Annual Income/Living Expense US?

I’m thinking about a future in the States (I live in Europe now), and want to find out about different economical facts about the US…

What is considered a good annual income? I understand that it varies from city to city, some being more expensive to live in than others, but let’s take e.g. that I’m thinking about ATL, Los Angeles, and Houston.

Is there a database where I can get this type of information?

Also, what are the biggest expenses one has when living there? I’ve been to LA once, and I noticed that at least food is cheaper than what I’m used to. Cars and gas seem to be more inexpensive as well. But what about housing, taxes, insurance etc. ?

[quote]L-Dizzle wrote:
I’m thinking about a future in the States (I live in Europe now), and want to find out about different economical facts about the US…

What is considered a good annual income? I understand that it varies from city to city, some being more expensive to live in than others, but let’s take e.g. that I’m thinking about ATL, Los Angeles, and Houston.

Is there a database where I can get this type of information?

Also, what are the biggest expenses one has when living there? I’ve been to LA once, and I noticed that at least food is cheaper than what I’m used to. Cars and gas seem to be more inexpensive as well. But what about housing, taxes, insurance etc. ?[/quote]

The largest expense is housing. Many larger cities have public transportation. Every city is not the same as it costs MUCH more to live in New York than it does Houston, Tx. For instance, 1K a month MAY get you a one room apartment in New York (someone correct me if I’m wrong). In Houston, 1K will get you three bedrooms, a fireplace, 2 bathrooms and 15min or less away from the medical center or downtown.

The average family income is about 50K a year. Many people are making it individually at under 25-30K a year and attempting to support a family. Their idea of “good” may be different than your’s. If your question of what is “good” means what is “comfortable”, anyone making over 50K a year can probably make it in most cities living fairly comfortably unless they have 2 or more kids and other expenses.

That link will give you a basic overview around the globe. This next one will give you more specific ideas of how much it costs:

http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/costofliving/costofliving.html

[quote]Professor X wrote:

The largest expense is housing. Many larger cities have public transportation. Every city is not the same as it costs MUCH more to live in New York than it does Houston, Tx. For instance, 1K a month MAY get you a one room apartment in New York (someone correct me if I’m wrong). In Houston, 1K will get you three bedrooms, a fireplace, 2 bathrooms and 15min or less away from the medical center or downtown.

The average family income is about 50K a year. Many people are making it individually at under 25-30K a year and attempting to support a family. Their idea of “good” may be different than your’s. If your question of what is “good” means what is “comfortable”, anyone making over 50K a year can probably make it in most cities living fairly comfortably unless they have 2 or more kids and other expenses.[/quote]

Thanks for the links and reply Prof. I understand your point of people having different perceptions of what’s “good”. Eventually I’m thinking about a family, but not in a while. I’ve also heard that NY is expensive.

I’d most probably want to live in the South or in Cali. Wouldn’t even need to be among the biggest cities.

What I want to do is find out about what’s an average annual income for a certain profession, and compare it to the costs of living.

Comfortable might be the word I’m looking for…

I’ll check out the links, though.

In our country average income per person is like 12K$/year. And the wierd thing is that every other person in the major city drives a BMW or Mercedes. Ironic.
But in the larger area of the country it’s not so much shiny. People live on like 200$ a month.