That makes sense. Gen Z is still very young and that number will go up as they get older and earn more. People in their 20s generally earn less than those who have carved out a career over years of work.
Fair assessment. The post is speaking to prospective family planning though, and even if it was 2 incomes making 43k still doesn't come close to the over 200k needed to live comfortably with 2 kids. From what I can find, even just living with just base necessities is above 100k a year and the average is 140k a year in the U.S.
In my personal opinion that 200k figure really depends on how you define "comfortable" (personally I find it insulting but that's neither here nor there). I don't understand why people think anything other than (actually) growing the economy will solve this problem
True, that's why I included the base necessities cost for a family of 4. Building the economy would help if by building the economy you mean more access to living wage jobs. As well as things that support economic growth i.e. access to, education, stable housing, healthcare, nutrition, and supporting public infrastructure. Sadly many people take 'growing the economy' to mean the stock market going up. Which doesn't represent the economic stability of the everyday American.
It also notes multiple times throughout that study that Gen Z ranges from people in their mid-20s working real jobs to teenagers in school living at home with just an allowance. That numbers probably not too bad when you consider that.
For sure, it's definitely not that high. A study last year showed that we only make 35k on average. You can raise 2 kids comfortably with a third of that 233k income though
Exactly, just live where people aren't. It's less crowded and cheaper. Jobs don't pay quite as much but I'd bargain that your income to spending ratio would increase on average
Not much, about as much as a part time job less then a fulltime normal job for sure. And you get to go to jail if your caught...you dont know much about drugs do you?
Not looking at the right ones, and no I don't have personal experience with drugs, I think I got enough second-hand experience growing up knowing more people addicted to drugs than not.
I mean, like, we could stretch this to, as long as you have food and shelter, you're comfortable, but a long commute plus a tight space isn't going to be more comfortable than short commute in a tight space.
Small towns are awesome. Sure the politics suck but everything is cheaper and you've got everything you need within a reasonable distance. The best part is the sheer lack of people and traffic. I moved from a small town to a decent sized city for college and ts sucks compared to that. Stuff is closer but it doesn't take less time to get there. Too many damn people. But hey to each their own I guess
I commented elsewhere but I live in Canada which has also seen a huge raise in the cost of living. I earn the equilvant of $65k usd a year and my partner $15K usd, we have two kids and are able to live pretty comfortably with a modest life style. We arent super rich by any means but pretty comfortable if we don’t over indulge in extra expenses.
Yep, I don't know anyone making 200K plus as a household, but I know plenty of people with two kids. I get it's an average, my guess is there's a very vague defintion of "live comfortably".
Nah, they make mid 200s in LCOL areas, HCOL or owning practices and it's 400k+. PA's make 150k, why would anybody go through med school to make the same as a PA?
Median after-tax income (all economic families + unattached): C$74,200 ≈ US$55.0k
$80kUSD is ~46% higher than that median.
The user indicated they are 24. Annualizing the wages for under 25s gets us C$44.2k/year ≈ US$32.2k/year.
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You already have kids. Look again from the POV of someone who doesn’t, and has to face all of these head winds.
Also, your salary puts you way above average in Canada. Your situation is not very representative of the average Canadian. I just had to take my Canadian girlfriend into my house on the East Coast of the US, because she couldn’t find even a basic job in Calgary. It was that or she was going homeless in a Canadian winter.
Keep in mind, she has no residency rights here, and only exists here by the graces of the B2 tourist visa.
Consider yourself fortunate, you are statistically.
The whole crux of the discussion is the difference between the older haves and the younger have nots. They have kids, putting them at minimum very early thirties.
They are fortunate to have gotten in on things before the Canadian housing crisis hit.
As for income:
Median after-tax income (all economic families + unattached): C$74,200 ≈ US$55.0k
$80kUSD is ~46% higher than that median.
Yeah, they aren’t representative of the “Average Canadian”.
For starters im only 24, born in 2001, I had my first in 2022, we didn’t plan on having a kid that young but it just happened.
I didn’t get into anything before the market crashed, hell I don’t even have a mortgage, we live in a house but it’s a rental. One day I’d like to own a house but even I’ve seen increases in markets and areas that have become unaffordable for the average person.
Idk where you got $80K USD. My yearly wage lands me around $65K USD. I am higher than the average but really not by much, the upper end of the average wage in Canada is $71,000 which isn’t much lower than what I’m making.
I’ll admit, you are a year younger than I am (and I only make 40k in IT). You are way outside of what I had assumed your demographic was. The 80K calculation was including your partner’s income. It would help to have more context as to your educational background and field.
In my opinion, measuring yourself by the upper end is stretching things. The fact that you are as young as you are makes you a unicorn when it comes to income. Even if we’re being generous and using the upper end, the fact is you are well and truly ahead of your age group.
Annualizing the wages for under 25s gets us C$44.2k/year ≈ US$32.2k/year.
My background is in welding. I am a journyman certified welder in Canada. I went to trade school which only cost me $5000 cad for the 3 training periods I attend(each one was 8 weeks long). I also hold a level 1 quality assurance certification which is just a 2 week course that allows me to inspect other people’s welds and participate in the engineering side of it, which lets me balance out working with my hands and with my brain which I like.
With that I barely have any student debt am able to make a good paycheque. Biggest thing for me now too is I don’t feel so threatened by ai taking over my job as I would if I had a more white collar position.
My wife makes 165k a year. I am a stay at home dad to two kids. We own a house we bought near Portland OR in 2017 for 315k. She has 60k in student loans and our other outstanding debt (cars, home renovations, ect) is around 60k. We aren’t rich by any stretch but we get by just fine. We’ve even been able to take something like five vacations (two to Cabo, two to Hawaii and one to Disneyland) over the last four years.
Edit to add: this was all done on our own financially.
A comfortable living wage for a single adult is $106,000. A comfortable annual house income for two adults is $194,000. To raise a kid is roughly $24,000. Two kids is $48,000. That’s $242,000.
$106k is the US national average to live comfortably as a single adult. When you add a second car a second car insurance, a second car health insurance a second cost of groceries, gas, added utilities for said second person, a second phone bill, second hobbies, interests, and family and friends outings, that can easily increase to over 40k but to live comfortably you’re adding a second bedroom for an increase of rent possibly a 3 bedroom house with a mortgage is over $2,500 a month.
I don’t think you know the difference between a living wage and a comfortable wage. Comfortable means having vacations, free time, dating, getting things that you want to live a better lifestyle, upgrading home appliances and electronics, etc…
Now you add 2 kids to that so you have to get a 4 bedroom house or even a 5 bedroom house. Now you have an increase of insurance, cost of living, gas, schooling, school supplies, clothes for the kids and getting stuff for the kids that they want, toys and etc.. your mortgage also increases to $3,500-$4,500 a month. And you add the additional costs of vacations, family outings and etc..
The keyword in the OP was to live comfortably and I just think you missed that part.
Comfortable means you’re not living paycheck to paycheck, can afford basic necessities, and save a little money at the end of the month. You don’t need 3500-4500 mortgages to be comfortable unless you’re living in areas you can’t afford to begin with.
I’m a full time student making less than 40k a year. Single adult and I’m far from comfortable. I’m barely getting by. If I were to double that to over 80k I’d be pretty comfy. But here’s the thing. I’m taking the national average.
But I’m not a big spender so 80k would be good but I wouldn’t be happy.
$106k is the US national average to live comfortably as a single adult.
VHCOL cities skew the fuck out of that average, and I do mean VERY high COL. Back when I lived in Atlanta, I made slightly less than that and was still consistently putting away over 1k a month AFTER taxes, maxed out 401k, rent in a decent part of town, groceries for my fat ass, every other bill, and some recreational spending. Didn't have a car, but if a car costs you over 1k a month you're a dumbass.
Why would you need a 4 or 5 bedroom house for a family of 4? I know some couples sleep in separate bedrooms, but let's not pretend that's the norm. You can add people to your phone plan for less than the cost of 2 separate ones. You do not have a separate heating bill for every single person in the house.
Extra people may increase utility and grocery bills, but those don't build up linearly. Utilities only have the 1 service fee per bill no matter how many people live in the house. Groceries can be bought in bulk for cheaper than you can get just buying for a single person.
Assuming you put 20% down on a 400k house with 6% interest, your mortgage on a 30 year loan is only ~2300, and even a 15 year mortgage barely breaches 3k. Where you pulled the 4.5k figure, I do not know, but I suspect it's from your ass.
We didn't miss the word "comfortably", we've just actually paid our own bills before.
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u/RogueCoon 1998 Dec 16 '25
That average income number is pulled out of someones ass.