[sokoloff]

Would your experienced well-being have been higher in 2008 with half-million in income? Would your experienced well-being in 2020 be lower if you were making $100K/yr?

I suspect the answer is yes to both, from which I conclude "2020 was worse across the board by important stability measures that you value, but for any given year, $500K in income is better than $100K."

[throwaway_goog]

> Would your experienced well-being have been higher in 2008 with half-million in income?

Probably not by much. All I really wanted was a basic place to live, enough food on the table, and a reasonable expectation that that'd continue into the future. My job was already doing what I would do for fun beforehand.

"Would your experienced well-being in 2020 be lower if you were making $100K/yr?"

Yes, because those things - food & housing security - are increasingly precarious on $100K/year now. You can still live on $100K/year in the Bay Area, but you're a couple years of rent increases from being priced out, and forget homeownership.