The 16 U.S. states where you need to earn more than $70,000 to be financially secure (2024)

FAQs

What is the highest living wage in the US? ›

Hawaii tops the list of states and what's needed to earn a living wage. It's the only state where a single person needs to make six figures to get by, pay for necessities and a few nice-to-have purchases, and stash money into savings, too. You'll need $112,411 to make what's considered a living wage in Hawaii.

On average, an individual needs $96,500 for sustainable comfort in a major U.S. city. This includes being able to pay off debt and invest for the future.

While California ranks third-most expensive for a single adult to live comfortably at $113,652, it only ranks fifth-most expensive for two working adults raising two children. The total family income should be at least $276,724 in the latter case.

To live “comfortably” as a single person in 99 of the largest U.S. metro areas, you'll need a median income of $93,933, according to a recent SmartAsset analysis.

To live comfortably in Massachusetts, a family of two working adults and two kids would need to earn $301,184 annually. “Comfortable” is defined as the income needed to cover a 50/30/20 budget for a family of four.

An analysis of the living wage (as calculated in December 2022 and reflecting a compensation being offered to an individual in 2023), compiling geographically specific expenditure data for food, childcare, health care, housing, transportation, and other necessities, finds that: The living wage in the United States is ...

With the annual inflation rate for 2023 at 3.4% for the year — up from 3.1% previously — salaries aren't keeping up. A Smart Asset report based on MIT's Living Wage data found that the average salary required to live comfortably in the U.S. is $68,499 after taxes.

SmartAsset says a single working adult must earn at least $114,000, or about $55 an hour, to support themselves in the Golden State. When it comes to a basic “living wage,” MIT says a single adult in California needs to earn $27.32 per hour or $56,800 per year.

But it is possible to live well even on a small amount of money. Surviving on $1,000 a month requires careful budgeting, prioritizing essential expenses, and finding ways to save money. Cutting down on housing costs by sharing living spaces or finding affordable options is crucial.

What is the cheapest place in California to live? ›

If we look at an adult with one child, the MIT living wage calculator is about $45 an hour, so even this $20 per hour is far below what MIT suggests for a living wage," Leigh said. MIT's living wage calculator considers expenses for a living wage to cover basic needs, such as food, health care and housing.

Comfortable is defined as earning enough income to cover a 50/30/20 budget, where 50% of your income each month pays for necessities, 30% covers discretionary spending and 20% is set aside for savings and investments or paying down debt.

South Dakota has the lowest living wage for individuals, requiring $13.87 an hour, or $28,853 a year. The state's housing costs are among the lowest in the nation, setting an individual back $6,784 a year. A family of four with two working parents will spend $9,639 a year on housing and $15,000 on childcare.

The national median for living comfortably alone is $89,461, which suggests that a 50/30/20 budget might not be practical for most single people.

Is $80K a good salary for a single person? $80,000 is about $5,000 higher than the U.S. median household income, so many people would consider it very good for a single person. “Good” is always a relative term when it comes to salary; whether or not the amount you earn covers your expenses is a highly personal dynamic.

A single adult needs to make about $60 an hour or $124,966 a year, according to the study put out by SmartAsset. Two working adults with two children need to pull in $319,738 a year. These salaries are all pre-tax.

$52,400 is the 75th percentile. Salaries above this are outliers. $76,448 is the 90th percentile.

If you make $70,000 a year living in the region of Massachusetts, USA, you will be taxed $17,164. That means that your net pay will be $52,836 per year, or $4,403 per month.

While people have different qualifications and different ideas of what constitutes a good salary, most would consider $75,000 per year to be good pay.

What salary is top 5% in US? ›

For 2022, the average wage for working Americans was $61,136. The average wages of those in the top 1 percent of wage earners were $785,968 that year. In the rarefied top 0.1 percent, the average earnings were more than $2.8 million in 2022.

A 2022 study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that the top 10% of earners nationally received an average income of $167,639 in 2021.