The typical U.S. family earns about $71,000 per year, according to the Census. Yet, the average American believes a family needs at least $85,000 in annual household income to get by, according to a recent Gallup poll.

That finding tracks with a recent study from SmartAsset, a financial technology company, which found the average American worker needs $68,499 in after-tax income to live comfortably. (That works out to around $85,000 in total income, assuming a 20-percent tax hit.)

The two releases point to the same conclusion: Many Americans earn too little in 2023 to attain a decent standard of living in their communities.

  • toxic@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Take into account that the ‘average American’ also likely makes closer to the median salary ($45,000) than the average salary due to all the billionaires offsetting the average.

  • bdiddy@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    reducing housing and health insurance cost and that number freaking halves.

    Our politicians could very easily solve this. The problem will only get worse if we just keep paying more and more for everything so that everyone can constantly make crazy amounts of money.

    85k is still a shit load of money, but it seems like it’s not because your basic starter home is 400,000 lol.

    We can fix that with legislation. Then lets get some free ass health care for fucksake. For a family to have a medicore insurance plan it’s 1000+ per month.