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this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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I used to run in a party crowd that had a LOT of burning man folks in it. There were a couple of them that had middle class incomes, maybe even leaning upper middle class. Those are usually the ones that had an art car or whatever that they sank some money into, instead of the crap that most upper middle class Americans blow their money on.
But the rest of them? They worked at restaurants, did massage therapy, teachers, etc. normal people with median or lower incomes that would forego other expenses to set aside a little a money for their annual get high in the desert trip.
Yes, there’s a bunch of elitists at the core of the event, but it’s not the majority.
This year's BRC census.
TLDR: The trend of wealthy people is going up while the less wealthy trends down.
The other takeaway is that more than half the attendees make more than 100k a year so not exactly a minority.
100k salary is a decent amount of money but it’s far as fuck from being “rich”.
It might be a perspective thing, and how you both define "rich".
If someone gets by every week on ramen, a salary of $100k/year would seem like a crap ton of money. Doubly so if most of their community is also living off of ramen. One year on that salary alone would be life changing for this person.
If someone lives in a pricy area and maybe has a few kids, a salary of $100k wouldn't seem like nearly as much. Doubly so if most of their community makes that much. One year on that salary is just another year for this person.
For some people, "rich" is not having to worry about starving and knowing that they have a roof over their head. It's about finally being able to buy non-necessities, and it's about being able to have things just for enjoyment. Some people are very month to month in terms of costs and bills.
To others, "rich" is being able to buy expensive boats and cars. It's about having excess wealth and never having to worry about any monetary problems. These people might think of millionaires and billionaires when they hear the word "rich".
Of course some people would consider $100k/year rich. I'm certain that MANY people would take that salary boost in a heartbeat.
I'm not saying that $100k would set you up anywhere near as much as $1m would, but it's a hell of a lot more money than many people can make.
In 10 years, that salary is $1,000,000. For someone making $50k/year, it would take 20 years for them to make that much. For someone making $25k/year, it would take 40 years for them to earn that much. I would feel disingenuous telling someone who makes $25k/year that making $100k wouldn't be becoming "rich" to them.
Maybe that's their monetary sweet spot, and they rely on other things to finish fulfilling their personal definition of "rich". Family, friends, hobbies, etc.
If 100k isn’t rich to you then you have lived an exceptionally blessed life. Also “more than” doesn’t mean all of them are making exactly 100k
How rich you are on 100k really depends on where you live.
Tell that to people making less than 30k and describe the look they give you
100k in a place like NYC is literally living like someone making 30-45k in some rural town.
Then just move to the suburbs where your 100k is worth more… and where the 100k jobs don’t exist… or the commute to the 100k jobs is over an hour each way… dummy
What about the people in NYC making 30k then?
For the most part: they're doing better than you'd expect (ie homeless) given that they'll generally be living somewhere rent controlled.
They're still in abject poverty by comparison. It's like somebody living in a trailer park on 5k a year.
But no matter how you shake it out and keep whataboutisming people the fact is that 100k a year is the new 50k in a lot of US cities where average rents are well above 2.5k/mo.
The national median rent is 24k/yr.
In 2016 that was 11k/yr
100k doesn't mean what you think it does anymore. In nyc 100k means you can maybe live alone in a 1br (2.7k/mo) without a car, but not downtown (4.1k/mo). You'll be commuting 45ish minutes and be able to have a rainy day fund. You'll pocket about 60k/yr after taxes, after rent you'll have 24k/yr to spend on food in the most expensive city in the USA. You'll be able to shop at discount stores to make that money go a bit further. You'll go to dive bars to try and get $5 drinks instead of $15. You'll make your own coffee. You'll do your laundry at a laundromat because it's too pricey to rent a place with a washing machine.
It's a nice life. If that sounds like rich to you then the billionaires have brainwashed you. It's a middle class lifestyle.
The brainwashing is real. So many people are so poor that they don't believe you can be poor unless you're absolutely destitute and on the edge of homelessness each month. This 100k/year lifestyle should be afforded by minimum wage, tbh.
You guys keep bringing up cost of living like it’s some cool trick that lets you claim poverty while making nearly three times the local average salary.
If Bill Gates spent most of his fortune to live like a college freshman in a space station would you be calling him middle class? It would cost him several times an average Americans yearly salary just to eat puréed meats and shit in a closet, so clearly he couldn’t be considered rich anymore.
Who the fuck claimed poverty. I claimed it's a middle class lifestyle.
It's not rich.
More whattaboutism and strawmen
Yeah man any attempt to illustrate a point with hyperbole and metaphor is clearly just whattaboutism. Do you think middle class people aren’t seen as rich to people who are below middle class?
"Poverty" means not having enough money to meet basic needs. "Cost of living" is defined as the minimum money needed to meet basic needs. It's not just relevant to the discussion, it is the discussion.
Someone living in Idaho can own a house on $70k. Someone living in NYC is homeless on $70k.
If the local average is four times lower than the cost of living in a local area, the people making three times the local average are still feeling the effects of poverty. It's not a competition to see who is "more poor," it's a fight for a living wage regardless of where you live.
It's not a complicated concept.
No one in the comments above yours has said that $100k/yr is poverty. They are making the claim that someone making $100k/yr is not rich. There is a difference between poor and rich.
To me being rich is being able to afford practically anything. An annual salary of $100k does not buy that. In the US, a $100k salary affords you a middle class or upper middle class lifestyle. In San Francisco, a $100k salary qualifies you for subsidized housing. Location and COL matters. If it didn't, people wouldn't deliberately move to lower cost of living places where they can afford more and better things.
The average salary in NYC is 36k
https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/--in-New-York
Average is 50k
How long did you shop around for statistics that didn’t just cite US census data?
https://datacommons.org/place/geoId/3651000/?utm_medium=explore&mprop=income&popt=Person&cpv=age,Years15Onwards&hl=en
Top result in Google
That's individual income not household
Household income is the stat that matters.
If you're gonna be a dick, be right.
I suddenly have the urge to tell you how much I make just to piss you off.
As one of those people you are presuming to speak for, no, I wouldn't consider 100k rich. I find that to be an absurd statement.
Bro, median household income in the US is almost $80k. It's not 1998 anymore.
It's 70k and median means that half of households make less than that, not that its the most common salary.
True for one person but this is household income. A married couple both making $50k would fall into this. While that is definitely not poor by any means. I think it is fair to say that it would be a bit of a stretch to call a person in the us today making $50k "rich."
What do you mean? The article that was pulling the data used "household income" as the data set... It is exclusively talking about household income.
Yeah I went back and checked. Wrong about that, but I'd like to reiterate that 100k is simply the lower bound of the range provided. It does not mean that any or even a majority of them were making exactly 100k per household. In fact, 15% are listed as 300k which is more than the amount of people attending making less than 30k. Then you also have to consider that households that do make 100k are far more likely to have single-income earners than households only making 50k.
People tend to acquire wealth over time? There is a solid correlation between wealth and age, so this shouldn't be surprising in the least. And especially those who had time/energy to spare to attend festivals earlier are especially predisposed for acquiring now wealth down the line. Assuming that they return over the years, all of this is pretty much to be expected.
---In 2013, the median age of burners was 32, and in 2022, it was 37.
My take away was that it seems like it is the same people going every year: they are getting older and richer, because that is what happens over time.
They still should have checked the weather report.
Even if they had checked the weather, would they have known 0.8 inches of rainfall translates into being stranded in the desert and possible death? I've never been to BM or spent time in a desert so this is news to me. Were people warning about this and attendees just ignored it?
Yes. You need to stay out of the desert if there is any rainfall. That is basic knowledge you should know before going out there.
That's a fair point, but at the same time the desert is well known for being the harshest of all environments on earth. It's surprising so many people treat it like just a drive to the store.
Yeh I don't understand it either. I'm from Australia. Driving into a desert sounds like a pretty dangerous thing to do, no matter what the weather forecast is.
Nah they know rain turns everything into quicksand. But it doesn’t create a situation more lethal than daily life there.
I didn’t say they were smart people. Just not all rich people.
And done what exactly??
It rains there sometimes. Forecasts change wildly day to day regardless. But it’s a desert and the water typically evaporates so quickly that an hour later there’s no evidence it rained.
Not to mention, it’s unlikely the person died from being trapped in the rain. I’m not sure why the article mentions both things except to give news about the event conditions I guess.
And not gone into the desert in the first place. This is basic knowledge when going into a desert.
Have you ever gone outside?