The mean wage in the Seattle metro is $32.91. Assuming the usual 40 week and 52 week year that puts the average salary just under 70,000 a year. That means that not only can most people do it, most do. https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_42660.htm
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The mean wage leaves plenty of people living below that range, and a very few living very high above it. Especially in Seattle.
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Yeah, the better metric when throwing around the word “most” is median, not average.
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In the Netflix movie Mank there’s a great scene, based on real events, where MGM studio head Louis Mayer gives a heartfelt speech to the studio workers, convincing them to accept a temporary 50% pay cut due to the Great Depression. Of course in the movie (and many say, also real life) Mayer was crying crocodile tears and later on never repaid anyone their promised back wages even when the company could easily afford to do so. So being creeped out isn’t necessary the wrong reaction.
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That only drives the point home further. I used the mean because I had that around from a good source for the whole metro, but even the mean is below the minimum for this company. The median household income is readily available (92,000) and suggests that the individual median would be lower than the mean, but I just don’t have that number.
Edit: Sorry, I’m tired. I got into a whole “median vs mean in income population” thing that wasn’t relative to what you wrote.
Yes, median drives home the point even more, that this company is far, far removed from the norm for the Seattle area.
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Oh I get it. It is usually one of my pet peeves. But there is something about ‘you couldn’t live in X for income Y, where Y is almost always higher than much of the city lives on’ that sends me down a rabbit hole.
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