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Well, it actually makes you part of the global elite, when you're well off in a country where being well off isn't just not starving:

"An American having the average income of the bottom U.S. decile is better-off than 2/3 of world population." (Milanovic 2002, p. 50)

"The top 10% of the U.S. population has an aggregate income equal to income of the poorest 43 percent of people in the world, or differently put, total income of the richest 25 million Americans is equal to total income of almost 2 billion people." (Milanovic 2002, p. 50)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_inequality

If you earn $100K and are single, you're in the 96th percentile. If you're married and only income, you're in the 67th. (http://www.whatsmypercent.com/)

Is it a huge salary? Sure it isn't. Having a bigger income and more savings is always welcome, but don't act like we're in the brink of starvation.

Take home money in our profession is still usually higher even when cost of living in the Bay Area is higher than in most places on Earth. You can eventually move away from the Bay Area with the savings you accumulated there. Of course, if the standard of living you expect is having a three bedroom house, it's going to be hard to attain, but looking at people in comparable urban areas (London, Paris, etc.) the expectation is that you'll live in a tiny apartment, just like in SF.




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