"a family of four needs $136,500 a year"
I could see that, more likely in more expensive areas. You aren't getting anywhere in New York or San Francisco on $140K.
this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2025
96 points (92.9% liked)
News
33518 readers
2906 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
in New York or San Francisco on $140K.
A month?
Rent is like 50% of my income currently and I'm trapped because nowhere charges less for the same space and I don't qualify for rentals without a guarantor that I no longer have. At this age, my parents were in their 3rd house on a single income with 3 kids.
The wealthy really fucked us over, hey. They're scum for what they did.
They're scum for what they are currently still doing, and must be stopped.
1000%. Preach it!
Like always, how far your money goes depends on multiple factors. 140k in the Midwest alone means you're living comfortably. Like all bills paid off, a lot of extra money for leisure, etc.
If you have a family and live in the bay area, then it's not that much. I personally wouldn't put it at poverty, but it'd be somewhat close to being paycheck to paycheck (assuming you still need to pay mortgage and whatnot)
That doesn't even buy a single politician.
I thought I heard Sam Bankman-Fried say he was surprised at how little it cost, it was like $50k or something.
State level politicians are like $5k-$10k. Shockingly cheap but you do need to buy most of the set.
I live alone in a moderately low cost of living area making about 52k take home. With no extenuating expenses related to health I can put away a hundred or two a month after rent, gas, utilities, food and car maintenance (I drive and fix old shit myself rather than make a car payment). But that is literally all I can do. If I had a second person to support or was in any other area I'd be underwater quick.
Yes. The people saying no are no longer temporarily embarrassed millionaires but temporarily embarrassed middle class. Have or have not, and 140k is have not given inflation, healthcare, education, food, rent/mortgage, energy etc.
Well shit thats a little Less than 3x what I make lol. 💀💀💀💀
Which method does the U.S. use to calculate its poverty line?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States#Poverty_income_thresholds
TL;DR: "The U.S. poverty line is calculated as three times the cost of a minimum food diet in 1963, adjusted for inflation."
This is highly dependant on where you live, as has been said before.
uh huh, thank you vice and mr wallstreet substack poster for spreading such awareness, but where does that leave people in actual poverty?
Uh... right where they are? The American welfare state is insufficient across the board, so it needs to be strengthened across the board, and employers across the board should be forced to pay living wages.
The answer is NO, it's not. However, to be completely fair, I've bookmarked the "supporting materials" to give it a review later when I have a little more time.
As someone who grew up in a family actually straggling the poverty line, there's simply 0% chance that any family anywhere in this country is living in poverty with that kind of income. It's well above what most households are bringing in, and while there may be a limited subset of circumstances where that money isn't sufficient, that's not what poverty is.
And I read through some of the comments in this thread -- Assuming they've come from real humans not pushing an agenda, it makes me ashamed to be associated with those people.
there's simply 0% chance that any family anywhere in this country is living in poverty with that kind of income.
The original Substack addresses this point, but the short of it is: Most income gains from 35k to 100k are cancelled out by a loss of government benefits, so there's a lot less difference between these than you'd expect. You only start making real gains starting from 100k. Now a family making 100k will have expendable income that's true, but the vast majority of its income will still go towards essentials so it's still one emergency away from insolvency.
This makes way more sense. Thanks for the explanation.
Unfortunately, no it doesn't address that point. It's basically, if you pervert the definition from a century ago and interpret it in one specific way for a way of life that's hardly anywhere close to the standard/average, then you can maybe make a clickbait case for a super high income that drives engagement. Think of the click through and comments!
What? You're not making any sense.