$600/week after tax is surely a massive amount and enough to give a family a very comfortable lifestyle. I always thought it was cheaper to live in the US than in the UK. That amount here would give you a luxurious lifestyle. What am I missing?
Is $600/week enough to live comfortably in London? It’s not enough to live comfortably in most large cities in the US. Our mortgage payment is $2200/month. And we live in the most affordable large city on the West Coast (Portland, Oregon). LA, SF, and Seattle would all be much more.
If by we, you mean two people, then it's $1200/week for the both of you. So that leaves you $2600/month after housing (maybe not including taxes, utilities, repairs). That doesn't seem too bad.
Also, you're talking about a mortgage for a property worth over $400k. It's unreasonable to expect that unemployment would be enough to pay everyone's mortgage, regardless of how much it is.
Not everyone's spouse would automatically qualify for unemployment. For example, if I make enough to cover the $2600/month rent on my own and my wife is a full-time caregiver for our aging parents, if I lose my job we would only collect one unemployment check.
Yeah, if I were planning for that level of income, then we could probably comfortable cover our bills. My wife would have to already have a job. And we'd have a pretty sizable commute to get to work. So, bills would get covered, but life would be a lot less comfortable (though comfortable when compared to not being able to afford the basics).
But Portland is pretty affordable. $400k doesn't get you much in California (there are foreclosures in South Central listed for that much on Zillow right now).
Where are you getting these figures from? Is that before tax? Median household disposal of income is about 28k. And that's household, not individual. Many households are earning two incomes.
Can't believe how out of touch with reality some of the people on here are. My post is sitting on -4 right now. 24KGBP per year, after tax, for being unemployed. You've got to be kidding me.
A person with no dependents and no health issues can easily live on that pretty much anywhere in the US. However, if you have to support children, or need health insurance, or health care, then it could be difficult.
I do my accounts quite carefully and I'm very well aware how much things cost. My rent for a nice flat in a city is 650GBP per month. You can double that for rough monthly expenditure, and that's an expensive month.
