I will take one for the team and take $140k a year and report back. It'll be hard, since it's only 3 times what I make now, but it's worth it for science.
this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2025
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no please no..rethink how your family will survive the test of this strategist's poverty line.
where are the application papers? im signing up too we're in this together
Bet
Green tested out his $140,000 theory, by looking at national average data on key costs — and calculated $32,773 for childcare, $23,267 for housing, $14,717 for food, $14,828 for transportation, $10,567 for healthcare and $21,857 for what he said were other essentials. Add in federal, state and FICA taxes, and it gets to a gross income of $136,500.
It makes sense, although people are still dumb enough to fall for means testing and declare the arbitrary line should be lower because they don't understand COLA
That first number is why birthrates are at historic lows. Plus kids make up part of all the rest of the numbers.
Kids are far too expensive at this point.
It's not ideal.
Who needs kids anyway? I can’t understand why some people want lots of kids, each and everyone of them is a significant long-term effort and responsibility.
Be child free and you could buy a brand new car every year with this poverty line.
The problem is that somebody has to have kids, otherwise we have no more humanity.
If individuals decide they would rather be child free for their own reasons, that's fine. But if capitalism makes everything so expensive that people who want kids can't afford to raise them and never have them in the first place, that is an extinction-level problem
Not just no humanity, but also it collapses almost every system we have economically. If people stop having kids, there won't be anyone to take care of the tasks required to support the aging population.
I see it as a future Dubai, where foreigners with little rights make the whole of the workforce, and are the ones having the kids needed to prop the nation.
It’s a shitty future, but hopefully those migrant families are valued and treated better by democratic countries that the opulent Middle East does.
Makes sense. About a decade ago it was estimated around 80k. With the post-covid world the way it is I think that increase is reasonable
87.5k in SJ, california. 100k is low income there now. now theres like a reverse white flight going in bay area now. the soccer mom karens have returned. signs of gentrification is the increasing amount of CAFES in the area.