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Comment by samstave | Hacker News Reader

I am so tired of this argument, and the only people here in support of such a statement, I feel, are the young single and childless.

Take a divorce, child support, travel etc into account and I cannot live on anything less than $150K

Rent for a house with several children, for me, is $2300 for a two bedroom with a garage, yard and an extremely lucky addition of a very large play room.

I am REALLY lucky to have this place - as it would go for $3500+ if I move out....

The argument for less and less salary always sounds to me like peasants justifying their fealty, though at the same time - we should not be decrying arbitrary pay brackets - but demanding more fair pricing for all the tings that are required to survive and thrive.

Everything is overpriced.

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I honestly thought you might be kidding at first, but it looks like you are serious. The vast majority of people who have divorced and pay for 2 kids are making far far less than $150K and they aren't starving to death. Only about 5% of households in the US make more than $150K/year; if you feel like you are scraping by with that much income then you must be buying a lot of things that you don't actually need.

I don't buy anything I don't need. I pay cash for everything and have no debt. But with a $2000 a month child support bill, full medical, $2300 rent, ~$500 in other bills, etc, I do not have much left at all after all my basic expenses.

People think $150k is a lot on paper - but when you add everything up, it is not actually a lot.

I'm sorry but I'm really not convinced. Even given all of that, if you are making >$150K then you are still pulling in probably >$3k / month in discretionary spending which alone is the same as the total pre-tax median household income in the US.

Half of America is literally paying for all of childcare, medical, rent, other bills and basic expenses with less than you consider necessary to cover your basic expenses and it isn't like there is mass starvation in the US. It simply doesn't add up to you being in hardship when you are in the top 5% of earners.

Assuming a 40% tax rate (overestimating) and the expenses listed here, that leaves 2700/mo spare, still a good bit, but:

That 2k/mo child support payment is what's insanely high(that's rent for an entire family!). Most families don't have to deal with it, and, further, get by with significantly less money spent on their children, assuming they run the numbers and figure out an appropriate budget.

I think it is mostly a reaction to the people who publicly declare they are barely scraping by at $500k, and the new taxes will break them.

My parents with three kids supported us on $75,000 combined. And I'm sure this math plays out the same for the majority of Americans--even in NYC and SF. Trust me. You don't need $150,000. You're doing it wrong.

My parents raised my sister and I for 20 years on a civil servants salary (30-90 thousand over the time period). One hour from Manhattan, only he worked, and neither of us had to take debt for school.

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