The American Dream can require a household to support a surprisingly expensive lifestyle for decades. In Hawaii, California, and Massachusetts, one recent analysis found that a family of four needs more than $240,000 a year to afford a version of that dream.
Stretch those annual figures across 30 years and the math gets startling: more than $7.8 million in Hawaii, roughly $7.35 million in California, and more than $7.2 million in Massachusetts. Those totals do not represent a literal bill arriving in the mailbox for $7 million. They translate an annual income requirement into a three-decade household budget. That matters because the analysis includes the ongoing cost of living, not a single purchase price.
