Ok can we stop saying $300k is "rich" in DC?

[Anonymous]

My 40 yo friend is a COS for a member of congress. 18 years on the hill, masters degree. 85K

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rich is having enough food to eat, clothes to wear, a safe place to sleep , decent medical care, being able send your children (especially female children) to school AND having enough leftover to save for tomorrow, go on an occasional vacation to visit family, eat at a restaurant once in a while or buying anything on a whim.

That's the minimum standard for lower middle class

You are so privileged, you don't even know you're privileged.

You probably believe the notion that everyone in America always has enough to eat, and there is no real poverty in America.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Id be interested to know what job that requires a college education pays less than $100k.

Literally most of them. Let me guess, you're a lawyer.

Browse a very long list of professions here: http://www1.salary.com Note that $80k and up are considered "high income" on Salary.com

These are not averages in DC. Legal secretaries with not even high school educations earn $80k plus.

I know someone who is a legal secretary and earns $60k, with a high school degree. And I seriously doubt that lawyers are hiring high-school dropouts very often.

I know dental assistants in DC with no degree that earn $85k. When i hear these so-called professionals say they top out in their career at 80k, me thinks it more to do with them than the career path. A modest DC gov job doing nothing will pay $75k easily.

Professors, teachers, nurses, social workers...I wouldn't say they all max out at 85k, but many earn at/below this number. Many professionals do not earn enough to keep up with COL. Nurses in the D.C. Metro area are paid crap compared to other high COL areas.

Even the average salary for professions such as architect and accountant are only in the 90s. I think we have too many overpaid lawyers on DCUM who have lost perspective of what a good salary is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rich is having enough food to eat, clothes to wear, a safe place to sleep , decent medical care, being able send your children (especially female children) to school AND having enough leftover to save for tomorrow, go on an occasional vacation to visit family, eat at a restaurant once in a while or buying anything on a whim.

That's the minimum standard for lower middle class

You are so privileged, you don't even know you're privileged.

You probably believe the notion that everyone in America always has enough to eat, and there is no real poverty in America.

A very typical American family has a HHI income in the $50s and rents a two-bedroom apartment - with their young children sharing the second bedroom - in a so-so area (not crime-ridden, but not among educated professionals), visits Grandma for vacation, and eats out once a week at IHOP or Red Lobster, and drive a 10-year-old car they bought used.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you make 300K and you can't afford a nice home in NW, then you are spending your money somewhere else: student loans, tuition, debt. Whatever the case may be, you should be able to swing a home in NW DC with that income.

Yup. Student loans. It takes $ to make $. We don't all have mommies and daddies paying for our college educations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you make 300K and you can't afford a nice home in NW, then you are spending your money somewhere else: student loans, tuition, debt. Whatever the case may be, you should be able to swing a home in NW DC with that income.

Yup. Student loans. It takes $ to make $. We don't all have mommies and daddies paying for our college educations.

Nice assumption a******. Some of us, like me, worked our way through college in the 90s and didn't take on any student loans.

I know that's not the case anymore for a lot of people. However, the fact that you can afford massive student loan payments without defaulting or going without food means that you do have a ton of disposable income. Imagine your student loan debt with somebody making only $85,000 a year. Try to get a grip

[Anonymous]

If you bought your house before 2003 or went to college before 2000 shut the fuck up. Costs have gone up exponentially and you can't live the middle class lifestyle on less than 250k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you make 300K and you can't afford a nice home in NW, then you are spending your money somewhere else: student loans, tuition, debt. Whatever the case may be, you should be able to swing a home in NW DC with that income.

Yup. Student loans. It takes $ to make $. We don't all have mommies and daddies paying for our college educations.

Nice assumption a******. Some of us, like me, worked our way through college in the 90s and didn't take on any student loans.

I know that's not the case anymore for a lot of people. However, the fact that you can afford massive student loan payments without defaulting or going without food means that you do have a ton of disposable income. Imagine your student loan debt with somebody making only $85,000 a year. Try to get a grip

I think the PP was just saying that with loans, it's hard to afford a "nice home in NW" with a HHI of $300k. Not that life is terrible or no one else has it hard.

I truly don't know how people afford those houses in NW - nice or not. We left DC in part because even with two adults working what we thought were pretty reasonable jobs, there was no chance of affording a house we actually wanted to live in. We weren't anywhere close to $300k, and did/do have student loans still, but - I dunno; it seemed nuts still that at what by all objective measures was a comfortable HHI, we felt we had so few appealing housing options.

Anyway, that's a tangent. I once interviewed a bunch of people about wealth and whether they felt wealthy. It really did seem to come down to your peer group and expectations - if you are earning $100k in a place where your peers have less, you feel quite wealthy; if you are earning $400k in a place where your peers are living in $2 million condos, you feel broke. That's that. If you want your wealth tofeel different, you have to earn more or move, basically. (We moved and feel very fortunate to have been able to do that.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you make 300K and you can't afford a nice home in NW, then you are spending your money somewhere else: student loans, tuition, debt. Whatever the case may be, you should be able to swing a home in NW DC with that income.

Yup. Student loans. It takes $ to make $. We don't all have mommies and daddies paying for our college educations.

Nice assumption a******. Some of us, like me, worked our way through college in the 90s and didn't take on any student loans.

I know that's not the case anymore for a lot of people. However, the fact that you can afford massive student loan payments without defaulting or going without food means that you do have a ton of disposable income. Imagine your student loan debt with somebody making only $85,000 a year. Try to get a grip

I think the PP was just saying that with loans, it's hard to afford a "nice home in NW" with a HHI of $300k. Not that life is terrible or no one else has it hard.

I truly don't know how people afford those houses in NW - nice or not. We left DC in part because even with two adults working what we thought were pretty reasonable jobs, there was no chance of affording a house we actually wanted to live in. We weren't anywhere close to $300k, and did/do have student loans still, but - I dunno; it seemed nuts still that at what by all objective measures was a comfortable HHI, we felt we had so few appealing housing options.

Anyway, that's a tangent. I once interviewed a bunch of people about wealth and whether they felt wealthy. It really did seem to come down to your peer group and expectations - if you are earning $100k in a place where your peers have less, you feel quite wealthy; if you are earning $400k in a place where your peers are living in $2 million condos, you feel broke. That's that. If you want your wealth tofeel different, you have to earn more or move, basically. (We moved and feel very fortunate to have been able to do that.)

Yup. Try a fixer-upper in NE DC. Even then, the "nice" houses here are in the millions.

[Anonymous]

I truly don't know how people afford those houses in NW - nice or not. We left DC in part because even with two adults working what we thought were pretty reasonable jobs, there was no chance of affording a house we actually wanted to live in. We weren't anywhere close to $300k, and did/do have student loans still, but - I dunno; it seemed nuts still that at what by all objective measures was a comfortable HHI, we felt we had so few appealing housing options.

There's two options, and actually, both of them could be applicable:
(1) people inherited some of the money for a down payment on a nicer house.
(2) people have different standards for a house that they want to live in. I grew up in a small apartment in Brooklyn, so my standards of what a "nice" or "spacious" place is are probably different than someone who grew up in a large house in the midwest, even though the cost of the house and my family's apartment were probably close.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you make 300K and you can't afford a nice home in NW, then you are spending your money somewhere else: student loans, tuition, debt. Whatever the case may be, you should be able to swing a home in NW DC with that income.

Yup. Student loans. It takes $ to make $. We don't all have mommies and daddies paying for our college educations.

Then we should have chosen colleges that didn't cost $$$. That's what people who understand they can't afford something do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you make 300K and you can't afford a nice home in NW, then you are spending your money somewhere else: student loans, tuition, debt. Whatever the case may be, you should be able to swing a home in NW DC with that income.

Yup. Student loans. It takes $ to make $. We don't all have mommies and daddies paying for our college educations.

Nice assumption a******. Some of us, like me, worked our way through college in the 90s and didn't take on any student loans.

I know that's not the case anymore for a lot of people. However, the fact that you can afford massive student loan payments without defaulting or going without food means that you do have a ton of disposable income. Imagine your student loan debt with somebody making only $85,000 a year. Try to get a grip

I think the PP was just saying that with loans, it's hard to afford a "nice home in NW" with a HHI of $300k. Not that life is terrible or no one else has it hard.

I truly don't know how people afford those houses in NW - nice or not. We left DC in part because even with two adults working what we thought were pretty reasonable jobs, there was no chance of affording a house we actually wanted to live in. We weren't anywhere close to $300k, and did/do have student loans still, but - I dunno; it seemed nuts still that at what by all objective measures was a comfortable HHI, we felt we had so few appealing housing options.

Anyway, that's a tangent. I once interviewed a bunch of people about wealth and whether they felt wealthy. It really did seem to come down to your peer group and expectations - if you are earning $100k in a place where your peers have less, you feel quite wealthy; if you are earning $400k in a place where your peers are living in $2 million condos, you feel broke. That's that. If you want your wealth tofeel different, you have to earn more or move, basically. (We moved and feel very fortunate to have been able to do that.)

The 8 words that define this generation and its overwhelming sense of entitlement. This is why you will never own a home -- there is no home that's good enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rich is having enough food to eat, clothes to wear, a safe place to sleep , decent medical care, being able send your children (especially female children) to school AND having enough leftover to save for tomorrow, go on an occasional vacation to visit family, eat at a restaurant once in a while or buying anything on a whim.

That's the minimum standard for lower middle class

No, it is not. It shows how rich our country actually is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you bought your house before 2003 or went to college before 2000 shut the fuck up. Costs have gone up exponentially and you can't live the middle class lifestyle on less than 250k.

You are so wrong.

[Anonymous]

There is no way to live have a solid lifestyle in NW DC with 2 kids, eg, privates, nannies, 2d home, 3d home, 2 cars over $125k each, on less than $1.5 million HHI. Once you exceed $1.5 million HHI, you can really start to live large.