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A new study by SmartAsset finds the average wage needed in the US to live a comfortable lifestyle is $96,500 for an individual and $235,000 for a family of four with two working adults.
“Jaclyn DeJohn March 19, 2024
While cost of living premiums and inflation metrics capture the price increases in goods and services, they do not necessarily account for all the additional costs needed to live comfortably – such as a buffer from the stress of living paycheck to paycheck.
The 50/30/20 budget recommends that for sustainable comfort, 50% of your salary should be allocated to your needs, such as housing, groceries and transportation; 30% toward wants like entertainment and hobbies; and 20% toward paying off debt, saving or investing. Applying the local cost of necessities and taxes to this rule, we can derive the pre-tax salary needed to live comfortably in 99 U.S. cities.
Key Findings
On average, an individual needs $96,500 for sustainable comfort in a major U.S. city. This includes being able to pay off debt and invest for the future. It’s even more expensive for families, who need to make an average combined income of about $235,000 to support two adults and two children without the pressure of living paycheck to paycheck.
A family must make over $300k to raise two kids comfortably in six cities. Two working adults need to make a particularly high combined income in San Francisco ($339,123); San Jose ($334,547); Boston ($319,738); Arlington, VA ($318,573); New York City ($318,406); and Oakland, CA ($316,243) to raise two children with enough money for needs, wants and savings.
It takes the most money to live comfortably as a single person in New York City. This breaks down to $66.62 in hourly wages, or an annual salary of $138,570. To cover necessities as a single person in New York City, you’ll need an estimated $70,000 in wages.”
https://smartasset.com/data-studies/salary-needed-live-comfortably-2024
We all know the state of the world has become shit. While it used to be easy for most men to support a wife and kids with just a middle school education, now the idea of any average modern man making enough to support himself, let alone a wife and kids, comfortably has become much harder. This isn’t fair to most people, it’s not right, and it’s definitely a symptom of late stage capitalism destroying our society. (And if I put my tinfoil hat on, it’s also bc companies want to bring back company towns and children working in the mines.) BUT it’s reality. We don’t live in a fair world that’s all peaches and cream. We live in this world and our personal lives have to reflect the reality.
The saddest part in my opinion is the methodology going from the living wage calculation means the 50% needs calculated are just bare minimum necessities. My city is pretty low on pricing fyi. MIT says a family of four is spending roughly about $1,300 on housing a month. Which… that’s a 1,200 sqft 3 bed 2 bath home in the ghetto. Or a teeny, tiny 800 sqft 2 bed, 1 bath apartment in a decent neighborhood. Neither of these options are “comfortable” imo. Worrying about safety or having to squeeze together like sardines is by definition UNcomfortable. And it’s all the same for my area’s numbers. The costs cover a skin and bones budget. So by their calculations “comfortable” isn’t even comfortable. 🫤 Having a saving account while living in a cramped 2 bed, 1 bath isn’t exactly something we’d write home about, you know?
If they had made the metric to be ACTUALLY comfortable, like taking into account a healthy diet, the real cost of living for a decent home in a GOOD neighborhood, cost of a new car, etc I genuinely think the numbers would be higher. Much higher. When checking the methodology, MIT is referring to data sometimes 5 years old. 2019 prices are quite different than 2024. The most recent figures are from 2023. So quite literally these numbers are LOWER than even what it takes to do the bare minimum now.
Sigh. Anyway. Why am I writing this?
Society will say the obvious choice is to go 50/50 and live like roommates with men while throwing yourself into a life of poverty and desperation to “make up” for their failures and inability to provide. Society will tell women they’re evil gold digging bitches (🙄🥱) for holding out from marrying and having children with men who cannot provide. They’ll make propaganda articles comparing terrorist incels to women who are BEING terrorized by incels. Society will demand the end of feminism, claiming it to be the root of all evil and why society has collapsed. Society will always say it’s women’s job to put up and shut up. Everything is always our fault.
Well, I disagree completely. Having a wife and kids are a PRIVILEGE men have to earn. Women are the gatekeepers of reproduction. We choose who passes on their genes to the next generation. Our legs should remain closed to men unable to feed, clothe, and house our us and any future children safely. Men DON’T deserve sympathy pussy.
We have to do what benefits US (and by extension our future children) the most. Always. And to be frank, living a life of poverty with a man is not beneficial in the slightest. He might be nice, kind, thoughtful, and funny but if you’re relying on government cheese to survive none of that will matter. Your life will be miserable and you will resent him for his failures. Your love cannot put food on the table, a roof over your head, nor clothes on your back! Money is needed for those necessities and you’ll grow to hate a man who fights with you about buying a coat for your kid when it’s 15 degrees outside. Or when your in-laws dictate your life because the only home he could provide is his parent’s basement. You’ll feel exhausted, drained, and used as you go your second, third, fifth year without a vacation because you can’t afford it yet watch as he magically finds time to hang with his buddies because you’re, “so much better with the kids.” Do you really think a man hateful enough to raise kids in poverty truly cares about women or children? Lmao. He doesn’t. He was selfish enough to put y’all in poverty and if you magically grow out of it he’s gonna be selfish and leave you, too. No man will respect a woman who slums it with him. Ever.
Before someone brings it up, I am NOT saying rich men can’t be lvm, but let’s be honest: there’s not enough HVM to go around. Making a mistake and getting pregnant by a rich scrote at least gives you decent child support, unlike making a mistake with a broke man. If we’re gonna make mistakes it’s good to benefit off of em. I’d rather cry in a mercedes than on a bike. Regardless, a good chunk of us are growing old single and that’s okay. Women can choose to create our own best lives with our besties and buy a home to raise kids together in platonically, no LVM needed. Many women already do this. Living single with other women IS the better option when faced with LVM. ONLY HVM should be reproducing. We can’t speak for pickmes, but we can speak for ourselves and our collective choice as women to lower birth rates in response to scrotes is LOUD.
There was a post earlier about men wanting kids being a red flag and yes, it sounds goofy, but in this day and age it’s true. Of course a family-oriented man isn’t a red flag. BUT that post wasn’t talking about family-oriented men. Family-oriented men understand the costs associated with raising a family and caring for a wife. A family-oriented man is making sure he’s got the house, a good car, and a high paying job BECAUSE he understands the role of father and husband. He wants a WIFE, not a desperate bang maid that’ll slum it with him nor a barb the builder who’s gonna throw her life away to build his. The two men are entirely different creatures. One is a good man, the other is a scrote worried about his “legacy.”
I’m Gen Z and I know older generations who bought their homes for $30,000, spent a few hundred on college that they paid for with their summer jobs, and lived comfortably off $25,000 a year are gonna comment about how it’s ridiculous and unfair to have this standard. That somehow women will “lose out” on the love of their lives for our “ridiculous” standards. That men making $50k a year are actually worth our time because one day when we’re gray and old he’ll finally make six figures, but the truth is we aren’t living in the 70’s and 80’s anymore. We’re in 2024. Romantic love isn’t worth suffering over. Especially not when life as a single woman is SO much better than life will ever be with a scrote. The first happiest group of women alive are women in good marriages which is why we date to find HVM. The second happiest group is single women which is why we promote singlehood over life with scrotes. Platonic love of friends and family brings as much fulfillment as romantic love, if not more. If women are seeking unconditional love it’ll be found with pets, not men.
I saw those figures of cost of living for single person in my hometown (which is a complete ghetto) was over 100k. Impossible. The job opportunities in my hometown at best are extremely low income jobs, in my time living there the level of scrote was at a maximum with women having to live with the WORST of men just to survive.
I always thank my younger self for never ever taking an interest in dating any man while I was growing up living in that city, its awful. Sure I gained hella trauma from always being around my family that include scrote brothers but I think it was a by far better choice than actively choosing to date any man in that city.
im glad gen z is keenly aware of these things in life and avoiding it especially LVM.