According to Kelley Blue Book, which knows about such things, the average used vehicle price at the close of 2021 was $28,205.

That was 28% higher than it was at the end of 2020.

42% higher than in December 2019.

(One thing that is a little odd about this: Given that there was a decrease in the miles traveled during the lockdown portion of that period, as in, say, people working from home and therefore not driving, wouldn’t you imagine that the demand for used vehicles—yes, we know that the lack of semiconductors reduced the availability of new cars, which put some people into the used market—would have been lower, or is it simply that they could have been much higher?)

Back to that $28,205.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median household income in the U.S. in 2020 (these were the latest figures collected as of September 2021) was $67,521, a 2.9% decrease from 2019.

Let’s say for the sake of argument that there was a 5% increase in 2021 (an arbitrary figure based on nothing).

That would make the median income $70,897.

The average used car would be about 40% of that annual income.