[Workaccount2]

The economy is doing great though. If you are in the top 30%, things have been delightful the last few years.

The divide between the haves and the have-nots has exploded. Unfortunately its the haves who have the power (not just the 1%, its that 30%) and shoot down anything that will detract from their personal wealth or quality of life.

"I support affordable housing and new builds, but we cannot lose the character of our neighborhood!"

"I support a higher minimum wage, we are simply moving product sourcing overseas to maintain growth targets"

"I support taxing the wealthy, we only make $5M annually, go after those making $50M."

"I support taxing the wealthy, we only make $1M annually, go after those making $10M."

"I support taxing the wealthy, we only make $500k annually, go after those making $5M."

"I support taxing the wealthy, we only make $250k annually, go after those making $2.5M."

.....

The hard pill to swallow is that those who "made it" over the last few years are the ones who need to "take it" to balance things out.

But don't worry well compensated average HN reader, nobody is gonna allow your home value to drop much.

[lesuorac]

> I support taxing the wealthy, we only make $250k annually

That's the 4th %-ile not 30th %-ile; the 30th %-ile is 75k [1]. I'm not sure people making 75k are that enthusiastic about the past few years given that they're now paying 1/3 of their pre-tax income to rent [2] (previously 1/4). But yeah people in the 4th %-ile are going to be pretty happy with their rent control err 2% mortgage.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_States

[2]: https://www.rent.com/research/average-rent-price-report/

[em500]

It looks like you're relating 2019 individual incomes with 2023 median household rents. A better comparison would be with 2023 household incomes (the median household has more than one income, and one person households are mostly renting smaller/cheaper than the median home).

The 70-percentile US household income was $113,200 in 2021. In 2023 it's likely over $120k (since the median growth of 2022 vs 2021 was 5.4%). The 2023 median US household income is probably around $75k

[lesuorac]

I'm not sure where you're going with that. My point was really that being at the top is nice but the 30th %-ile aren't enthusiastic.

120k is going to be like 85k after tax so assuming they use the median rent rate they went from 21% to 28% of their post-tax salary going to rent. That's certainly going to be noticed (5.5k / month to 5k / month; 10% drop)

And the median household definitely noticed considering their income decreased [1].

[1]: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/09/median-househ...

[l33t7332273]

>don't worry well compensated average HN reader, nobody is gonna allow your home value to drop much.

I know personally some very well compensated HN users in the Bay area who can’t even afford a home that could drop in value.