Who is better able to afford to put his kids through college, go skiing every year in the Swiss Alps, buy a Ferrari, or retire in luxury in Florida--a guy who spent his career making $185,000 in Boise or making $450,000 in San Jose?
More money is still more money, the cost of housing notwithstanding.
However, I feel like you're are underestimating "some personal services". I don't have the time cook all my meals, I need to commute to get affordable housing, and I don't plan on just hanging out in the park everyday. So alas I find myself paying:
$15 for a simple saled
$11 roundtrip commute on caltrain
$100 for nosebleed seats to a band that was barely even considered famous during their heyday
These things really add up quick, and if you're not constantly careful about budgeting, you'll find yourself with less money than your counterpart in Boise.
Americans and their ridiculous concept of what middle-class is, hilarious. You're rich, own it.
You are right that someone with 450k gross should be able to comfortably handle this. It is different story for the majority that make 250k or less.
Most everything is indeed more expensive. Electricity, for example is nearly twice as expensive. I just looked up gas and Costco vs Costco is $.80/gal more. Insurance is more. Property tax rates are about the same but since the value of properties is so much higher you pay a lot more in real dollars. And since the basics are more expensive, everyone’s rates go up because they have to buy the basics too.
Think of average senior engineer Bob with a 10 year career, now working at mediocre tech company Xyz in Sunnyvale. There’s no way on Earth he’s making $300k.
Hot shot ML expert Alice working at Facebook? Sure!
How many more Bobs are there than Alices? 10x? 20x?
Median(?avg?) senior comp at Google is apparently 350k, 370k at Facebook.
That is reasonable for large top tech company, which was the original statement.
The original statement I made was 350-500 is about in line with senior-ish at top large tech companies.
The levels immediately below senior brush against that boundary (I made 350k one year when the stars aligned, and wasn't senior), and the levels immediately above are averaging at the very top of that limit.
If you disagree with the data, that's fine.
Edit: dropping random extra prepositions
In particular because more comp comes from stock, it's extremely sensitive to a market downturn.
> A salary of $185,000 in Boise, Idaho should increase to $450,797 in San Jose, California
https://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/boise-id/san-jose-...
Total comp in the $200-300k range is common for seniors at tech companies in SV. But people tend to not understand exactly what that amount of money means here because it seems like so much money. It doesn't mean people in, say, Boise are underpaid or whatever, just that everything is way, way more expensive in the Bay Area.