$20,000 annual discretionary budget is a level of wealth I struggle to wrap my head around. And that's considered part of the "cost of living"? I wouldn't even know what to do with that much extra money
this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2025
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Just one example:
A 2023 Pew Research Center survey of 24 countries asked respondents how many countries they had traveled to outside of their own. Surprisingly, the U.S. isn’t even in the top 10 list of the most-traveled countries; it comes in at No. 13, with roughly three-quarters of Americans responding that they had traveled to at least one other country.
It says “surprisingly” but its not surprising to me at all, considering I can hardly afford to travel domestically like twice a year, let alone internationally on top of that. By contrast,
According to the survey, Swedish residents are the most traveled nationality in the world. Over half have traveled to 10 or more countries. Indeed, for Swedes, not traveling abroad is rare, with over 99% of them reporting having visited another country.
OK is wrong, my wife makes 16 an hour and can afford to pay for home if barely. 25 an hour would be closer to what is needed.
3-in-1 combo for easier comparison and share-ability. Also compressed to save space
Can't speak for all states but I have a really hard time believing this map based on the numbers for NC. The minimum wage needed for what any reasonable single person would consider the cost of living is not >$80k per year, even in the cities. You'd be relatively comfortable making that much here, even be able to save for a down payment on a house if you didn't choose to live in an expensive area.
Where are you getting these numbers?
SmartAsset’s calculations for cost of living in 2025 are based on a healthy financial breakdown of 50/30/20 for expenses, discretionary, and savings percentages. Which is a level of fiscal security everyone should be entitled to IMO
Their cost of living calculations are not based on “what is the bare minimum one can survive on” where your percentages look more like 66/33/0 or 90/10/0
Really the larger thing these maps show is how all of the money has been drained away from working people over the past 70+ years. The cost of everything has accelerated, for example $35 an hour is about the amount one must make to afford the median rent or median mortgage prices in 2025, but we get screwed out of the value that our labor creates as it gets siphoned upwards. Most Americans survive on credit, which they wouldnt have to do if wages had kept up with inflation the same way that rent did since an era before neoliberal economic policy wrecked everything. If they had, then people would be making about $35 an hour. Considering we produce such massive value with our labor, it makes perfect sense. But allowing wages to stagnate is obviously beneficial to those with concentrated wealth, be it companies or individuals
Too many data classes. Too many colors. I can't determine exactly what class states are without a color picker.
Your update legend is more confusing than the original
I suppose that is a fair criticism of the multi faceted map with red and green, but the other two are simple light-dark scale and I dont see how your criticism makes sense. You can literally read those two perfectly clearly in grayscale if you wanted to. So I dont see the criticism there, sounds more like a personal issue
I'm a GIS professional for 11 years and work with accessibility so no it's not a personal issue. Any more than 5 color classes are too much. Your inability to accept criticism is a personal issue
I accepted your criticism as far as it was reasonable to me. Im not a professional, nor do I think my chart needs to meet your conception of a professional standard. As I said it is clearly legible to myself and many other people. The middle map yeah its not accessible to someone with colorblindness issues, I get that. I agreed with you. The other two are accessible and legible perfectly fine in grayscale for anyone with vision issues.
The idea of it not having more than 5 classes is something I even personally already did when it was feasible on the orange map, without knowing anything of what is apparently a standard. I intentionally did not break down the scales any further just for that clarity. That was not an option for the red map, as finer bands made far more sense in that case considering the width of the scale that was caused by massive fluctuations in state minimum wages
I dont see how this an issue with me as opposed to you being a nitpick since you do this as a day job. Im doing it for fun and for my own visualization. And it appears most people dont seem to have any problem understanding them. Maybe you oughtta lighten up a bit
I don't really care. You're the one who made it personal
Okay? 🤷♂️
I make less than all of those and live in one of the expensive states. Life is fun. :)
Hourly minimum wage in France (after taxes) : 9,40€ 💀
You first need to calculate the cost of living and compare the wages against that.
I would love one of these for the UK
Id be happy to make some up, I just would need reliable COL data to start from if I can find it
Can you define cost of living a little clearer?
Data and Methodology
SmartAsset used MIT Living Wage Calculator data to gather the basic cost of living for an individual with no children and for two working adults with two children. Data includes cost of necessities that cover housing, food, transportation, income taxes and other miscellaneous items. It was last updated to reflect the most recent data available on Feb. 10, 2025.
Applying these costs to the 50/30/20 budget for 50 U.S. states, MIT’s living wage is assumed to cover needs (i.e. 50% of one’s budget). From there the total wage was extrapolated for individuals and families to spend 30% of the total on wants and 20% on savings or debt payments.
Questions about our study? Contact us at press@smartasset.com
Ah, so I should divide all of the numbers in your graphic in half to get to something reasonable then.
If you consider that in 1958 the average household family of four was funded 95+% by one male, then you can see clearly that the answer to that is no.
If in 1958, a salary of $6,514 a year could cover the cost for a family of four then that should show you how ridiculously expensive everything has become. Modern families have two income earners and still cannot afford comfortable cost of living, which is about double what it costs for a single individual.
If both of those income earners were paid at minimum $35 an hour, then families would actually be much closer to affording COL for a family of four. But they would still need additional income to reach the level of 50/30/20 comfort.
It seems some people are struggling to understand just how far off the modern American worker is from the financial security that was had by the average male worker in 1958. If we were to draw a direct comparison to that situation and say everyone should get paid enough to support a family of four individually, like you could back then, then everybody would have to be making like $80 an hour due to the massive inflation in costs that wages have not remotely kept up with. Another point is that households in the 1950s had practically zero debt, in comparison to modern households which are absolutely drowning in it
Do you get what Im saying?
I think what most of us are saying is that the way those people were living back then was unsustainable and an unnecessary level of wealth. The 50/30/20 comfort level is unsustainable and requires exploitation. Sure, we're all being exploited now, but to have $20k annual disposable income would surely mean exploiting someone else (e.g., developing nations)
How would more money flowing out of the US and into the rest of the world, rather than sitting in billionaire accounts, not improve the lives of people around the world? How would US wages being appropriately high not drive up wages around the world, considering Americans are generally paid well above any other workers?
Your argument of exploitation makes no sense. Sustainability is a fairer angle, but an issue that could be solved by having plenty of government money researching innovation. Money that would come from people spending money and paying taxes, from their higher wages. Rather than money being parked in billionaire bank accounts…
If anything, the current system by which we Americans get paid shit relative to what value we create is generating exploitation around the world
Map is useless. Cost of living varies widely within a given state.
The variations in minimums are literally the point of the map.
within a given state, but you don’t understand, so fuck it.
Thanks for clarifying. No need to be so condescending.
Plus it's a good map nonetheless.