>It seems very hard to compare the two figures. I guess the interesting way to compare them would be what's the disposable income you have to spend normalised against purchasing power. So gross salary, less taxes (payroll and any others if applicable), pension contributions, student loan repayments, medical insurance contributions (and other out-of-pocket expenses relating to that you may have to pay in a typical year), and then baseline cost-of-living (rent/mortgage payments), but there are so many variables there it seems very hard to be directly comparable.

At $45,284 the US has the highest household net disposable income per capita in the OECD (http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/united-states/), where "[disposable income](http://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=46)" is adjusted for purchasing power and accounts for healthcare and government benefits. By contrast Canada is $30,854 (http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/canada/), below the OECD average of $33,604.

Keep in mind that FAANG silicon valley paid something like $400-500k/year for those with 10 years experience pre-COVID. With top notch health insurance and other benefits (except vacation). Comes out to $250+k take home income after taxes (without deductions, no spouse, etc.). At that amount other considerations essentially no longer matter.

Is that cash, or is a significant amount of that stocks/shares or other non-cash reimbursement (which I assume is subject to tax at the point it's realised)?

FAANG stock is essentially cash equivalent because it is highly liquid. However, some companies also pay straight cash at those levels (or higher).

It's generally 50% RSUs which are stock but equivalent to cash for all intents and purposes. Only difference is that you need to stay at least a year to get paid. The post-tax money I mentioned is with everything getting taxed as income.

speaking for google, it's a mix of: base salary, annual bonus, and restricted stock units, which are taxed at vesting time.

It blows me away every time I read an article about places other than SF and NYC: I could buy an extremely nice house, in cash, in most parts of the country, for less than a reasonable down payment on a crappy house in the bay area.

Put it this way, in Silicon Valley, a family of 4 making $100k USD qualify for affordable housing programs.

That seems pretty good to be honest. I’ve seen affordable housing listings in NYC for families of 1-2 with income limits topping out at 160K.

For example, this lottery [0] from early 2020 permits individuals with an income of $168,130 to qualify for the affordable unit.

Affordable housing units developed during some of the late 2000s to early 2010s had very, very high income limits. Those housing programs have mostly been sunset at this point but units built under those programs retain the income bracket levels then in effect.

http://web.archive.org/web/20200110053546/http://www.nychdc....

Interesting, thanks for the history! I personally qualified for/lived in an affordable housing unit for a few years right after college. The income limit for a single person was 95k at the time

What I find interesting about many of these units is how the net effective rent is still typically 40x annual income for people in that bracket. If I hadn’t switched jobs and gotten some significant raises in the process, much of my salary would have still been going to housing in an ‘affordable’ unit.

The rent is specifically chosen to be 30% of gross annual income which works out to be exactly that magical 40x ratio that's typically used in NYC rental qualification.