NorthernRyland

I'm just trying to make sense of this. If you have any information to contribute please do.

well yeah American middle class is hurting and that's why they're upset. What do you think this is all about anyways? 39k USD per year is hard so you need two incomes to even start scratching the surface and with house prices you may be stuck renting or in a high stress mortgage for 30 years. Not good times to be an American on the lower levels.

These are 1,500/month. One room and a fan. You can't lose!

It costs 300k a year to raise a family in Bangkok really? That's as much as middle class Americans in a major city would be spending. 120,000 USD per year is high income for any country in any city.

That's about right in my estimation also. What "Thai middle class" means may not be clear either. I'm thinking of the suburban family that drives a new car (financed) and has a mortgage on a two story home in a project and takes their kids to the mall on the weekends to eat at some Japanese chain restaurant. So debt, two full time jobs and not much free time. Sound familiar? Personally this lifestyle horrifies me and is one of the primary reasons I don't want to live in America.

I just made a thread about this and it accumulated a number of interesting economic figures. The short answer is it varies widely and no one agrees. 😂 Oh great, that picture of the tumor a user posted become the thumbnail. How lovely.

My first year in Thailand in 2005 my budget was $400 month but USD to THB was over 40. My rent was 4000/month (which was hugely overpriced looking back) and Thai food was 20 baht per plate. There were some American breakfast places that maybe 100 baht but you get bored of those more than once a week. Easy to make the budget back then. These days you'd be screwed I think. I haven't dug too hard but the people earning 10k I know don't have rent by some means and are the types that are distinctly awkward eating in restaurants unless they're the absolute bottom on the barrel places, noodles and such. Even at 50-60 baht for most food now they'd be hurting if they ate fried rice outside once a day. Not so bad though, we always cooked at home in the US and going out all the time is annoying too.

before I started watching YouTube channels about YouTube during COVID I literally did not know anyone spent that much in Thailand. 🙂 That's about the median income in the USA and ~5x the median in Thailand so the top %1 of earners probably. This must be in Bangkok, Phuket, Samui etc...? I could not spend that much if I wanted to. I would need to move and go out of my way to find a house far too big for me and eat out as much as possible.

I see the most on YouTube comments. I think they are very fresh expats or people planning on moving to Thailand. The forum members here despite our usual cynical and bitter nature seem to be more realistic and understanding.

to my points, some people live in areas which don't reflect anything of the national average and they think 20k/month is dirt cheap where for most Thais this is a sizable mortgage they will pay off over 30 years like the rest of us.

Thailand is nice because you can find cheap housing anywhere. US totally screws you there. If you're making a top salary position in NYC rent chews up all your money. If you can avoid the trappings of the city you could save mega baht and retire early. That's what I would do.

Saw this English guy on X visiting Pattaya the first time. Indians everywhere he says! "These tourists are horrific, especially the Indians. F*** me. ...barfing sound...." 😂

It's been a long time since I ate ice cream at the mall but there was often the old farang sitting there and eyeing the girls. This was you? 😂

The company my wife works for hires the laborers and cleaners only 11 months of the year to avoid some labor laws. These people crawl by on 8000 baht per month and then are out of work for 1 month a year yet they keep coming back because it's actually a good place to work besides that. We hire a couple of the women to do extra cleaning and whatever. The men are hopeless. Drunks, dangerously low IQ and generally shiftless. I almost feel like it's charity hiring them for 8000/month because they can actually cost more than they're worth.

What job is this and where? She's earning close to the US median salary in Thailand. This is a huge amount of money in Thailand I personally couldn't spend that if I wanted to. (100000/33.5)*12=$35,820

These are the things that kill peoples budgets and put people in debt. If you're an American even that $9000/year could be make or break and was it really worth it? That's $23/day which is fast food meal these days in some cities.

And by the way that would mean per capita income (which is the same meaning as average I think) in Thailand is closer to 300 USD/month, which I think is too low. Annual GDP per capital is $7182 so 7182/12/2=299

One more. Yeah What Google is spewing at the top of the page is total garbage. I'm quite confident the average salary in Chiang Mai is 20-25k/month.

I seriously doubt Thailand has reliable labor data . In other countries you can see the average income of the city you're in and that would make it easy to know what it costs to live there like the average person. In Thailand it's all over the place. People point to the minimum wage of 350 baht per day and others say "I know this guy earning 150k and there's more rich people in Thailand than you think" etc... and it goes round and round.

yeah so it's actually what they call the "medium family income" which is just GDP per capita x2. Does anyone trust these numbers? I guess Bangkok could be skewing the whole average by having a high median? 89,000/month is extraordinary for Chiang Mai but that's the only city I'm familiar with. I'm a software engineer so I thought I would check. from https://th.jobsdb.com. So a software engineers earns less than the median monthly salary in the whole country? Did they include some billionaires in the numbers to juice them up? From Glassdoor. Sadly low again. Does anyone know a persona who makes 90k/year, what do they do? I know a couple people who are near retirement in an old school company which gives mandatory raises but that's all.

This is another factor which causes endless debate. People can't decide if medical care is included in cost of living or not. Personally I don't include it because it's too confounding. Some people get it free back home, some people are too young and blow it off, some people have millions THB in savings and will pay out of pocket, insurance varies widely by age anyways... etc... etc...

maybe I'm old fashioned but I don't like the idea of a Pakistani being mayor of London. Imagine if the mayor of Bangkok was some Farang born in Thailand. Doesn't sit well with me.

what accounts for the wild swing? Rent is probably close to 20k alone but maybe you own a property.

Here's another question what is the average monthly wage in Thailand? I hear this 29,000 baht number quoted often but I don't think it's correct. GPD per capital is 7000 USD year which is 583 USD/month and currently 19,500 baht per month which sounds right to me. I did a little research and GPD per capita is pretty closely tied to average wage as I understand it. I think that's tight but I know many Thai people live in generational homes and may not have rents or built homes on family land which is a one item purchase.

I would ignore it. After all Thailand has not able to properly process traffic tickets. They simply have no infrastructure and the authorities don't care enough. Everyone knows this and nothing is ever done. Unless immigration gets involved personally it's a non-issue. If it becomes an issue you'll know about it by no uncertain means.