$120,000 should be a great salary. In these US states, it isn’t

Welcome to Trump’s America, The i Paper’s World Insight series presenting the sharpest, deepest thinking on an era-defining shift in history and politics, investigating how Donald Trump and his administration have changed the US and the world – and where we go from here. • The hidden crisis of overqualified Americans who can’t get jobs• ‘We never changed, Trump did’: Maga’s insurgency against its own leader• The more America spends on healthcare, the sicker it gets A household income of $120,000 (£88,332) is supposed to sound like success in America. It crosses the symbolic six-figure threshold and places them roughly within the country’s top 35 per cent. Around 87.5 million of America’s 134.8 million households earn less, according to the latest US Census Bureau statistics. It is also $36,270 (£26,695), or 43 per cent, above the national median household income of $83,730 (£61,600). It suggests good jobs, a stable home and a family that no longer has to examine every supermarket receipt. In Donald Trump’s second term, it is also the sort of household that should benefit from his promise to “make America affordable again”. On taking office, he pledged relief from housing, food, fuel and healthcare costs. Yet, depending on where they live in the country, $120,000 might as well be five different incomes. Let’s give that $120,000 to a couple with two children in Texas. According to MIT’s Living Wage calculator, after meeting the basic costs of family life, they have $18,300 (£13,470) a year gross, or approximately $14,700 (£10,820) after tax, left to put into college savings or spend on a family holiday. In Florida, that gross cushion shrinks to just over $8,000 (£5,890). Cross into New Jersey and the family comes up $28,000 (£20,610) short. They are $31,000 (£22,819) short in California and $37,000 (£27,235) short in Hawaii. The parents haven’t lost their jobs or embraced a more extravagant lifestyle; only their location has changed. Travelling from Texas to Hawaii has roughly the same effect as taking a $55,000 (£40,485) pay cut. These families belong to the same national economy; around their kitchen tables, they would barely recognise each other’s financial lives. Take a representative $100 (£74)-worth of goods and services, including housing. The latest Bureau of Economic Analysis figures suggest it would cost $110.70 (£81.50) in California, $110 (£80.97) in Hawaii and $108.80 (£80) in New Jersey, the country’s three most expensive states. In Arkansas, it would cost $86.90 (£63.97), while in Mississippi it would be $87 (£64). Housing explains much of the difference: Californian rental costs are around 60 per cent above the national level average, since it has a long-standing shortage of homes in its most desirable areas. New Jersey – America’s most densely populated state, whose northern counties sit within the New York commuter market – combines rents of 34.3 per cent more than the national average with high childcare costs. Hawaii faces unusually high utility and transport costs because of its location and dependence on imported goods and fuel. And it is in Hawaii where the $120,000 household income breaks down most dramatically. Prices in Honolulu were 5.6 per cent higher in July 2026 than a year earlier, and energy had jumped 22.5 per cent, groceries 4.2 per cent, shelter 5.7 per cent and medical care 6.8 per cent. By the time the family in Hawaii has paid for food, childcare and somewhere to live, more than $75,000 (£55,208) has already disappeared, according to Living Wage calculator. The remaining necessities and taxes take its required income to $156,562 (£115,245). What sounds comfortably middle class elsewhere leaves an annual shortfall of $36,562 (£26,913), or more than $3,000 (£2,208) every month. In California, the money starts disappearing before the family has finished unpacking. Rents are 54.3 per cent above the national level, while housing and childcare together swallow almost $62,000 (£45,638) a year. Then the electricity bill arrives. The latest full-year federal data puts the average residential price at almost 32 cents per kilowatt-hour, more than twice that of Texas, Florida or Ohio. Much of that premium goes towards protecting and insuring California’s fire-prone grid, with wildfire-related costs alone accounting for 14 to 19 per cent of the money its three largest utilities sought from customers in January 2026. Before paying for anything resembling a luxury, the family needs $151,355 (£111,412). New Jersey catches families differently. Here, care for two children is estimated at $35,892 (£26,420) a year, more than the model family’s $26,950 (£19,837) housing bill and is one reason it needs a $147,567 (£108,624) household yearly income. Rachel, whose name has been changed, knows how quickly those costs accumulate. The 32-year-old supervisor of elementary education lives in Bergen County, NJ, with her husband, four-year-old daughter and two-year-old son. Their private, fee-paying school costs around $6,000 (£4,416) per child for the year, cheaper than many childcare providers but still $12,000 (£8,833) before groceries, petrol or children’s sports and developmental hobbies enter the picture. At their ages, neither child is eligible for a free public-school place in her area, Rachel says, so unless one parent stays home, the alternative is another form of paid nursery or childcare, which can be even more expensive. A monthly rent of $3,500 (£2,576) may sound extraordinary elsewhere – Rachel regards it as fairly ordinary for Bergen County. Staying home with the children might remove the school bill, but losing her salary would be a false economy when everything else costs so much. MIT’s estimate does not strike her as exaggerated. She believes a family may need even more to afford a nice home locally. The obvious escape appears to be a Republican state with no personal income tax, but even that is not quite the bargain it sounds. Our model family needs $101,697 (£74,859) a year in Texas, leaving only around $1,525 (£1,122) a month gross, or approximately $1,225 (£902) after tax, for non-basic expenses. In Florida, it needs $111,714 (£82,232), leaving about $690 (£508) a month gross, or approximately $555 (£408) after tax. Yet money not deducted from a payslip can still vanish into Texas property taxes or Florida’s housing and insurance bills. That makes Trump’s promise to make life more affordable harder to deliver than a campaign slogan suggests. A president can change federal taxes, impose tariffs and influence energy policy, but he cannot set every rent, nursery fee or local property tax. Patrick Reid, a currency expert, visiting lecturer at the University of Cambridge and co-founder of The Adamis Principle, refuses to place the entire divide at Trump’s door. “Federal tax and trade policy might move the needle, but I feel this is not the major issue,” he says. “As much as I would like to point the finger at one person, I think the real reason is mismanagement of certain states.” He calls California a “perfect inflationary storm”: highly desirable, restricted by protected land and burdened by expensive energy. Higher wages, he says, cover only part of the difference. Of course, cheaper states often pay lower wages and state-wide figures hide the gulf between cities and rural communities – but the same $120,000 (£88,332) still equates to savings in some states and a monthly deficit in another. Trump may preside over one national economy, but the bills arriving at American kitchen tables tell at least 50 different stories.