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Comment by s1artibartfast | Hacker News Reader

How can your income go up 8x and not keep pace? Either you couldn't afford things before or your lifestyle has inflated tremendously

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Not the person you replied to, but minimum wage was $5.15/hr when I started working, which is like $10K/yr.

If you live in a high tax and high CoL place now, 80K/year might not be enough to save anything

At that time, car insurance was also easily $200-$300 a month for under 25…

That plus gas, rent, utilities would leave plenty for food… like ramen and bulk rice.

So let's assume something like $25k for first job. That would be $200k now after the 8x. Poverty line in SF right now is $82k, so depending on where you live, $200k isn't that much.

Especially in places like Washington state, where the latest stats tell us you need an income of $150K to even consider buying a home (averaged across the state).

If you can't make it on $200K you have fundamental money management issues.

“make it” is a loaded term. You’re unlikely to achieve a very strong retirement on that income in a lot of US states.

It depends on what you want out of retirement. If you are making 200k in a high cost of area, your home will be worth several million.

That's where the retirement money went. If you expect to be able to die without tapping the retirement account, you will have a problem. You need a reverse mortgage or to sell out and go back to renting.

You’re assuming you even could buy a home at $200k/yr. You can’t in several places - usually places where those $200k incomes are achievable.

I think that is over-stated. Much of it depends on the home people want, how long they will save, and commute distance acceptable. At 200k, it isnt that people can't buy a house, it is that they dont like what they can afford.

You cant afford a downtown penthouse/mansion on SF & NY with 200k, but you can absolutely buy a home in both locations.

Find me a decent home that you can actually buy in SF proper with $200k/yr.

$200k in some cities is a lot of money

$200k in some cities is not a lot of money

$200k in some cities with 2 kids is really not a lot of money

$200k is not equal to $200k

That's about $28k in federal taxes.

I think a bit more — did you forget Medicare and Social Security too?

Absolutely insane to insinuate $200k isn't that much money.

That means you weren't keeping up in the first place. 25k was not what one would consider a livable salary for SF in 2014

I think it may be that his income went up eight times (= on eight separate occasions), not 8X (800%).

I made $7.25 an hour

For the math that would mean after 8x he’s now making ~111k. Depending on the place he lives this may very well not be keeping pace with COL

And I correct in understanding correctly that you feel worse off now making 58/hr?

No? I didn’t say that. I said I don’t think I’m keeping up enough in terms of being able to retire. I am doing much better than my peers.

thanks for clarifying. I ready it the other way in that you make 8x but you feel you were doing no better at keeping up with the costs of living (e.g. you were on the same track before)

I read it that way because of this:

>my income has gone up 8x in 10 years and I'm still barely keeping up with the cost of things, barely any real savings, etc.

I made those sorts of wages, and at least for me what happened initially as income went up is I went from drowning to treading water. Instead of having a car that doesn't run or a suspended license from being unable to pay a speeding ticket, or a dentist visit many years deferred, those issues get taken care of.

Salary that low and you're not keeping up, you're falling behind. It's entirely possible to make 8X as much and feel you're barely advancing. While this is progress, it's not very satisfying progress because it feels that falling back into the previous pit is not really ever very far away.

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