Eh, this is not always and everywhere true. I have friends at Google here in London and some of the salary figures I've heard are shockingly low. As in, sub-or-around-100k low. Though admittedly these are people who I'd guess are below, say, L5.
That 'low' salary may put them in the top few percent of the whole country for their age bracket which means they can live quite nice lives. Everything is relative.
