is right around 100k.
People on sites like this tend to have a skewed view of normal.
Also we're discussing a household income of 600k+, not 300k.
Median income != Livable income
Livable income = income that pays for (housing, food, clothing, transportation, medical preventative care and treatment, an emergency fund) x 4
( x 2 for retirement savings without assumption of unbounded economic growth, x 2 for government stealing half your money [1])
I don't think the median is making that number. So that's not the number I'd go off of.
[1] pre-emptive note to shut up the people who will inevitably come to this forum just to lecture me that taxes aren't that high. they are. a LOT of government money-stealing is hidden into things that aren't paid in April, and things that aren't explicitly labelled as taxes.