Photos of items from families in different countries with different incomes
gapminder.org87 points by uneven9434 5 hours ago
87 points by uneven9434 5 hours ago
Note that some of the entries here are clearly outdated. I've cycled through some "global south" countries that I'm familiar with and what's shown may have been true maybe 15-20 years ago. GDP has 4x since then and at the same salary level the lifestyle is either equivalent or better than the richer countries.
yeah some things are old - but still important documentation of how some people live.
Typically in developing economies, economic growth is very unevenly distributed. I would expect that in an economy that has grown 4x, many people would not experience any economic growth at all. I would be very surprised if that didn't happen - if rapid economic growth was that evenly distributed. And governments, especially in developing countries with little accumulated wealth and little credit, cannot afford to raise the standard of living of large numbers of people through welfare programs.
I observed the same. There are "poor" countries listed here that would make large swaths of Americans look like they still lived pre-WWII, and were destitute.
Edit: Sorry, to be more explicit: by global standards large swaths of Americans DO live pre-WWII lives and have poorly constructed homes and lifestyles.
To give context on my other comments, where I live in Scotland, median full time wage is around $55k.
You can live a perfectly comfortable life on that; you don't have to worry about bills or medical expenses, and you can afford to get a mortgage and buy a house (probably costing around $300k or so)
That's why I'm surprised about people from a richer nation saying they can't afford things.
> That's why I'm surprised about people from a richer nation saying they can't afford things
If you had the same salary in Switzerland or Luxembourg which, believe it or not, is not impossible, there would be a lot of items that you can't afford. Salary is important but cost of living matters as well. Granted, inside the same country, figures could change drastically but people tend to live where there are lots of job opportunities where it's more expensive.
How can you afford a 300k mortgage at 55k a year. That would be a very large percent of monthly pay right?
Yes, houses are expensive, but it's not out of reach. You can afford a mortgage on the average home.
Mortgages are generally paid over 30 years.
Long mortgages are a really really bad idea with high interest percentages. Unless you've locked in a low percentage from before corona you're going to pay almost as much in interest as you'd be paying for the house...
To pay off 300k within 30 years at current mortgage interest of 4% you'll have to pay 1432/month (215k of interest will be necessary)
Depending on the amount of taxes you have to pay, thats likely > 50% of netto wage
I've generally loved this site. Wondering what other distributions could be made so visual, where people near the top complain about the people just above them.
Click the Families dropdown. There are many other things, including beds, pets, toys and teeth.
Whoa, nice reminder of how filthy rich I and almost everyone I know are.
Modern lifestyle seems to start at $700-$800 per month per adult pretty much everywhere and doesn't get much better even at few k.
It depends. In a ridiculously cheap country like India where food prices are hilariously low you can get quite far on $200/month. Fresh vegetables (tomatoes, potatoes, onion, garlic, spinach, squashes, gourds, eggplants etc) are literally an order of magnitude cheaper than what you would find in a cheap American grocery store. You can also get full meals from restaurants for about 30-40c. Medical care is also dirt cheap with most regular doctor visits costing between $1-$2. High end medical care and surgeries for less than $1000 for the whole procedure and stay. The PPP multiplier is something like 6-7x.
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It's interesting that $14000/month is "rich" on this website, and some people earning $100/month actually own houses.
Meanwhile people making $50000/month in San Francisco can't afford a house because half of it is taxed away and housing is astronomically expensive.
You have it backwards. Housing is astronomically expensive in San Francisco precisely because there are so many people with high incomes bidding against each other.
When you have a highly inelastic supply (constrained by zoning laws, density limits, and geographical boundaries), prices rise to the maximum margin of what the highest-income buyers are capable of paying.
Regarding taxes: Since taxes apply to all local high-earners equally, it doesn't change their relative purchasing power against one another in the local housing market. If taxes were suddenly halved, that extra liquidity would be priced into the next bidding war, driving home prices even higher.
I promise you that someone in SF making $50k/month can comfortably afford a very nice house.
I promise you not. Houses here cost $2M+ for something livable and $1M for something with mold and other safety issues.
When half that $50K gets taxed, half of what's remaining has to be saved up for retirement in a place that deeply discriminates against age, you don't have much left to save up for buying a $2M house.
> half of what's remaining has to be saved up for retirement in a place that deeply discriminates against age, you don't have much left to save up for buying a $2M house.
Buying a $2M house is saving for retirement. Owning your own home in retirement is a massive financial win. And if you own a home in an expensive market, you can sell it, buy one in a more affordable market, and then the difference is unlocked retirement savings.
Ok, I made my other comment before seeing this but I find it very difficult to believe you can't find something reasonable for far less.
It’s untrue. Unstated assumptions are the quality of housing desired and location desired. In practice, because of the rent/price ratio being low here in SF most people will be taking a downgrade when going from rent to 1.25x that as mortgage after putting down $300k for a $1.5m.
It is true that the marginal rate can be very high, though, so heuristics based on pre tax income break down at these numbers. The place we live in costs $7k/mo but to buy it we’d have to spend $450k and then $9.5k/mo.
Nah it's the reality here. I'd say minimum income to safely own housing here is $100K-150K/month. OR cash already saved for the home, in which case income doesn't matter.
Yes, lots of households make that much, especially people at e.g. Nvidia with unvested appreciated RSUs.
Yes, the US economy is that badly fucked.
And the people on mortages were brainwashed into buying something they can't afford, and in for a foreclosure disaster when the economy corrects.
In every thread about housing people on HN post wildly outlandish claims about expenses that belie their totally out of touch perspectives. If you make 100K a month (the lower bound of what you just wrote). Let's say you put 25K into retirement. You eat out every meal so 4K food/living budget. That leaves 60K (I'll give you 10K slush fund for savings money or as a general keeping-up-with-the-jones' fund).
60K per month will pay a 4.5 million dollar mortgage. 4.5 million will buy you some of the nicest houses in the bay that aren't mansions. See:
https://www.realtor.com/news/unique-homes/midcentury-modern-...
You are either insane, or out of touch in a way that makes you insane. Of course, you can get a much cheaper very nice condo and "safely" squirrel away phenomenal amounts of cash savings. Expecting to own a high end house in a dense metro are on its own, is a pretty insane expectation.
Thanks for your comment. It makes a little sense that the average person might struggle with costs in the US, but it doesn't make sense that the highest earners do.
Don't forget taxes. In that bracket, in California, you're paying 50% of your income in taxes, and so $100K/month is actually $50K/month.
I think OP is overselling the point, but not by nearly as much as people think.
It's 2026 on a self proclaimed big brain forum and people still don't understand basic things like tax brackets... A sight to behold
That's not how tax brackets work.
The effective tax would be about 26%.
It's quite a bit more than that. I get total taxes paid of:
Federal: 1240 + 0.12 * (50400 - 12401) + 0.22 * (105700 - 50401) + 0.24 * (201775 - 105771) + 0.32 * (256225 - 201776) + 0.35 * (640600 - 256226) + 0.37 * (1200000 - 640601) = 399938.83
State: 0.01 * 11078 + 0.02 * (26264 - 11080) + 0.04 * (41452 - 26265) + 0.06 * (57542 - 41453) + 0.08 * (72724 - 57543) + 0.093 * (371479 - 72725) + 0.0103 * (445771 - 371480) + 0.0113 * (742953 - 445772) + 0.0123 * (1200000 - 742954)
SF property tax on a $4.5M property: 1.18268325% for a total of about $53,220.75
Total: about $493K for an effective tax rate of about 41%, assuming this hypothetical SF resident is single and just purchased their $4.5M property this year.