"I survived on" I was homeless twice. Even after I graduated from college, went through three different careers before working in education and publishing, I have never even imagined living in NYC because of the rent costs, even when they are half of what they are now. In the first recession of the aughts, I literally fed two people on 50 dollars a week. Now that is 20 years, so that is probably about 100 dollars today in purchasing power. My account was in the red, and my wife was laid off a lot at the time for two years. Together, we netted less than 40k as a household for most of our marriage (one year we both had decent jobs and hit like 60k that year as a household, but then 2008 happened). I literally left the States to get started saving money. I got into Emory and couldn't go. I had NO health insurance at all until I was 27. Do not play that game with me. I am "upper middle class" now. But rare for a "red" I know, but I am upwardly mobile. Despite that, I couldn't and still can't replicate my parents' lifestyle, who were formally a lower class rung than me by liberal accounting. If you PhDs want to poverty-porn each other, go ahead. I would NEVER ask anyone else to live that way.