In spite of what people have said, $100,000 a year will make you pretty comfortible in most places in the country, even NYC. You won’t be “rich” as defined by someone who can roll like P Diddy, but its still pretty good.
Salary this year so far: $0
Salary last year: $0
Salary the previous year: 0
Salary the year before that: 0
Income is a different matter. I’m an independent contractor and working on being an entrepreneur. Nobody pays me just to show up.
Due to a budgetary crisis in Georgia, last year I was paid in fish and cotton. I declared income on 243 big mouth bass, 126 catfish, 732 brim, 5 ocean perch and 15 bales of machine ginned cotton which, upon further inspections, turned out to each be a layer of cotton covering an empty refrigerator box. I was pissed and considered suing, but the lawyer only took halibut for a retainer and the exchange rates are so damned extortionary that they might as well be herring.
On a good day, I make about $600,000/hr. But that damn machine keeps breaking down! Curse you offset press!! Curse you!!
Boy, I’m feeling good right now, after looking at some city comparisons on monstermoving.com. NYC’s 413 didn’t surprise me too much, but my own home of Houston has a comparative cost of living index of 60*! Interestingly, Austin’s is 76.
There are a few reasons people are reticent to reveal income data, as I did vaguely on the above mentioned thread a few years ago; some are related to feelings of income somehow reflecting status (pride, humility, shame, wtf am I doing with my life?) and others have more to do with the fact that if one is perceived as being wealthy one is constantly dealing with approaches from those who would like to share in that wealth.
Regarding the first set of reasons: one observation I made during my years of living hand-to-mouth and working some dead-end and often low-paying jobs was that, while I shared the same economic position as my co-workers, I did not necessarily share the same socioeconomic strata. I never succumbed to the “it’s The Man versus us” headset, of which I saw much. While many of my co-workers along the way made the same kind of money I did, and had about the same kind of resources, we definitely did not share world views.
I think I saw being on the bottom rung of the ladder as transitory, i.e., this is where you start.
And I didn’t really care who knew what about how much I made. I certainly wasn’t in the competition for a trophy wife.
One of my better paying jobs in my previous life was as a reactor operator in a chemical plant. There the pay scale was posted and anybody who cared to could figure out what Ringo, Skilled Reactor Operator who’s also drawing the graveyard shift differential, took home.
Now I’m a corporado, and the company I work for has written policies forbidding discussion of compensation. That influences me, but OTOH, I’ve had many a frank discussion on the subject with professional colleagues.
*****And I remain amazed that so many people can maintain what seems to me to be incredibly extravagant lifestyles while I can’t easily justify to myself spending for geegaws. Maybe that’s a personal thing - ya live frugally long enough and it gets under your skin.
The regional differences are a huge factor in determining how much bang you get for your buck. Check out the Places Rated Almanac if you’re ever thinking of moving. Here in NJ someone earning 100K is not considered rich, merely middle class. My mortgage and property taxes alone are $24k a year.
I live in Tokyo, and need a certain amount of money to survive. (At least that’s what I tell the boss. 
)
Vaguely remembered, but didn’t the protagonist in Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities figure that he could maintain his $1,000,000 a year in overhead Manhattan lifestyle for about $100,000 a year in Louisville, Kentucky?
Hmm…, now I must go get Louisville’s comparative cost of living index.
Whoohoo! Louisville’s a 72, which makes Tom Wolfe’s protagonist about half-right, and makes Houston paradise.