These are NYC tech workers. "Food" isn't broccoli beef stir fry at home for $8. It's dinner at Del Frisco's for $300.
You need to understand that when people bitch about the "cost of living", they're not speaking in broad terms. They're speaking in specific terms, inclusive of their insane budgetary choices that they believe are mandatory to be seen as high-status.
Yes, you can live just fine on the median income. But in order to have your ego stroked as the super important high class person that you obviously are, you have to spend some money. Choosing to live in NYC in the first place is certainly part of that, the rest is just gravy.
Can we stick to stats over caricatures? If we’re going to go by “gut feel,” the stereotype is that the status climbers primarily go into finance, consulting, medicine, and law - not engineering.
My work at FAANG and FAANG-adjacent companies would suggest that it’s far more probable that a random e.g. finance professional is driven primarily by perceived status than a software engineer.
The media and general public still openly poke fun at tech titans like Mark Zuckerberg and even Jeff Bezos in a way that they would never do to e.g. Jamie Dimon. The perceived statuses are still incomparable, and I think any competent Gen Zer knows it.
You need to understand that when people bitch about the "cost of living", they're not speaking in broad terms. They're speaking in specific terms, inclusive of their insane budgetary choices that they believe are mandatory to be seen as high-status.
Yes, you can live just fine on the median income. But in order to have your ego stroked as the super important high class person that you obviously are, you have to spend some money. Choosing to live in NYC in the first place is certainly part of that, the rest is just gravy.