How would you like to earn $100,000 or more? Well, if you did, you'd be among the top 5% of all earners in the U.S. Not bad. Not bad at all.
And in case you were wondering where all those $100,000-a-year jobs are, here's a list of 16 cities with the greatest number of six-figure job listings (and the gross salary required to replicate $100,000 after adjusting for cost-of-living) from Money magazine:
- New York $205,426
- San Francisco $179,034
- Los Angeles $156,106
- San Diego $149,384
- Washington, D.C. $141,894
- Boston $137,649
- Chicago $126,929
- Seattle $117,037
- Atlanta $102,805
- Denver $102,348
- Cleveland $101,986
- Milwaukee $101,478
- Phoenix $97,976
- Dallas $93,665
- Charlotte $92,991
- Houston $88,977
Ok, a couple comments on this.
First, it's not how much you make that really determines your wealth, but how much you spend. If you spend less than you earn on a consistent basis, you can become wealthy. And conversely, if you spend more than you earn, it doesn't matter if you're making $1 million a year -- you're still going backwards financially.
Second, we all know that $100,000 in one city isn't the same as making $100,000 in another city. Why? The cost of living is different from city to city making the same income level have different purchasing power. As an example, that Big Mac that costs $2 in Grand Rapids, Michigan costs a whole lot more (especially on a percentage basis) in New York City. Now, apply those percentages to items like clothing, insurance, housing, etc. and you can see how $100k in GR lasts a whole lot longer than $100k in NYC.
We covered this issue yesterday in my post titled 8 Cheap Places You'd Want to Live (And How to Find More) that detailed why moving to a cheaper area of the country is a great money saving tip. We'll talk more about this next week too. Stay tuned.
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