Staggering amount needed to be on a ‘good’ salary in 2025

This is exactly how much you need to be earning to be on a decent salary in 2025.

The staggering minimum amount you need to earn in 2025 in order to have a “good” salary has been revealed.

For a significant amount of Aussies, the past few years have not been easy on the bank account.

Inflation has remained high, with groceries, petrol, energy bills all skyrocketing in price.

Homeowners endured a series of 13 brutal rate rises and tenants saw rents increase year on year.

Given this, it is no wonder that Aussies feel they need to be bringing in a substantial amount of money just to feel satisfied right now.

A new survey of more than 1000 Australians from comparison site Finder revealed the average person believes a “good” base salary starts at $152,775 per year.

This is significantly higher than the current average annual salary for full-time workers, which according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, is sitting slightly above $100,000.

This gap widens even further when you consider the median salary for full-time workers in Australia, which is just over $88,000.

MORE: A guide to salary averages in Australia in your industry

Aussies need to be earning more than $152,000 a year if they want to say they are on a ‘good’ salary. Picture: NewsWire / Nicholas Eagar

Younger people are more likely to have higher salary expectations, with Gen Z respondents needing at least $177,212 a year in order to be on a “good” income, while Baby Boomers put that number just under $127,000.

Sarah Megginson, personal finance expert at Finder, said there is no doubt that the cost of living crisis has impacted people’s views on salary.

Not too long ago $100,000 would have been widely acceptable as the benchmark needed to live a comfortable lifestyle, but now it feels more like a “necessary starting point”, Ms Megginson pointed out.

How far your salary goes is also heavily dependent on where you live, with those in major cities often requiring a higher base income to get by.

“A pay packet of $130,000 might represent significant financial comfort in some areas, whilst barely covering essential expenses in others,” Ms Megginson said.

“There are stark regional disparities in the cost of living.”

MORE: How are Australian salary packages calculated?

Aussies say they need even more money to live a ‘comfortable’ lifestyle. Picture: iStock

It also turns out that Aussies consider a “good” salary and earning enough to live “comfortably” to be two very different things.

The survey showed that, in order to be comfortable, the average Aussie said they would need to earn at least $164,577 a year, just under $12,000 more than the “good” salary.

Once again, this number was higher when asking younger Aussies, with Gen Zers saying they need almost $199,000 to live comfortably, followed by Millennials with $176,150 and Gen X with $161,231.

Baby Boomers were the only generation who said they would need less, $106,747 to live comfortably, than what they would consider a “good” salary, $126,938.

Ms Megginson said that what people consider comfortable can differ dramatically depending on their lifestyle.

“It’s about how hard that money works for you, your spending habits and the money leaks that are draining your wallet, and how your income aligns with the life you want to live,” she said.

“You can have one person earning a solid six-figure income who is living pay to pay and is constantly stressed about money, while someone else is earning $50,000 a year and paying all their bills on time and feels financially in control.”

Aussies make grim pay rise admission

The revelation of what Aussies consider to be a “good” salary in 2025 follows a worrying pay rise admission from full time workers.

Ahead of the launch of news.com.au’s Great Aussie Debate we asked people when they last received a pay rise that they were happy with.

The results showed that, while some Aussies are content with their most recent pay increase, a shocking one in five say they have never felt satisfied with one.

Of the 1870 people surveyed, 17 per cent said they have never felt happy with a pay rise, while a further 15 per cent said the last time they were satisfied with a salary increase was more than 10 years ago and 9 per cent put the time frame between five and 10 years.

Just over one in four respondents said their last satisfactory raise was between one and four years ago.

News.com.au also hit the streets of Sydney in January to see how people were feeling about their salaries in 2025.

One woman revealed the last time she received a pay rise was two years ago, which she revealed was “two jobs ago”.

“Pretty s**t,” she said.

Another worker revealed that every time she has received a pay rise it has just been in line with the cost of living and “not really enough to change the way I am living”.

However, not everyone was feeling uninspired about their pay, with one woman saying that in the five years she had worked at her current job, she had received a pay rise each year.

“It is not something that was expected so it was always a surprise. There was never any feelings that it wasn’t enough or not sufficient,” she said.

One boss who manages multiple employees told news.com.au that whatever staff had asked for in terms of pay “we have pretty much given them”.

“I think we were paying people quite a lot. We were paying very high to begin with and that’s why our employees have been with us, a lot of them, for over 10 years,” he said.

Originally published as Staggering amount needed to be on a ‘good’ salary in 2025