How much disposable income do you need to be free? Cheap car, cheap rent, every form of media ever for about $50 a month. You can do that easily on 30k. If you can't make 30k a year, you've got a limited skillset, it's not anyone else's fault.

What's amazing for US millenials in particular is just how much we've got and how little we appreciate it.

Insurance, college loans, food, taxes. Yeh I can't image you live in the US if you think you can have that for 30k a year. It would take 30k in disposable income which would be around 75k+ and thats for a small town.

I had all of that for 30k a year, 20 minutes from a major population center. I wasn't paying back college loans (yet), but you can only do so much on 30k. It's a lot, though...

Well in the US you can't really choose when to pay those loans back. Not to mention for the type of car you'd be able to afford if it breaks down it would easily wipe that 700 dollars out. Go forbid you got sick. An emergency bill would run 3 months income.

Well yeah, at 30k a year you can't afford to retire, you are still working. But 30k isn't hard to achieve. Hopefully if you've spent money on college, you've got a skillset which will make more than that, and then you can pay back those loans, and all the other stuff.

Nobody can help you if you are fiscally irresponsible, it's not an unobtainable path to freedom though.

Your post assumes that young person went to college, successfully obtained a degree, and has growth potential in their career. There are many, many people who are missing one of those things, and are screwed because of it.

You are extremely ignorant of the cost of living in the US if you think 30K is enough to live on.

I've lived on that, so try again. Why do you believe that's crazy?

$500 apt

$150 car insurance

$100 utilities

$ 50 media (Netflix, Spotify, etc)

You're taking home about $1800 a month, so that still leaves another $1000 to fill out the rest (food, gasoline, etc). That's plenty of money. You aren't going to be making regular trips to Hawaii, but that's more than enough to do whatever you'd like.

The apartment complex i lived in while in Rapid City, South Dakota was $650 (2011-2012)...How many places in the US do you think have $500 rent where you need no roommates, completely functional (A/C, heat, working kitchen), in a low-crime area?

My friend today lives in an apt with all that (not an efficiency) at $650 a month. I had another friend who was in a less accessible (but still nice) location for $500, I've lived in a $450 apt. They are available in some locations.

By land area, most of the country.

In the town nearest where I grew up, $500 will get you a 2 bed, 1.5 bath apartment on a golf course.

http://www.linksatharrison.apartments/floorplans.aspx

It's not enough to travel, save, have any remotely expensive hobbies (sports equipment for just one of many examples), or survive a car breakdown, buy a car if you don't already have one, and so on. It's funny that you budget in "media" automatically - so you've got just enough cash to eat, work, come home and plug in and to all the people living better than you, all the social signals that say you are your paycheck, and so on.

I agree it's a much better position to be in than say, indentured servitude, but it's naive to just expect or declare that people be happy living like this and stay happy living like this for the foreseeable future.

Again, what you're stating is the minimum of the distribution, not near the mean. I can sometimes do $100 in utilities but frequently during the winter, I have to pay for >$100 per month for power alone. I rent so I can't wait for the landlord to read their maintenance requests and patch up the holes.

I once cut my power bill during the winter by sleeping in a closet with a space heater. Other times, I hung out in coffee shops to avoid having to be home and having to turn on the heater. May be that's the kind of living you imagine that isn't crazy, but I don't imagine everyone is willing to live like that.

I don't know, that's leaving out a lot of expenses, like the TV and computer to consume the media, the phone and internet, a means to transport yourself to and back from work, food which is generally almost equal in cost to rent, clothes and shoes, medical expenses, etc.

This also assumes 30k per member of a household. And don't forget a good 3k to 5k going to tax depending on your state.

Its also ignoring any savings, so your old age will be deplorable, and any accident or sudden loss of work will also be extremely rough.

It's not though. That's counting taxes, it is leaving over an additional $1000 a month to pay those other expenses (you pick) and it even includes car insurance when there are more economical ways to transport (but if you just have to have a car...).

Don't get me wrong, you wouldn't want to live like this for 30 years (though if you had good credit and then got your own house, you could easily reduce those costs, too), and it takes sacrifice, but the entire reason I mentioned 30k is because 30k isn't that hard to make, and despite that, you still have an easy road to it and (some) disposable income.

If you want more, you have to work harder, not shocking, but what you can do on 30k if you try is astounding. It's certainly not the impoverished, destitute slavery some people are acting like it is.

I agree with you, we're not talking destitute slavery, but why is that your point of comparison?

In my opinion, the average American income should be able to support a family. At least 1 kid and a stay at home parent. That feels like that 30k gets stretched pretty thin in that case.

And if it was an option to make more by working harder, I'd say fine, but I'm not so sure it is. I think you can only make more by working smarter, and thats going to come at an investment of both time and money. Not sure where in the 30k the money would come from.

I'm still not convinced by that budget of yours though.

If you live remote so that your rent and food cost gets down to 500$ and 200$ a month, you'll need a car. Which is itself a 30k purchase. So now you've got one loan already, lets say 200$ extra a month. Then the gas will eat another 100$ at least.

500 rent + 200 food + 200 car + 150 car insurance/maintenance + 100 gas + 100 phone/internet + 100 utilities + 100 medical/dental insurance + 50 media. That's 1500$ already.

Now you need to furnish your appartment, get a laptop, a TV. Lets say you do all that for 5k. And amortize it over 3 years, say you got another loan for it. Now you've got 150$ per month downpayments for that. Now we're at 1650$ a month.

Now with income tax, you only have 2000$ a month, assuming you live in Iwoa. So you're left with 350$.

I feel at least another 100$ needs to be added for clothes and household goods. So 250$ left a month.

At this point, all you do is work, consume media and eat at home always. And your saving maybe 250$ a month.

I feel that's more realistic a budget. Again, I see no room for any dependents, no kid, no partner that's not also working.

So while again, I agree with you, this isn't terrible, it sounds quite unfulfilling. There's barely any wiggle room for any kind of hobby, travel, lesson, etc. And obviously any health issue or temporary loss of job will mean lots more dept will accrue.

Anyways, I think all that would be totally fine if we had cheap or free education and a free or cheap healthcare and a slightly better unemployment benefit. Without that, I don't really see where are the opportunities to make more. You can't afford school, you can't afford to switch jobs, and you can't afford to get sick or old.

You didn't count taxes, car payment, utilities, health insurance, and other bills like phone...in there.

You deff had help from your parents to so blithely discount those expenses.

That leaves you 700 bucks a month not including the 15% taxes. Once issue and you'd be living month to month as soon as anything actually happened.

That's with taxes taken out. Pre-taxes it is $2500 a month. Most people are an issue away from month to month.

And you think thats ok. One car breakdown and then you can't get to work.

> 500 apt

My shitty apartment in a small city (80k) was 615 a month.

100 dollars a month for gas/water/power?

You need internet for that media consumption.

You need gas for that car.

Cell phone?

Food?

That's why you have another $1000 a month, as the math suggests.

BTW, I love this article because it brings data to show this actually exists. This question of 'why' seems particularly difficult. We speculate it might be because of some material/socio-economic deficit this never generation is experiencing. This conversation assumes "is 30k good enough or not" is at the heart of it. For someone living 100 years ago, a live in our age on 30k gives them more nutrition and tools than they could have dreamed of (and let's not act like land/housing is all that expensive; you can live in the boonies for almost nothing). The difference must lie in how 30k is interpreted today. Perhaps it's that people expect not just an absolute level of living but a continuous upward mobility they're not experiencing? Or perhaps all those 30k+ jobs are actually in places where you can't own land for 30k? Or maybe just it's more obvious now that you can get a much better life if you have more money? (e.g. I can see all these things are for sale, I just can't afford them) This topic aside, I wonder why we have such a hard time accepting a life that's a bit simpler...

What about the other side of that initial assumption? Are there causes other than the 30k-thing that might be why people don't seem to care as much about freedom? I suspect the confusion between 'democracy' (which can be pretty imperfect; starting wars and all that) and 'freedom' (which is a very generic concept) might be a part of it. It also might be just the usurpation of the theme of 'freedom' to back conservative opinions (e.g. freedom to discriminate).

The US is a big place, not everybody feels like they have to live in the Bay Area or some other place with a similarly ludicrous cost of living.

I lived in the midwestern city as a single graduate student with $25K in a ratty (literally) apartment. I survived, I didn't feel "free" enough in the way he suggests. The only way I had savings and spending money was the hope I'd get a degree someday and the fact I don't drink alcohol or smoke, and I didn't need to drive.

I earn more now, and am considerably more free. I don't wish how I lived on anyone, and I am under no delusion that most well adjusted adults in the richest country in the world would be willing to live how I did. I realize you aren't making this argument, I'm more replying to who I replied to initially.

Might I add I had good healthcare due to my university...and my department waived my tuition (and hence paid for my healthcare). Could you imagine life without that? Or if I couldn't defer my loans?

I suggest that you may be a bit out of touch. Over 40% of Americans earn under $30k per year [1]. And many more choose to live on this much. Ralph Nader, for example, lives on $25,000 per year [2], and accomplishes far more than anyone I personally know.

[1] https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader#Personality_and_ch...

I'm willing to bet that Ralph Nader is living debt-free with a nice little nest egg, so comparing his life to those without a large positive net worth is a pretty poor comparison.

and do those people live lifestyles I would want?

Perhaps people are being trained by their culture to seek lifestyles that are not affordable to most people?

If you value the ludicrously wasteful lifestyle that is so prevalent in the U.S., maybe not. But if you embrace the challenge of creativity, you can live quite well on $30k per year. I live in NYC on just a tad more ($32k spent last year) in a nice neighborhood with no roommates, vacation at least once a year, etc. It's amazing how far cooking your own food most of the time, using credit card rewards miles, riding a bicycle instead of driving, and shopping at thrift stores will take you. I suspect most people who spend ~$60k+ per year could cut their spending in half without significantly impacting things they actually care about in their "lifestyles".

I spent the first 5 years of my career making 20-25k / year, family of 5. This wasn't some crappy McJob either.

It was pretty tight at times but we made it work.

I switched to a different company and make around 4-3x that now and live pretty comfortably.

Welcome to a world that isn't California (and to an extend New York)

Why are costs so high in the US? As a Canadian, where things are said to be more expensive than in the US, $30K CAD (~$24K USD) is more than enough for a person without dependents to live quite comfortably.

The median income in the US is not far off $30K[1], so what do half the population do?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...

Well you math is not very accurate when it comes to fees. So even without college. A car would cost 8k, rent would be around 6k, health care would be 2.4k, food at 250 a month is 2.7k. That alone is 20k. This doesn't include entertainment expenses let alone emergency like actually getting sick.

8k/ year for a car? You could pay one off in like 2/3rds of that if you buy something used.

What math of mine are you referring to? The $30K figure comes from the link.

No it's not.

No it's not what?

For what it is worth, the median income in Canada is also ~$30K[1].

[1] http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/f...

It's not more than enough for a person without dependents to live comfortably.

it's enough that you won't starve to death.

Are you, perhaps, confusing Toronto or Vancouver with Canada? I can see how $30K wouldn't get you far there. Where I live, in a rural part of the country, I don't know how I, without dependents, would even manage to spend $30K in a year if I tried. The large majority of Canadians do not live in those cities.

A car is unaffordable on 30k a year, after taxes, insurance, and rent.

Think about it.

Taxes/Medicare/SSI chops of 30%, you're left with 21k.

Rent is 500 a month in a cheap city with a roomate, youre left with 15k.

Utilities are 100 a month with a roomate, that leaves you with 13000ish.

Food and ALL OTHER living expenses including clothes, transportation/gas, etc are (living frugally) 250 a week.

That leaves you with 1k a year...

You missed the student debt part. There's a lot of people I know (my brother included) who went to the more expensive schools for various reasons and walk out with some debt that's hard to pay back.