Less for One’s Money
There has been a vast cultural (and personal) overuse of the cliche
“Blank is the new blank,” lately, and the one that my friends
are abusing the most is, “The fifty is the new twenty,” in reference to
yuppie food stamps. This joke has been confirmed, as the
Times remarks on how the six-figure salary has lost its cache and $200K is the new $100K. Though I don’t take the Styles section
very seriously, this article contains a lot of truth; one of the
debates that I constantly engage in at home concerns how $200K/year is
the
bare minimum that a family in SF needs to eek out a decent life.
Addendum: AG has moved this discussion to his site.
@nna
February 26, 2005 @ 1:49 pm
all major cities are freakin’ expensive though. i agree that a family needs at least 200K (actually probably more) a year in a major city to be able to have a decent life. “six figures” really doesn’t mean scheiss anymore. people here talk about what “handle” your income is – i.e. 3 handle is 300K. meanwhile in NJ, my family income was less than 100K and we lived really well. i heard that isn’t the case with my old town though anymore. times are a’changing. heck, who would’ve thought you could sell a 585 sq foot apt for over 600K.
Y.
March 4, 2005 @ 1:39 pm
This article, in conjunction with the recent one about Gen Y lawyers, really puts young associates in the worse of all possible worlds (if all the worlds were made up of of outrageously rich and spoiled people), doesn’t it? On the one hand, we don’t really make _that_ much money, but on the other we don’t work hard enough for our “high” salaries and aren’t willing to make enough sacrifices (apparently frequent 15 hour days and no life aren’t enough).