I may be out of touch, or perhaps everyone else has adjusted their expectations downward to account for how expensive everything is, or think that long commutes are normal.
I kinda of figure what you mean by 'barely-living', is actually worry free living style(good housing, close to workplace, go to decent places for dining/partying) in SF/NYC. And yes, 130k may knock the door for that standard, but not quite there.
But saying 130k is 'barely-living', if not bad wording, is close to insulting, and helps little in the conversation.
Is keeping your commute under 30m considered "close"?
Anyway, swap out dining/partying for cooking good food at home, add in rainy-day/retirement savings as well as saving for kid's college (even if you don't have kids yet). So, you know, you're actually following standard financial advice.
I mean, sure you can sacrifice quite a bit (don't save, eat crap, waste your time commuting, live in a shoebox) to get by on less, but at some financial point you (and your family) will just be treading water over the long term at best in order to work in SF/NYC. Especially considering that $130k is total compensation (ie. including bonuses that you might not even get, or in a form that is actually worth the face value).
I may be out of touch, or perhaps everyone else has adjusted their expectations downward to account for how expensive everything is, or think that long commutes are normal.
Maybe I'm just in a bad mood today.