This Is The Perfect Salary, According To 2,000 Americans
The perfect salary they came up with won't get them very far in the U.S., though.
insta_photos | Shutterstock If you were to ask a general segment of the population what they want more of, a lot of them would probably say money. There never seems to be enough to go around, especially with rising prices due to inflation and tariffs. MarketWatch reported that 57% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and chances are, a lot would like to change that.
It’s easy to think that the highest salary possible is the most desirable. Surely something above six figures at least. Surprisingly, though, a survey revealed that the salary Americans think is “perfect” is actually a bit more humble. The problem is, it may not be enough to get by.
According to a new survey, the perfect salary for Americans is $74,000.
Talker Research performed a survey on behalf of SurePayroll by Paychex that examined Americans’ attitudes about income. The survey included 2,000 participants. An average amount felt that the perfect salary for them was $74,000. Despite this, Talker Research noted that 19% of participants said that they would need to make at least six figures to maintain their lifestyle.
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Whether someone needs $74,000 or six figures for their lifestyle, 50% felt like they didn’t make enough to live up to it. Twenty-four percent of employed workers said they were not happy with their current salary. Clearly, Americans have a long way to go to actually reach their financial goals. Many admitted to looking for new jobs for this reason — 26%, to be exact. Sixty-nine percent are interested in making more money through side hustles or other options.
It’s not surprising that people feel like their income isn’t enough when even the ideal American salary doesn’t match up with the yearly income needed to ‘live comfortably.’
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the median income for a man in the United States in 2024 was around $67,704. For women, it was $56,316. This is noticeably pretty far off from $74,000.
All three amounts are lower than what SmartAsset reported was the “income needed for a single adult” to live in the least expensive state in the U.S. That title belongs to West Virginia, where a single person would need to make at least $80,828.80 to live comfortably. And it’s a far cry from the most expensive state, Hawaii, where the income amount needed for a single person is $124,467.20.
According to CNBC Make It, the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP) created a “Minimal Quality of Life Index” to determine how much money a person needed not just to survive in the U.S., but to also “[live] a fulfilling life with a chance at upward mobility.” The lower 60% of American households, as ranked by income, did not meet the threshold set by the LISEP index in 2023. Things have, no doubt, only gotten worse since then.
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All of this research has one common theme — Americans are not doing well financially.
Most Americans aren’t only making less than the income needed to live in the least expensive state in the country, but the income they consider perfect is also less than what is needed in that state. This means that even the dreams and goals Americans have regarding money aren’t realistic, and not because they’re too high. Instead, Americans are so used to struggling and going without that they’re underestimating how much money they need.
This makes one wonder how people are even making it in the U.S. The economy doesn’t look like it’s headed in a better direction any time soon, so the only way for Americans to keep up is to find ways to make more money. But it’s not really fair to assume everyone can just take on a side hustle when they were promised the American dream of working nine-to-five and making enough money to support their family and have some left over to save.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
