$100K is what a good shoe salesman makes in NYC - the cost of living is 40% higher than the next highest city (San Francisco). $10 will barely buy you a mediocre sandwich at Starbucks here. $2k/month will get you a tiny dump of an apartment, even since the recession began - that's what kids out of college rent. There was a study done in the mid-90's, well before the crazy salaries really started and began to bid the prices of everything up, which concluded that a family of four that aspired to private schools for two kids, two vacations a year, a bit of savings, and to own their own apartment needed to make $325K-$350k/year to even have a chance at such a lifestyle. Anecdotally, it feels far more expensive now. $25k for a good private kindergarten in Manhattan is on the low side ($30k-$35k is typical). Speaking of shoes, the lowly house brands at Barneys, Bergdorfs, Paul Stewart, etc., start at $450-$500/pair now, and if one is so disposed, you can drop $1,500 (before the 8.25% sales tax) on an unassuming pair of black wingtips at these places. It costs me $250 to fly to Austin to see my mom, and $125 if I have to take a car service home from the airport when I get back. Those big apartments on Friends and Sex and the City are pure fiction - $1 million buys you a two-bedroom, one bathroom apartment, with a miserable excuse for a second bedroom and if youre lucky, shared laundry facilities on premises once they hand you the keys, theres an additional $2k per month for common expenses for as long as you own the place ($2K if youre lucky, that is). In short, life is very different here than the other places I've lived in the U.S. (Cincinnati, Richmond, Northwestern Ohio, L.A., Boston, Detroit / Ann Arbor), and most people who don't live here do not understand just how different it is.
The really big, cosmopolitan cities New York, Paris, London, Sao Paulo, Tokyo - have extreme costs of living and correspondingly extreme professional situations and lifestyles (Brazilians are laid back? Really? ... I have former Brazilian colleagues who bill 400 hours a month at their law firms). So to respond to your question, yeah, a lot of people can indeed afford it (but as someone once eloquently said, it's costly to have money).
The really big, cosmopolitan cities New York, Paris, London, Sao Paulo, Tokyo - have extreme costs of living and correspondingly extreme professional situations and lifestyles (Brazilians are laid back? Really? ... I have former Brazilian colleagues who bill 400 hours a month at their law firms). So to respond to your question, yeah, a lot of people can indeed afford it (but as someone once eloquently said, it's costly to have money).