How much income do you need to raise a family of four at your place? \ stacker news ~econ

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How much income do you need to raise a family of four at your place?

445 sats \ 24 comments \ @Coinsreporter 23 Jan econ

The Income Needed to Raise a Family in USA

I looked for the data of other countries but surprisingly I couldn't find anything except numerous maps, graphs and charts for USA.

I can tell you about India In big cities we need $10k annually to raise a family of four. This includes rent or house loan repayments, groceries, education, savings, health insurance. Let me break it down for you.

Rent or house loan repayment = $3 k
Groceries = $3 k
Education = $1.5 k (for both kids)
Health Insurance/Medical Exp. = $1 k
Savings = $1.5 k

*All numbers are annual estimate based on my experience.

For towns and villages, you can cut these numbers in half. The biggest cuts will be in rent and education. Both are still very cheap. My town is very densely populated but the rent for 2BHK is hardly $100 a month in best locations. The fee in the best schools is not more than $200 for 1 kid.

So, why this?

When I look at these numbers for developed countries, I become doubtful about their development. When the incomes there have increased so much, so are there expenses. I don't mean here that India has reached at a level of them but it's certainly not as behind as it's often mentioned.

If India has 20 times less inflation, what's the problem if it also has 20 times less income?

BTW India's GNI per capita is 10030 dollars.

How much do you need at your place?

How do you compare it to the USA's?

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65 sats \ 14 replies \ @Undisciplined 23 Jan

I didn't look into the details of their metric, but I can tell you that it's silly. It doesn't make any sense for the "living wage for a family of four" to be way higher than the amount most families actually live on.

American families aren't dying of starvation or exposure. Someone just cooked up a dumb metric based on overly entitled expectations and is pretending that American families can't survive on realistic incomes.

33 sats \ 1 reply \ @Aardvark 23 Jan

"Living wage" just means how much I think the government should guarantee I make.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 23 Jan

Usually

42 sats \ 7 replies \ @SimpleStacker 23 Jan

I'm starting to very much dislike Visual Capitalist. They present these nice looking charts, but half the time they look made up or totally misrepresentative. And they don't seem too transparent about methodology; just citing a source does not count---this may be the subject of my next "Pleb Economist".

$188K for a family of 4 in California? I guess I must be living in poverty then, despite my two cars and house. And mind you, this number was given for the whole state.... and I live in Los Angeles.

These numbers don't make sense at all.

66 sats \ 1 reply \ @Bell_curve 23 Jan

They seem to have a collectivist agenda

44 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 23 Jan

Or they're just unthinkingly passing along what's available (which is often collectivist nonsense).

30 sats \ 4 replies \ @Coinsreporter OP 23 Jan

Don't dislike Visualcapitalist. They just copy and paste figures from other sources. The numbers given in the map have been taken from here.

https://www.gobankingrates.com/money/making-money/living-wage-family-of-four-needs-all-50-states/

73 sats \ 3 replies \ @SimpleStacker 23 Jan

I think it's worthy of dislike. Essentially, their reach surpasses their accuracy. Although, the charts are usually directionally correct, so maybe it's not such a net negative shrug

I am just very particular about data accuracy and interpretation. You could say it's a pet peeve of mine.

54 sats \ 2 replies \ @Coinsreporter OP 23 Jan

No, I also don't like it. Looked at it after a long time today and found it.

I also found something else from them which is same but contradicts to this.

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 23 Jan

I remember someone posting this one a while ago. At least this one says "to live comfortably". The reader knows there's a subjective standard at play.

I actually think these numbers are pretty reasonable, if comfortable means you can generally do whatever you want without worrying about money.

68 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter OP 23 Jan

Yes, I also remember. I didn't find it on SN but found something else.

#548756

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @Coinsreporter OP 23 Jan

Visualcapitalist mentioned Go bank. I don't know about it. May be you can look it up a bit and validate. https://www.gobankingrates.com/money/making-money/living-wage-family-of-four-needs-all-50-states/

20 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 23 Jan

No "Living wage" is a common leftie nonsense term that gets thrown around all the time. I don't need to know the specifics of each attempt at measuring it, because it's always nonsense.

32 sats \ 1 reply \ @Coinsreporter OP 23 Jan

Alright I understand your point. I didn't know that. I've just compared it out of my curiosity after seeing this map which actually felt unrealistic to me as well.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 23 Jan

If you cut all the state numbers in half, I think you'd have a decent point of reference.

34 sats \ 4 replies \ @grayruby 23 Jan

Around 5k a month net should suffice in my neck of the woods.

40 sats \ 3 replies \ @Coinsreporter OP 23 Jan

60k annually is almost half to the national average of US. How does it feel being the neighbours of super rich people?

34 sats \ 2 replies \ @grayruby 23 Jan

That's net. Gross income you probably need 8k a month at least and the Canadian dollar is worth around only .7 a USD. It's a bit hard for me to judge because I have a relatively small mortgage and no car payments or loan debt or anything like that so our monthly expenses are lower than most families.

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter OP 23 Jan

Actually, I laughed when I looked at those incredible numbers up there because when I searched for income in the US I also found it.

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter OP 23 Jan

If you didn't laugh at the individual numbers. Now you will.

#548756

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE 24 Jan

India's per capita income needs to rise dramatically. But I don't think it's that less in reality. It's at least above 3k.

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @Taft 23 Jan

Around 10-15k annually.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter OP 23 Jan

That's close to an Indian big city.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @LowK3y19 23 Jan

100k salary to take care of all 4 under our roof feels like barley enough but we stretch it as much as we can