> You'd have a higher standard of living in Cleveland at $100k than in San Francisco at $250k.
This is a good example of how "standard of living" is kind of a meaningless concept -- to someone who values "enough backyard to play catch in," you're correct; to someone who values "not living in Ohio," you're completely wrong.
> You'd have a higher standard of living in Cleveland at $100k than in San Francisco at $250k.
That’s a hyperbolic exaggeration. If you pay for a 2 bedroom apartment, transportation, food (even if the SF person only shops at Whole Foods or wherever), utilities, comparable health insurance, etc., then the SF person on a $250k salary is going to have considerably more left over to spend on whatever else they want.
If you have 2–4 people, a 3000 sq. ft. house is in my opinion worse quality of life than a 1500 sq. ft. flat, because you have double the rooms to clean, for little tangible advantage. If you feel you need the space for a bowling alley / film screening theater / wood shop / large library / child’s playground / art gallery / industrial kitchen / space to host an 80-person party / rooms for 10 guests / ..., in the city you can find all those within walking or easy transit ride distance.
>double the rooms...for little tangible advantage.
IF you can't understand why some people consider a larger house to be an advantage, then you are really failing to understand a large segment of humanity.
You seem to have missed the “in my opinion” part. Sure, some family of 3–4 might want an enormous house, e.g. to show off for the neighbors, put up the whole extended family as visitors under one roof, have a personal machine shop, give each family member 2 exclusive personal bathrooms, or whatever. For me, a bigger house would lead to worse quality of life.
I grew up in a mixed-class suburb, and many of my friends were the children of professionals (doctors, dentists, lawyers, businesspeople, etc.) with very large houses. So yes, I understand that some people think it’s important/useful to have a large house. None of them seemed to have a higher quality of life than my friends whose parents were professors, artists, teachers, etc. and lived in “normal-sized” 1000–1800 sq. ft. houses. In general, the large-house parents worked all the time, commuted longer distances, spent less time with their kids, and seemed generally less happy. On average the kids were probably also somewhat less happy. Having a big house, and having fancier material possessions more generally, isn’t really the most useful priority for most people to meet their primary life goals, in my opinion. YMMV.
At a world-wide scale, if every family needs to have a 3000+ square foot mansion on a separate lot, we’ll stay on track to wreck the planet.
I don't think it's at all hyperbolic once you take taxes into account. Between state and federal the difference is something like $60k, depending on your situation. That's over a third of the difference and we haven't actually taken actual cost of living into account yet.
Just moving between Maine, which has not-particularly-onerous state income taxes, and New Hampshire, which has none, I had nearly 10% more going into my bank account each pay period.
It amazes me that Texas and Florida professional sports teams aren't overwhelmingly dominant, given that the contracts that they can pay athletes are effectively 10-25% better than other states, due to lack of state income tax.
Why is that idiotic? It seems pretty sensible to me that you'd pay tax where the money was earned.
To take a simplified example, if you lived in low-tax Nevada, but traveled to high-tax/high-population California to play shows, you're earning money based (at least in part) on the large audience in California. Why shouldn't you pay California part of that revenue?
>Yes, but you're living in a very popular city. You're getting something for that additional COL.
Well, sure, that's true. But it's also possible the most important thing you're getting is a high paying job that wouldn't be available in a less expensive area. And it's possible that, like me, you would consider living in a dense city to be more downside than up.
It occurs to me a large factor in whether or not I'd consider people on the borderline either middle class or wealthy has to do with how much flexibility they have in then income. If you're getting a quarter million dollars every year from a trust fund and can live wherever you want, you're wealthy. On they other hand, if you and your spouse are grossing a quarter million dollars a year from jobs that requires twelve hour days in a very expensive city you don't necessarily like (and don't see much of in any case), you're middle class.
Cost of living matters a whole lot, though. You'd have a higher standard of living in Cleveland at $100k than in San Francisco at $250k.