Good news for all those gaffers always saying they could live like kings on 30k a year.
Move to New York and flip burgers.
I wasn't living too badly in 2008 on $26k (equivalent of $28.5k in 2014 dollars). I admit that I lived with my parents, but the majority of my income went to savings, and that extra money would have easily paid for an apartment rental with utilities and all and still have extra going into the bank (or into video games). It's hard to say, but I believe that both my parents generally made around the same amount of money or less throughout most of their lives. This is in Nassau County, an area considered by some to be the highest cost of living non-city county in the nation, I recall. In 2014 dollars, I consider $30k to be well above a living wage, and I know boatloads of people in the area who suffice on much less.
Granted, in 2020 dollars, that amount I was making will probably be higher in equivalence, so I don't know how well I could speak to that.