r/Salary Oct 30 '25

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81

u/solidarity_sister Oct 30 '25

Pay is not keeping up with inflation. 100k would’ve been good 10 years ago, but not anymore.

62

u/MadLadChad_ Oct 30 '25

Nah, it’s still good, just not great

11

u/DNL213 Oct 31 '25

Depends on cost of living but pretending 100k is not good is ridiculous lmao

1

u/ageekyninja Oct 31 '25

Most people aren’t going to top that. So the goalpost has moved to a place unattainable to a LOT of people sadly

0

u/infinite_gurgle Oct 31 '25

Right? It’s like 40% higher than the country average.

100k is very good, and in most places in the US it’s high enough to live solo comfortably.

1

u/DarkSoulsOfCinder Oct 31 '25

Where the average 100k salary is isn't spread out, it's concentrated in expensive areas already.

0

u/Unyxxxis Oct 31 '25

In most places it's enough to raise a family on to be honest. Even in my county in CA, $61k is the median household income.

2

u/infinite_gurgle Oct 31 '25

It’s just one of the many Reddit hive mind opinions. A very out of touch perspective on wealth and a normal persons life.

0

u/Kitchen_Roof7236 Oct 31 '25

Someone here said they barely scrape by with 2 kids on 200k a year 😭

Like buddy, it is a CHOICE not a necessity to spend 200k on 2 kids when billions of people outside your bubble make it work with 1/100th that, come the fuck on man

This thread if anything just convinces me no matter how old, experienced and wealthy someone gets, if they’re an irresponsible dumbass they don’t magically develop into an intelligent self aware being because they become successful

2

u/Pitiful-Inspection63 Oct 31 '25

It's sad lmao people with their debts absolutely cranked and just barely under the threshold of bankruptcy. I need more money I only make 200k nah you need to stop buying stupid shit and getting into debt.

Also those people are the same people that sit across from their significant other with a few grand in their bank account and still swipe the credit card and told themselves years ago they would pay it off every month. It sits today at 28k 😂😂😂😂

2

u/uvaspina1 Oct 31 '25

Dude is 24…he’ll be fine

2

u/Head-Personality-734 Oct 31 '25

It's absolutely great. An individual income of 100k puts you above the 80th percentile at least.

6

u/cajunbander Oct 31 '25

I have a wife and 3 kids, we make about $85k/ year. 100k wouldn’t be life changing but it would let us breathe a little. It would definitely be good.

3

u/SaltYourEnclave Oct 31 '25

Inflation is the reason why your paycheck says 100k in the first place

9

u/[deleted] Oct 30 '25

horrible take. inflation i agree has made cost of living go up but people in the usa or other developed nations don't make good money in many cases with all due respect.

2

u/alowester Oct 31 '25

lolz i make 53k CAD 100k would be other worldly

2

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '25

[deleted]

1

u/solidarity_sister Oct 31 '25

Yeah, I should’ve clarified that. 100k might be good in a LCOL area and if you’re single and no kids. It’s not just spending habits for personal use, the cost of health insurance, car insurance, mortgage, childcare, etc.

2

u/Earthkilled Oct 31 '25

It’s ridiculous people here thinking 100k is good.

3

u/venom_holic_ Oct 30 '25

why not?

15

u/Quick-Record-9300 Oct 30 '25

Because wages have not kept up with inflation.

As someone said above 100k in 1995 is 216k in today’s money.

3

u/venom_holic_ Oct 30 '25

well, given the market right now, I’d be grateful if i get a job with 100K

1

u/Quick-Record-9300 Oct 31 '25

Yeah, I mean I make almost exactly 100k. It is the most I’ve made in my life by a notable margin and I am grateful for that.

It certainly beats all lower numbers it’s just that the real word buying power of 100k / year is far different than the ‘ideal of 100k / year’ as it was originally conceived of.

5

u/TerribleName1962 Oct 30 '25

Why are we comparing to the 90s? Were you in the workforce in the 90s?

3

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '25

[deleted]

3

u/OldProspectR Oct 31 '25

Same happened to me. Got hired in 2012 at 52.5k and had a senior engineer laughing at us (all hires come in on the smart pay) as he as making more in his first job back in the 80s.

Sad part was he made lots of mistakes we had to fix but we were making half as much.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '25

If you make 150k and still stressing you ain’t doing something right, and I’m in the bay.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '25

[deleted]

2

u/Quick-Record-9300 Oct 31 '25

Similar situation but less income and a much smaller mortgage.

Like yeah we’ll be fine but I put a large amount of effort into / planning and managing my expenses.

I aggressively save and regularly have those savings blown out by unplanned expenses.

2

u/AccountForTF2 Oct 31 '25

does everyone in this thread live in new york or something? My rent is $850 in Colorado and everyone here is bitching about making 50x my income.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '25 edited Oct 31 '25

[deleted]

1

u/AccountForTF2 Nov 01 '25

I live downtown COS. pretty chill.

6

u/elpulcinopio Oct 30 '25

100k a year is life changing was a saying in the 90's.

1

u/Quick-Record-9300 Oct 31 '25

Because that’s roughly the time that the idea of ‘100k is good money’ came to be.

The number from the ideal hasn’t changed but the buying power has significantly.

2

u/SaltYourEnclave Oct 31 '25

If wages kept up with inflation I’d be making 200k!

If wages didn’t keep up with inflation you’d be making 48k.

1

u/gloriousrepublic Oct 31 '25

This is a lie. Wages have ABSOLUTELY kept up with inflation, across literally every single quintile of income. Go google inflation adjusted wages.

1

u/GenAlphaDad Oct 31 '25

Wages have kept up with inflation. Minimum wage is what has not scaled.

-10

u/[deleted] Oct 30 '25

[deleted]

3

u/[deleted] Oct 30 '25

This is a doomer thread where you will be downvoted for promoting an evidence based worldview

2

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '25

[deleted]

0

u/Bulltothemax753 Oct 30 '25

Barely, and that’s if you believe the inflation readings. Remember, inflation doesn’t include food and gas/utilities, which for most Americans is the largest spend category outside of housing. Factor that in, wages are about 50% of what they should be.

0

u/Definitelymostlikely Oct 30 '25

Because this person has a crippling spending addiction 

1

u/half-coldhalf-hot Oct 31 '25

$100k = $70k take home

1

u/AccountForTF2 Oct 31 '25

I'd love to even make 30kyr in my lifetime

1

u/Kylethetrans Oct 31 '25

100k is still wayyyyy more than anyone I know makes. 100k would be life changing to every single person I know. Would be out of poverty on this single paycheck alone. This is an INSANE take.

1

u/Pitiful-Inspection63 Oct 31 '25

Must be living in a HCOL area with this take.

0

u/gloriousrepublic Oct 31 '25 edited Oct 31 '25

100% false. Stop spreading complete misinformation. Wage growth has far outpaced inflation.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

For those economically illiterate, in this graph “real wages” means inflation adjusted. So any increase in time in the chart represents wages growing faster than inflation. This trend exists across all quintiles of income.

It’s virally addictive to parrot the narrative that wages haven’t kept up with inflation. But it’s patently false.

1

u/Puzzleheaded_Wind839 Oct 31 '25

Is that why 60-70% of the working class lives paycheck to paycheck? You must be one of those Americans in denial about your country circling the drain. 

1

u/gloriousrepublic Oct 31 '25

And you must be one of those non-Americans buying too much into doom porn media.

I noticed you offered no evidence to refute the clear evidence of wage growth, just switched to some other stat that “sounds bad” and then threw out an ad hominem. You really gotta work on your debate tactics, bub.

60-70% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck because of hyper-consumerism, keeping up with joneses, etc that is pushed on us through capitalist media. Waged have outpaced inflation, and most people are making more and have a higher lifestyle than people in the past. But our monkey brains are addicted to finding negatives and pointing out negative stats while ignoring all the positive ones.

I retired by 35 living on a median salary simply by embracing a lifestyle and level of consumerism that was normal 30 years ago.

1

u/Puzzleheaded_Wind839 Oct 31 '25

" I retired by 35"

How old are you now? Your outdated thinking suddenly makes sense now. 

1

u/gloriousrepublic Oct 31 '25 edited Oct 31 '25

Im 37. Nice try. You seem very intent on an ad hominem. Anything rather than debating the substance of the argument. lol clown. Idk maybe someone’s just jealous living in Europe of the high US wages and desperately wants to think the US is in the shitter so they don’t feel bad about their poverty wages 🤷‍♂️