Not to mention that $50K is the median household income. Individuals earn even less, on average.

What? Google has the right to rent a bus as much as its employees have the right to pay for taxis. Or their own cars.

and the Google Shuttle is an illustration of what a CS education is good for

Perhaps if those folks spent their time learning CS instead of protesting, they could actually ride the shuttle.

I thought the further-up comment--where the poster apparently didn't realize that many would see 90K as quite a lot of money--was a better example of this.

This number is very deceiving so be careful comparing your salary with it. Problem is that vast majority of population does not live in the SF, NYC, Seattle area so the median of entire US population is not comparable for people who live in these areas. The median metric is especially notorious in eliminating outliers like these areas.

Even within these areas, you want to compare your income with median in your closest neighbourhood of about 10,000 people. In most of these neighbourhoods with tech population, $90 would probably place you in bottom 30% bucket. In essence, you will be relatively "poor" and get pushed you out to fat outer areas of community where there are either no good schools, facilities and/or commute is ridiculous.

Always look at median of your target neighbour to compare your income, not the national median.