That CA state tax is less than Maryland’s! We paid 7.98% in state taxes in 2018 – Maryland no longer lets us itemize on the state return since we can no longer itemize on the federal. We were hammered.
That $16k is quite off. The actual amount will be closer to $20k. See here:
https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#WXpij6LwWM
Uber went public today… guess some of the folks who used to ride my bus route will no longer be doing so…
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/technology/uber-lyft-low-tax-millennials.html
That link gives $16,938 for state income taxes. Further down, there are estimates for sales taxes, fuel taxes, and property taxes, but those can be highly variable depending on your spending and other financial habits.
$20k here UCB. You are assuming that it is MFJ.
Good Question. I only have one data point (my family)… suspect we are on the low end in terms of income, but apparently we have assets…and so we are full-pay at an expensive but meets-full-need college.
As the financial aid office wrote in their letter the first year (at the time, I think they would have been looking at our 2015 data, when our AGI was $131.8K):
We have not bothered applying for financial aid since…
Every time I hear about someone moving to FL, I’m reminded of the “Florida Man” meme. No thanks. 
@CountingDown, you might not have fared well in California either. Their income tax goes up to 8% fairly quickly, and goes all the way up to 13.3% based upon your income.
For those curious about Cost of Living comparisons, try google “col calculator”. When we played around with them a few years ago (when DS was comparing job offers) it was interesting to see the differences. As expected, usually the main factor was Housing.
EXAMPLE - https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator/compare/denver-co-vs-san-francisco-ca
In my social circle, I know at least 8 millenials, children of my friends whose employers went public. In all cases they were set for life. Most took a long leave of absence from work before they re-entered the job market if at all. The latest ones are Zoom and Pinterest, they have a 6 month lockup period so money is not in the bank yet. It will be interesting to see what they do. Both have very young children.
The most money one millenial made was over $500M (after lock-up period) and he was one of the first employees at Google. He’s working…on his expensive hobbies.
Wow - that’s quite the social circle! Hopefully those fortunate millenials find a way to share a bit of their windfall with their parents.
That’s a very interesting calculator, @colorado_mom. Very eye opening.
That calculator is how we remind COkid that Bostonkid’s salary is not as impressive as it first sounds (Denver +27% = Boston).
The cringe worthy stat is that Denver +67% = SF (where housing costs are 149% higher)… it was a no-brainer for Boston_kid to accept his job in Boston (near friends) over a lower salary offer in SF. I’m happy about that since our family is on East coast.
@colorado_mom, almost all paid for several first class trips for their parents/in-laws. I am sure they were helping out their parents/in-laws/siblings if needed. All are good kids.
The folks who are SOL to get SS payments;
https://www.investopedia.com/retirement/8-types-americans-who-wont-get-social-security/
Including:
^^the easy workaround is to just hold a bank account in another country to which SS can remit benefits, and then transfer funds from there.
If the country allows such transfers. 
I am sure that no one here would want to retire in Kazakhstan etc. but this is something to keep in mind… international relations can become sour… so retirement in some of the countries often mentioned as bargain retirement places could become tricky.
I wonder what the common issue is for these countries – they are not all human rights abusers or political foes. S2 has a US bank account, lives in one of these countries, has travelled to several others, and has no problems accessing funds. I do know that he needed to have a residence visa to qualify for a bank account there, but frankly, much of the country runs on cash, and he hasn’t felt the need for one.
"I wonder what the common issue is for these countries "
all were or still are Communist controlled countries- many still are within the Russian sphere of influence.
In other words- its in all probability a political decison.
“Azerbaijan, Belarus, Cuba, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, North Korea, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan or Vietnam”
Ukraine is anti-Russian and is definitely not Russian-controlled.