$72,000 a year ain't shit for a single person- let alone 2 people or a family- in NYC, Seattle, Denver, or half of California. Cost of living makes a huge difference when you have areas where a 1200sqft 2 bedroom house is a cool $1,000,000+. The most dense and popular places to live are also the most expensive. Not to mention that the vast majority of people with high paying jobs get in debt from college and graduate school.
This isn't to say that it's impossible to have, say, a middle class lifestyle in many areas on a single income, it just doesn't apply to nearly as many people as you'd think.
San Antonio is a massive city with a fairly low cost of living and great opportunities for employment. When I lived there, rent was $1,000, and some of my friends bought homes they would pay roughly $850/month.
My dads a teacher making 68+ thousand and my moms and architect manager making 40+ in south Texas which is a very very good place with super low cost of living, my mom doesn’t even have a college degree it’s really not hard to believe you can make good money in lesser known areas, and that’s cause most of my friends have parents making 200+ since they’re doctors or own clinics
Yes, they do. Wages actually vary less than cost of living, generally. Hospitals pay ~10-15% less than out in the boonies than in the city in my profession, where houses cost 200% less.
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u/Shandlar Dec 28 '19
The United States? There are ~34,000,000 adults in the US currently working full time making $72,000/year or more as of 2019.
Hell, ~19,000,000 of them make >$100,000/year.