Friday, March 14, 2008

Money Talk at Brownstoner

At Brownstoner, there's a post about the part of Park Slope where I used to live-- there were no surprises in the post itself, but when I read the comments, but they turned out to contain a bit of interesting dialogue about money!

ok, am getting the feeling I am not making enough money to live in PS
my husband and I make a combined income of $95K and we own a building. After the tenant pays, we have to cover $1700 towards the mortgage, nevermind the heating bills etc etc
we are scraping by - but seriously where else would I find a 3 br duplex with a backyward,deck, DW and W/D for $1700 in brooklyn??????????????????????????????

Posted by: guest at March 13, 2008 12:56 PM

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12:56 - How is it you make a combined income of Only 95K? What do you guys do for a living.

My Wife and I made $45-50K Each right out of college. Now 6 years later we are earning around $175k Combined.

Granted we both work at least 10 hours a day in a very high stress enviornment, so yes it is a tradeoff I guess. But if you want to make more money, sometimes you have to sacrifice - Like everything in life there is always a choice.

Posted by: guest at March 13, 2008 1:31 PM

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1:31....I'm not 12:56, but I am also 6 years out of school, work 32 hours a week (including one day at home) and make around 80K. and i work in the arts.

And I have every Friday off in the summer.

Why do you have to work 10 hour days to make the same amount?

Why would you judge someone for doing something that pays less. It's really strange.

Posted by: guest at March 13, 2008 1:41 PM

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het=y 1:41 - Sorry you felt personally offended by my comments. However, your interjection is irrelevant because:

A) I was not "Judging" anyone, I was merely responding to someone who was apparently in despair over not earning enough.

B) That is great you make excellent money for working less hours, you are obviously very talented and valued by your company, but you are not the poster I was addressing as you obviously do much better than they do.

"Why would you judge someone for doing something that pays less. It's really strange."

How strange that you are telling everyone that you make so much and do so little when that is clearly not 12:56's (or my)situation.

Posted by: guest at March 13, 2008 1:49 PM

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1:49:

I only said my situation to highlight that everyone works different hours, are in different fields and have different circumstances. You could work for 5 years as an architect, a social worker, a cop or an NYU professor and still make 50K or so.

You know that the starting salary at Carnegie Hall...in the administration is 27K, right?? Most of those people have graduate degrees in music and are making less than 30 grand a year.

You seem totally shocked to realize that the median income of New York City's 5 boroughs is still around 50K per year.


Posted by: guest at March 13, 2008 1:54 PM

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guys, it's tacky to talk about how much money you make. really now.

Posted by: guest at March 13, 2008 1:55 PM

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1:54 actually I am a little shocked that 50K is the median income. I admit it, it seems low.

Posted by: guest at March 13, 2008 1:56 PM

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It is tacky as dinner conversation, not so much on an anonymous blog, 1:55.

Don't be such a prude.

Posted by: guest at March 13, 2008 1:56 PM



Well, no such prudishness on MY blog! But I found this fascinating, almost another little New York Story in and of itself. It does show you that people here can have skewed ideas about money-- when was the last time you heard anyone say "Gee, I can't believe you only make $95,000!"

6 comments:

Escape Brooklyn said...

Only in New York! (Or Brooklyn, in this case.)

Anonymous comments like these -- the norm at blogs like Brownstoner -- just give me a headache.

guinness416 said...

The "it's tacky to talk about how much money you make" comment made me laugh. Very dry.

I don't think it's unique to NY. Certainly in Toronto and Dublin, two of the other cities I've lived in, you're likely to hear the same thing.

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure if I did a double take, but I certainly had to re-read those comments again. "Only 95k" is just about the last thing I expect to read on a PF blog. I'd say 95k combined is a fairly good income.

Anonymous said...

I make $95K on the nose (in the peninsula south of SF). I can assure you that I am viewed as a pauper by my middle class family and friends. I know most of them feel genuine pity about my dire straits.

I have spent some time digging around to understand why this is the case when Census statistics always show that the median income is less than mine, regardless of where I look in the country. What I've found is that the distribution is very skewed. A little past the median, people's salaries rise very sharply in many cities.

Andrew Stevens said...

$95K (in household income) is middle class in even the wealthiest communities. The wealthiest communities of more than 50,000 people are Cupertino, CA, Bethesda, MD, and Greenwich, CT with median household incomes of almost exactly $100,000 each. While incomes do sharply rise above the median in most places, it is not "a little past the median." It is actually well past the median, the top 20% at least. Your family and friends are not middle class; they are upper class, plain and simple. (Less than 16% of households in America have incomes above $100,000. Only 27% have incomes above $75,000 and that will include some households with two working adults making about $40,000 each.) 27% of adults have college degrees; if you and everyone you know has at least a bachelor's degree, you're probably rich, no matter how "middle class" you think you are. In the office in which I work, only the entry-level peons can credibly claim to be middle class and even their claim is a bit dubious.

New York City, by the way, has a median income lower than the U.S. average (about $43,000 compared to $48,000 nationwide). NYC is, despite its high cost of living, not richer than the United States in general, but poorer. What they have is an absolutely monstrous gap between rich and poor. San Francisco is genuinely wealthy, though, with a median household income of nearly $58,000. It is one of the wealthiest large cities in the nation (only San Jose and Anchorage are wealthier).

Kizz said...

I can't read the comments on those sites because everything is so argumentative. It all raises my blood pressure.

"Only 95K" though is hysterical to the actor daughter of 2 public school teachers.