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Americans with six-figure incomes are in 'survival mode'
(www.usatoday.com)
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this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2025
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I thought making >100,000 would be awesome but I'm just living paycheck to paycheck.
I was just telling a co-worker the other day; growing up in a family of 4 with a stay at home Mom. We didn't struggle, 4 bedroom home, 2nd 2 car garage in the back my dad built, pool in the backyard (above ground, but a pool nonetheless) and my brother and I basically got what we wanted. The most money my dad ever made in a single year was about $80k as a union pipefitter. My wife and I both work full time, I make 6 figures alone plus her salary, with a single child who's now 16. We are barely making it in our 2 bedroom duplex. Which we were only able to purchase thanks to a USDA loan with zero down.
Edit: corrected grammar
80K 30 years ago is is 175K today, probaby more if you think about purchasing power.
you were upper middle class dude.
but also where you live matters. 6 figures is nothing in a major city. it's a lot in a rural area or minor city. six figures in nyc/sf/boston/seattle is a necessity for a studio apartment. if you make like 60-80K you need roommates.
my dad made like 25K a year so we had to live 2-2.5 hours from a major city in order to afford a basic life. when he retired at 66 he was only making 50K a year in 2004, and we still lived 1.5 hours from a major city even though we had 'upgraded' from the crappy rural town to a exurb.
But wages haven't mixed to match. I'd be very surprised if pipe fitters are making anything close to 175k.
100k and up is still frequently thought of as being a well paying job.
Big keyword there is Union it helped even people not in the union. Graph union membership to avg income from 1970 onwards and its crystal clear.
It's crazy, I feel so irresponsible but it's just the economic situation we're in.
I cannot find a single place to rent that's only 1/3rd of my income and not half.
how? are you living in a mansion?
Where I live - wages have always been shitty but it was a low cost of living city (we literally had the lowest grocery prices in the nation and housing market was "depressed". You could and can always get a job of some sort here, and because costs were low a roommate or two got you through with money to go to shows on the weekend or have a car. And a cat!
Housing and food now are average for the nation but wages are still lower here than average.
My NET pay after taxes and benefits and 401k is not twice the average rent for a one bedroom apartment here now. And you used to be able to rent houses so cheap, there were slumlords and people who owned a couple of houses and rented one out. No more. A house costs more than my whole monthly net to rent, before electricity or water, just the rent.
We bought a house for 5x what my old shithole of a house did cost (and there are none of those left, they get flipped or torn down for luxury housing) and even that amount would be cheap for it now, and we love it, but yeah we struggle with the cost to pay for it and maintain it. That's a choice, yes, and we know it, but in a very limited set of choices.
All that is being built is high end expensive housing but there are not many people here earning enough for that.
No, you're overspending.
Depends on the area, and it can be hard to move out of big cities sometimes.
it's also hard to stop buying ubereats evernight.
This. Probably lives in some fancy apartment