年薪70萬美金是矽谷貧困線？

Hi everyone, I'm Terry. Recently, I saw a poll on the North American Chinese E-network. It's a forum for North American Chinese. And there was a user who asked everyone about the poll. He said his husband's income is a total of $700,000. It's about 21 million Taiwan dollars, or 5 million RMB. He feels that their income and expenses have reached the poverty line of the Wanchu. What is the concept of poverty line? The standard definition of poverty line is to meet the minimum income level required for living.

Then he asked his netizens if anyone was like them? Did they spend too much money? In fact, I have seen a lot of such rumors on Blind. Blind is a forum used by the American technology industry. There are so many people who are TC 500,000 dollars and then shout poor there. In fact, I don't think there is much to say. Because everyone's lifestyle is different. But I think we can actually calculate it today. With the background of this polemic author, a double-hearted family, children, living in the U.S. in the Bay Area, which is the place of the California Valley.

Let's look at the salary first

In big companies like Meta and Google, the salary should be normal. I don't know how old they are, and I don't know which company they work for. Are they engineers or other positions? But if the salary of 350,000 is software engineer, it's about L4 or L5 salary in Google.

This salary is not generally, but quite common in the U.S. And it's very reasonable But if we look at the whole United States today This salary is the equivalent of all U.S. middle-class The average income of Americans is not very high, which is only $56,000 a year Because the whole United States is actually very big, and the price is very different per week In the poll, he also said that their RSU basically sold it From this sentence, you can feel that they may really spend a lot

What does it mean to sell RSU? In general, salary is the bottom line plus RSU Some companies will have bonuses The shareholder of listed companies to employees is called RSU The way RSU is taxed is the same as the average salary Before the payroll of a general company enters your account, the payroll of a general company will be sold at the current price and taxed directly So the final value of RSU stock will be deducted after tax

And then usually when you get it, you sell it directly at the current price. There is no additional capital gain. Because the price you sell is the price you get. But many people won't sell it after they get it. Because they believe that the company's stock will rise for a long time.

After the capital gain is paid, you will have to pay a capital gain tax. So if the RSU gets the capital gain tax, it will be sold immediately. This is basically equivalent to cash income. He said that after they got 700,000 dollars, the tax will be about 380,000 to 390,000 dollars. Because they are married, they can pay taxes together. So there will be some benefits on the tax. Let's take a look at the income of 700,000 dollars in California. If the couple gets the capital gain tax, it will be about 420,000 dollars.

The gap between the $38,000 and $39,000 mentioned above is a little bit of a gap. The main reason is because of 401k. 401k is the retirement benefits program in the United States. Its purpose is to encourage Americans to save money. It's a bit like the RRSP in Canada. Because everyone knows that many white Americans are moonlight people. The advantage of 401k is that you can put your tax money into the 401k investment account to make investments. For example, your salary is $100,000 a year.

Taxable income tax break

It's a no-brainer.

In the poll, it says that the 401k is about $50,000. That means they've maxed out. Because the annual 401k is about $22,000. At least they made the right choice in the 401k retirement plan.

It's really stupid to have such a high income and then not max out 401k. In fact, many people still don't know why they want to max out 401k. If the salary of two people is deducted from 401k, it will be about 400,000. It's about 380,000 to 390,000. Sometimes the company's compensation will deduct a little more tax. Then when you pay the tax at the end of the year, the tax office will return you the tax you deducted. So we will calculate the salary after 400,000 US dollars. It's about 33,000 a month.

Okay, it's time for the expenses. The first one, he said that the house, car, and food and drink bill will cost about 20,000 dollars. I don't know what kind of mansion they live in, but in a standard house in the Bay Area, we use Sunnyvale's independent house price middle rate to calculate, which is about 1.8 million dollars.

I use Sunnyvale as an example because I think Sunnyvale is a typical middle-class area in the Bay Area. The housing prices here are not the most expensive in the Bay Area, but it is a very good city. Google and Apple have offices here. If we calculate the housing prices for $1.8 million today, 20% of the first seven units, and the interest rate is 6.8%,

The monthly loan plus interest is about $9,400. Of course, there are many assumptions about this figure, especially interest rates. If you buy a house in early 2021, you can get a 2.6% interest rate at the lowest. Then your monthly mortgage interest will become only $5,700. It's really a lot different.

So we use 6.8 this number It's an average of the past three years The house of 1.8 million is in Sunnyvale The annual house land tax is about 15,000 It's about 1,300 a month So the expenses on the house loan tax insurance water and electricity bills Internet bills plus about 11,000 12,000 or so

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Let's go back to the POWER of the WAN area

There should be two cars in the car area. Even if two people don't have to go to work, there are two cars that are very convenient. Especially if you have children, you basically have to have a car in the district, unless you live in SF. I don't know what car they drive, but if we look at the most economical Model 3, I think there should be a Tesla at least. How can Asians not drive Tesla?

The monthly loan for Model 3 is about $600, and for two cars it's $1200. Even if you go to a super-long-distance station occasionally, because you might have to go on a road trip on weekends, at most two cars plus electricity cost about $1500 per month. The reason why I got so low is because almost all the parking lots in California have charging stations, especially when they are working in tech. Maybe they don't even use the electricity at home.

It's enough to charge in the company. The house is 12,000. The car is 1,500. The rest is the food and drink fee. It's possible to spend 6,500 a month. It's 20,000 yuan at the beginning. And this food and drink fee. It doesn't include the cost of travel. Travel money is calculated differently. I don't know how they spent 6,500. A month on food and drink. Unless their house is over 2 million. Or the interest rate I bought at the time was really high.

In this case, we underestimated the house's expenses But the monthly fee of $6500 for food and drink is a bit exaggerated And you should know that there are many companies in Wan Chi that have free restaurants Of course I don't have children So I may have missed some of the expenses of the children who want to buy things But I think it's normal for two people plus children

I think it's enough for 3-4 months unless I miss something important Then he said his child's school fee for each year is about 50,000 I have no idea about the US school fee But I probably looked it up on the Internet In the Bay Area, the school fee for private schools is about 10,000-20,000 a year Of course, it is also possible that the parents in China want to send their children to the best and most expensive school Maybe 50,000 a year is the most top private school in the country Or they may actually have two children

and a child is about 25,000. It's about the same. Then he said that he would spend about 20,000 a year to give to his parents and travel. I think this should be the lowest and most normal figure of all the expenses he talked about. His parents should be in China. Otherwise, if he went to China, he would probably only give 20,000. Counting the travel twice a year, I think it's pretty reasonable.

In the last post, they said they saved the rest of the money, about $50,000. If it's also 401K, two people can save about $100,000 a year. To be honest, I think staying in a remote area for a long time will really have a value-added and twisted phenomenon. An average of $50,000 a year is absolutely not a poverty line. $50,000 in the United States is a lot of family income per year. And we haven't counted the mortgage. Although you have to pay more than $9,000 every month, half of it is assets. Paying mortgage is actually another type of savings.

Plus a normal house in the Bay Area It will definitely increase in the long run So the mortgage is a big part of the investment When they retire This house may be worth 4-5 million Then you sell it again when the time comes Then move to a lower cost of living Many Asians are like this So there is no money he can't save I think it's much better than 95% of Americans

當然在灣區住久了,價值觀扭曲之後,可能就會覺得五萬十萬都不是什麼錢。 而且我們今天用的假設是他們住在一個獨立屋,在灣區算是還不錯的一個城市, 兩個人都開特斯拉上下班,小孩子讀最貴的私立學校, 這樣子的lifestyle絕對跟貧窮線沒有任何一點關係。 當然價值觀是相對的,因為我不住在那個地方, 所以我的鄰居也都不是住好幾百萬的房子, 可能在那邊你的鄰居都住豪宅,開豪車,才會覺得自己很窮。

If you want to move to a remote area to live in the future, I hope this video can give you some reference numbers. If you want to live a middle-class life, have a house, two cars, and children, your expenses are probably like this. That's it for today's video. If you like this kind of waste, remember to give me a thumbs up. You are also welcome to leave a comment below and tell me if you think it's worth moving to a remote area. See you next time.