is 112K in household income "rich"...yes or no?

cause 112K in Dubuque is identical to 250K in NY.

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except event that calculator underestimates the difference. in NYC you pay both state AND CITY income tax. so you're buying power is even less.

take that and smoke it.

Smoke this:

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You could live in Brooklyn and save almost $75,000 a year!

Gross is plainly aware that this kind of question is a tough thing to answer with any precision, precisely because the cost of living varies so dramatically across the United States, as in your comparison of Dubuque, Iowa with New York City (especially Manhattan). How you propose to correct for these differences in our tax system is what you left unanswered.

Since he devoted a paragraph or two to the very question you are raising, how is he 'wrong'?

Oh, I meant Queens. My bad.

Still, smoke it.

yes you could commute an hour each way to Forrest Hills.

What is wrong with an hour commute each way?

That is nearly the national AVERAGE.

I think that the differences are partly taken care of by the tax system (taken as a whole) in that the local taxes are higher in the cities with higher cost of living. That probably is part of the reason that the higher cost of living exists there and that the higher cost of living is justified.

Whoops. 1 hour total is nearly the national average.

Ok, an hour each way is long, but I've known plenty of people who have done it regularly.

if you're working 75 hours a week (like most young high-income people)...then 12 additional hours in commuting time on top of that is a LOT.

let alone having to live in Forrest Hills. there's no way in hell I'd work 75 hours a week to live in QUEENS

huh? that makes it worse. (the higher taxes)

First off, if the calculator isn't already taking taxes into account, it's useless. It doesn't list taxes as a line-item, and it doesn't say a word about whether taxes are used. Bankrate.com has a similar calculator that specifies that taxes are NOT considered, but it assumes you're owning a $1.1M home in NYC, which throws things off a little. Bankrate's numbers are 10% higher than CNN's for my city vs. NYC, but both equate $250k in NYC with $100k or more here, and I live very well in a nice house in a nice neighborhood near schools, museums and good restaurants on significantly less than that.

One of the places both calculators seem to be way off on is transportation... I'm thinking they may have been created before gas in "cheap gas" Texas was averaging $3.61/gallon, because subway fare both ways at what, $2.00/trip is way cheaper than the only viable option in most of Texas, driving in traffic. If the average commute is 10 miles at 20 mpg (it's longer and in traffic most cars are getting less) it's nearly even just on the cost of fuel, and there are lots of other costs that go into owning/maintaining a car.

At $100k/yr here (the CNN number) or $109k/year (the BankRate number) I'd be able to save a LOT, and I'm saving pretty well as it is, even with my partner in medical school. Maybe someday, when we've paid off HIS grad-school loans, I'll be claiming that our 5x-median+ income isn't really all that much, but I hope I haven't lost sight of how well we're living on less than 2x the median.

Then you are choosing to spend your WEALTH on convienence. That is what rich people do. Rich people have the freedom to make decisions on what is cushy enough and what is worth spending extra money on. You've chosen "where to live" as a luxury expense you are willing to accept. That's fine and dandy, but it underscores, in some ways, your richness even more clearly. People who are middle class and lower, don't have as many freedoms like that to choose where to live, how to live, etc. People in the middle class and lower take what they can get. If it mean commuting an hour to work each day because they can't afford to live closer to the city, that is what people do. There are poor people who commute into New York City every day on a bus from the middle of nowhere because that is the only place they can find a job. They don't get to make the choice of living close to work because "Ew, Queens." That don't have the relative financial freedom that you have.

You are rich. You can choose to not accept that if you want, live in your crazy-skewed version of this planet all you want. But the rest of us will sleep comfortable with the notion that you are rich, and you are doing fine in life. Good for you. Just be thankful for all the monetary freedoms you've earned for yourself.

ah...so you're already splitting costs.

as for housing in the city...1.1MM is the median for an apartment here.

realsleep:

um, you're confusing poor with middle class. seriously. middle class people choose neighborhoods with good schools and don't ride the bus (except in NY). someone making 40K in Texas can do that. not so in NY. that's what I'm saying.

but I can see why you'll never make any money, you can't do math.

Part of the reason an area has a higher cost of living is because better facilities are provided by local government. It is sensible that the tax rates should be higher in those locations. One still has the choice of forgoing the benefits by choosing not to live there. It is silly to expect to be rewarded for living in a more desirable area by being charged less for the facilities provided.

Leroy was talking about tax rates adjusting to local cost of living. You and he apparently have a different idea about what direction those adjustments should properly take.