Just looked at the latest housing affordability breakdown for major US cities and wow, the gap is wild. San Jose tops the list as the most expensive city to actually achieve the American Dream — you're looking at needing $319K household income just to cover living costs there. San Francisco isn't far behind at $297K.

What struck me most is how the most expensive city scenario plays out across the West Coast. San Diego, LA, and even Seattle all require $200K+ to make it work comfortably. The study uses the 50/30/20 budget rule (half for needs, 30% discretionary, 20% savings) and basically doubled the cost-of-living index to figure out realistic income needs.

Even NYC and Boston are more affordable than the California metros, which is kind of surprising. Boston sits at $199K while DC is the most "affordable" of the bunch at $187K. Grocery costs and especially mortgage payments are the killers — average monthly mortgages in these expensive cities range from $4K to over $9K.

Makes you wonder if the American Dream calculation has just become a numbers game in these most expensive cities. Data's from early 2025 so pretty current.