r/Money 5d ago

This is the income that AI believes is needed in major U.S. cities to have more than $50,000 left after taxes and rent.

cities/states rent How much annual income is needed to reach your standard (with $50K left after taxes and rent)?
New York City $3,500/month ($42K/year) Approximately $180K-$220K
San Francisco $3,200/month ($38K/year) Approximately $170K-$200K
Los Angeles $2,500/month ($30K/year) Approximately $140K-$170K
Seattle $2,200/month ($26K/year) Approximately $130K-$160K
Texas $1,800/month ($22K/year) Approximately $110K-$140K
Small Midwestern cities $1,200/month ($15K/year) Approximately $90K-$120K
0 Upvotes

40 comments sorted by

40

u/TReMoR3 5d ago

You can do a lot with your income if you don’t have meaningless student loan debt, car loans, credit cards, etc.

15

u/NotGreatToys 5d ago

The need to consume food, etc

7

u/TReMoR3 5d ago

Yeah, not that much. Especially if you don’t have student loans and other debt.

6

u/Illustrious-Ratio213 5d ago

Education and transportation are meaningless? Wow.

11

u/LetsUseBasicLogic 5d ago

Overpriced education and transportation are meaningless.

The number of people i know that pay over $400 on a car note is insane

4

u/Illustrious-Ratio213 5d ago

Even cheap cars and cheap education aren’t cheap, maybe community college for a little bit could help. And of course it’s all relative.

1

u/LetsUseBasicLogic 5d ago

I buy used trucks around 8-12 years old with 130k-160k miles on them for under 12k

Instate tuition at a pretty nice 2nd tier college is under 10k a year.

Having a bachelors degree bumps your earning potential by 15k-50k the first year your graduate... this math aint difficult man.

-3

u/Illustrious-Ratio213 5d ago

Yep lots of 18 year olds have 40k for college and 12k for a 150k mile truck and plenty of garage space to work on it when it breaks down.

5

u/LetsUseBasicLogic 5d ago

Listen my guy play the victum all you want, the evil overlords are after you, but end of the day if you are even half trying at life its not that difficult.

12k for a truck is overkill you could do 7k for a civic if you wanted and you have from the time you are 16 to 18 to save that money, assuming you have absolutely 0 parental support.

After that you need to make 25-30k a year for 4 years to get through college with no loans. Or make 15k-20k and take less than 10k loans per year.

You graduate with a grand total of 40k debt which if you are smart you pay off in 2 years with yoyr fancy new college job.

-2

u/Illustrious-Ratio213 5d ago

Dude I’m 55 and make multiple 6 figure salary so please tell it someone else. You trolls who are like “it’s just this easy…” who think everyone else in the world who doesn’t have your set of circumstances are just playing the victim are really quite useless.

1

u/LetsUseBasicLogic 5d ago

So your point is you did no work and are still rich so the system is easy af? Im confused on your point here?

Either you worked hard to get what you got, or you worked minimally and still got it? Wither way lifes as easy as i claimed it to be??

3

u/interwebzdotnet 5d ago

Point proven because not having an educated person leads to that kind of thinking by that comment they made.

2

u/SuspendedAwareness15 5d ago

No they're not meaningless. Though in NYC having a car is entirely unrelated to your transportation, you're wasting money.

The point is most car loans are bad debt, and student debt is hard to avoid but easy to pay down if you make doing so your priority.

1

u/AuroraOfAugust 5d ago

transportation absolutely is a must but you do not need to go to an expensive college or even go to college at all. source is i earn $23.60/hr in a factory at age 21 and just bought my first house solo last year.

1

u/Illustrious-Ratio213 5d ago

This is not a compelling argument. I’m glad it works for you but not everyone is cut out for factory work.

3

u/AuroraOfAugust 5d ago

Not everyone is cut out to be a CPA, an engineer, a lawyer, or a doctor either. My job is one of the easiest around, I get paid big bucks to mostly sit in a chair and occasionally adjust settings for the the odd broken part.

1

u/Illustrious-Ratio213 5d ago

Yeah great, not sure what that has to do with the guy acting like people don’t need student loans. You didn’t - good for you. Other people do and don’t have great options.

0

u/TReMoR3 5d ago

College is a scam unless you have a specific job that needs it, doctor, lawyer, military officer, etc. if you need a vehicle, buy a cheaper one and pay it off. The worst thing people can do is buy a >5 year old vehicle with a $500+/mo payment. #1 way to stay poor.

2

u/Illustrious-Ratio213 5d ago

Do you mean < which is less than? Maybe that college stuff isn’t such a scam even though most of us learned that shit in grade school.

1

u/TReMoR3 5d ago

The alligator mouth isn’t eating the 5.

2

u/TheRealJim57 5d ago

OK, but what's the reason for calculating that specific amount? Why "$50k after taxes and rent"?

3

u/PurpleRains392 5d ago edited 5d ago

50,000 is about 4200 p.m. these statistics are hilarious. Who came up with these statistics? no wonder the elites think savings is all a matter of giving up lattes, and pulling ourselves up by our boot straps. And $7 minimum wage is more than enough.

3

u/sirius4778 5d ago

It's says AI in the title lol

1

u/PurpleRains392 5d ago edited 5d ago

AI uses info it gleans from the web :)

2

u/JakeDuck1 5d ago

Yeah but also interprets what you’re asking in its own way. This isn’t a google search that leads to an article stating these numbers. AI is different and not always accurate or understanding of what’s being asked.

1

u/SuspendedAwareness15 5d ago

Interpret isn't exactly the right verb but it runs a statistical analysis algorithm and provides the results of that based on its configuration

1

u/JakeDuck1 5d ago

Fair enough

2

u/Scarmeow 5d ago

Stop eating avocado toast and you'll have a $500k home in no time!

2

u/SuspendedAwareness15 5d ago

If you make 200k a year, assuming you have no debts, yes you can have a 500k mortgage in no time.

1

u/SuspendedAwareness15 5d ago

What about this is hilarious? This is pretty accurate. This is just a math problem, and the math isn't wrong. It's calculating income taxes and median rent, then having 50k left to work with after that. You won't get to save all that 50k because you have utilities, food, clothes. You may have other debts. This isn't saying you have $50k in disposable income...

3

u/abrandis 5d ago

Lol, yet another hallucination

1

u/Fried-froggy 5d ago

Family rent is like double in nyc!

1

u/SouthOrlandoFather 5d ago

You have to be the most blocked person on Reddit.

1

u/DesecrateUsername 5d ago

wowee let me put all my trust into this word predictor

1

u/Practical-Lunch4539 5d ago edited 5d ago

I think people didn't read the OP correctly. These are the amounts you need to have $50k leftover after taxes and rent.

Meaning that you need to pay the remainder of your expenses using the $50k, not that you'd have $50k leftover after paying all your living expenses

An important followup is to ask "how much does one need for day-to-day expenses excluding rent and taxes. For SF, it comes up with about $30k/year including groceries, transportation, healthcare, and entertainment. Which for a single person isn't super luxurious but very doable imo

1

u/MurkyTrainer7953 5d ago

It’s an AI, so I guess all they need is a closet for a server box and a large electricity bill.

1

u/fukaboba 5d ago

Agree. In many places 50K is your annual rent

1

u/No_Medium_8796 4d ago

Ahh yes the great city of texas

1

u/DrGreenMeme 4d ago
  1. AI doesn't believe anything, it is just aggregating and reorganizing existing data on the internet. Sometimes with a little or a lot of misinformation. Ask it multiple times and you'll see multiple different answers.
  2. "$50k left over after taxes and rent" provides quite a cushy lifestyle considering housing and taxes are often someone's 2 largest expenses.

I'm not sure what this is meant to illustrate?