$800 a month after ALL expenses in NYC and Omaha are the same but 50K in Omaha with 2200 in college loans leave you with $800 for rent , food etc...my guess you wont be left with much after ALL expenses.

lol @ live in baby sitters not being a luxury.

cool story bro. I agreed that college loans are something that can qualify a person making $250k as not all that rich (yet). Living in NYC isn't debt, though, and you don't get saddled with student loans just by choosing to live in NYC.

So if a hotshot patent lawyer from LA was moving to NY and had no knowledge of the different NY job markets or anything before making a decision of which city to choose, and you could give them just one piece of advice on where to buy a house, it would be something along the lines of:

"Unless you really want to live the NYC lifestyle, you should move to Buffalo to practice patent law there because combination of income, cost of living, and job opportunities for patent lawyers are better in Buffalo than in NYC"

I know, right? The weirdest thing to me, I think, is that people ITT somehow think that all of the luxuries people spend money on aren't actually luxuries.

"Well, the problem is, I used to be rich, but then, I bought my waterfront mansion in the Hamptons, and now, between the mortgage on that, the extra car, the flights out, the live-in help, and the beach club membership, I might as well move to Bed Stuy!"

Some sort of child care is a necessity if you're going to have two earners to pull in that 250k, and in cities it seems like a ginormous pain in the ass. Anecdotally, it seems like multi-year waitlists for day cares are not uncommon.

That being said, while I'm sympathetic to arguments of income vs. net worth, I do think it's pretty ridiculous to decide that a household income of $250k doesn't qualify as rich.

Dude i know it is hard but you will have except the fact that some jobs are just not available in lower cost markets and some are available but not paying even half of what they pay in NYC.
It is not about sympathy but about taxes. Giving my choices (even if it is a choice which it isn't at all) i will pay more taxes by dollar amount while living in NYC and making 250k (about 110k in taxes) then if i would live in Omaha and make 170k (about 70k in taxes) while maintaining relatively the same lifestyle. Is there a reason i should also be taxed on the higher rate?

Thats what i am taking about when i am saying that people outside of some careers just don't understand what necessity is . If you and your wife are averaging 140h\week for 2 , what other childcare options are available to you? While thinking about it also consider the fact that taking a day off when your child is sick sometimes (most of the time) is not an option.

P.S Making 2k+ a month as live in is not uncommon at all...less if you illegal

LOL you get stuck with college loans by choosing a career path that takes you to a high price market. Any job opportunities in banking\finance industry (not tellers or branch rats) in Omaha? How about PMO's?

Of course I wouldn't tell them to buy a house before finding a job, but I might very well tell them to look at some of the upstate cities and see if there are openings that might offer you a better " combination of income, cost of living, and job opportunities for patent lawyers...in Buffalo than in NYC." Why is that ridiculous? Indeed, it's much more ridiculous to expect the hotshot lawyer to just blindly move to NYC and codemn himself to a life where he'll apparently never ever be rich.

threads like these remind me how much i need to get out of nyc. this place is a ****ing money pit. every time i look online at housing costs/size in places like Austin my jaw falls on the floor. plus the weather. it's good these threads jolt me back to reality once in a while.

Of course "Rich" and "Poor" are relative terms.

Family size and location (cost of living) are absolutely contributing factors to "are they rich" just as they are to the questions "are they poor"

Federal Poverty Level (FPL) guidelines for a family of four is approx 22k/year. That is considered the poverty level that would grant your family full access to Medicaid programs, welfare, foodstamps, etc. Many of those programs would be available to you up to 200% of FPL or 44k/year in the US.

$44kyear around Dehli India is 5x Medium income which (by some peoples definitions in this thread) would make them "rich" there. So of course it is relative.

Given that it is relative, it is silly to argue about 250k or other arbitrary numbers.

I would ask: What outcome are you looking to achieve by defining the label "rich"?

OP's outcome in defining it was it so that he could exclude people from complaining about their taxes getting raised. This thread is really not constructive and reeks of angst around class and income and quality of life.

For sake of argument, OK - 250k/year is rich. Now what?

Right, which is the whole point. The 250k+ crowd are pretty clearly rich relative to the average American, who is probably quite rich compared to the average human. The likely reason that the 250k+ crowd doesn't feel rich is because their social circle introduces them to people who are substantially wealthier.

A moment ago you seemed awfully sure that people pretty much always choose NYC for lifestyle reasons, and could get better value for their money elsewhere in any profession, therefore added cost of living shouldn't be considered when determining whether someone is rich or not.

Tax the hell out of them. They don't know suffering like us poor people........

Right and $40k / year is pretty clearly rich relative the average Human.

So now what? Whats your point?

Lol - good troll. Suffering my ass.

OK...?

It might be essential for two people who combine for $250k to have a live in baby sitter. The reason why they do this is because they think they'll end up with more money than if they had just one earner making $125k. Or maybe daddy gets a lower paying job with flexible hours so he can be the baby sitter .

The live in baby sitter didn't make them stop being rich. The live in baby sitter made them able to be richer.

And what then, do you say to the family with two incomes, but making only $50k? That is a very common situation. They still have to pay for child care.

Well, Warren Buffett is doing pretty well for himself there.

The point is that while it is perfectly understandable that people in that income bracket may not like seeing their taxes going up, arguments like "This is stupid, I'm not even rich!" suggest a lack of perspective. I think that's pretty much all there is to it. I'm sure there'd still be some ragging on the Todd Hendersons of the world even if they just declared "Sorry, I just don't feel like paying more in taxes" but I think the tenor of the response would be quite a bit different.

Now we can take their stuff and not feel guilty about it.

So where do all the delivery drivers, janitors, teachers etc who work in Manhattan live?

Well, they're poor, so, apparently, they just don't count.

A lot of people do still choose NYC for lifestyle reasons. A lot of people think Buffalo is a stinking hole. Thus, they're willing to pay a premium to live in NYC. Personally, I'm not, but that's just me.

I was addressing the argument that hotshots have nowhere to go but NYC, thus they are stuck, trapped, imprisoned, and subjected to the onus of the high cost of living, and there's nothing else for a poor lawyer to do. Really, they have it as bad as the rest of us, just because they have to do their thing in NYC, along with millions of other people, most of whom aren't lawyers and don't make $250k.

That's what they THINK will be happening next, yes.

Along with your thoughts like this...

Capital will be able to flee out of the country FAR QUICKER then the common man will be able to take it from them. Imo, there is nothing more frustrating then watching a nation try and solve its problem of too much coercive transferance of wealth by engaging in yet FURTHER coercive transferances of wealth.

In doing so, they're going to cripple the very men that are allowing them to live at even their current level imo. All I'm predicting is this, if they elect to go the route of MORE COERCION then remind me not to be surprised when they find they've plunged themselves deeper into poverty.

A socialist thinks the way to improve his condition is to reach up to someone above him, pull him down, whilst propelling himself upwards. Sure it's a net-gain to that individual, but it's not a net-gain for society if we allow such behavior to run rampant. They also seem to forget that by endorsing such a system there will be someone grabbing at your heels as well.

A capitalist thinks the way to improve his condition is to look for anyone around him, be him higher or lower, to work with him to produce wealth via voluntary exchanges. In this way, both parties move upwards.

Fifth Avenue