Reply to Is a family in DC making $200k "wealthy"?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Assuming a family has two children under 4--so you have to pay for childcare for two children--a family in DC is expected to pay $3300K/month. This is based upon what the federal gov't thinks is an allowable price for full-time daycare (according to their own daycare center costs.) Now, what kind of income would enable a family to pay that kind of money and rent a reasonable size home (3/2) in a good school district? Assuming average debts from college/graduate school and no consumer debt?

I think that in DC, where you can have two feds (GS-12/13) each earning $100K with 2 kid in public school, they would be OK but definitely not wealthy. They would be financially tight affording two in daycare, but they could do it--barely. This would be a professional class family where two families have to work in order to rent a reasonable size home (3/2) in a good school district in DC. There's enough debate around the $200K figure to say that it is not the mark of wealth.

However, I think that once you move to $500K HHI/Year, there is decidedly less argument that that constitutes wealthy--even with DC's cost of living. [/quote]
Completely agree. DH and I net $240k. 2 kids in daycare, renting a small townhome (3/2) for $3k. Granted, we sock a lot away for college ssavings and retirement, so there isn't much at the end of the month. Oh, and we drive 2007 Toyotas, nothing new and fancy.  If they tax us in a higher bracket, there goes college and retirement savings, and we'll be even more screwed with financial aid for college because they'll see that we make too much.

We also know that if we lived elsewhere, our pay would drop by roughly 15-20k each, putting us at about 200-210k.  In most other places in the US (but not NY or California) I would consider us somewhat wealthy. We wouldn't be in a small 3/2 townhome, but in a 3500 sq ft SFH on a nice lot, and still saving for retirement and college.[/quote]

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