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Meanwhile http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35339475 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35339475
by biggio 11y ago
Meanwhile http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35339475 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35339475
- jkaljundi 11y agoA much better take to look at that data is this: http://www.vox.com/2015/1/22/7871947/oxfam-wealth-statistic http://www.vox.com/2015/1/22/7871947/oxfam-wealth-statistic It's the same as to compare someone on absolute salary of $100k in Silicon Valley vs $50k in Estonia, forgetting that the latter can provide a luxurious lifestyle with tons of money to spend, while former can mean being barely break-even.
- aetherson 11y agoMedian income in San Jose is $80k, so 50% of all households make less than that. $100k does not mean you're barely capable of breaking even. For any reasonable amount of income, it is possible to spend in such a way that you're barely breaking even, of course. But this whole meme of six figures is hard to keep afloat with is the worst kind of cringe-worthy "Oh poor well-paid me." My wife works at Habitat for Humanity in the East Bay. You don't want to consider what the low level employees there are making (and no, they aren't all living with their families or have spouses helping out).
- tyingq 11y ago>>and no, they aren't all living with their families or have spouses helping out Honestly curious...what are they doing then? Isn't the typical rent cost higher than the entire salary of a low level employee at a charitable org?
- djcapelis 11y agoFor a luxury condo in downtown SF? Yes. That's not where the people who work for a living at charitable organizations live. HN is a weird bubble.
- tyingq 11y agoHeh. No, I looked up the average rent for Oakland, which I assumed would be less expensive than downtown SF. I saw $3k, which would likely be higher than the take home pay for a low-level employee.
- potatolicious 11y agoAverages aren't really representative - even in SF there is a very, very wide variance between a crappy run-down studio in an undesirable neighborhood vs. a luxury condo in the hottest neighborhoods. The average is really just tossing those two in a blender and hitting the "puree" button. Likewise, there are still cheap places to live in Oakland, even if the average is high (and rising). Also, there are places further out of Oakland that are still relatively inexpensive. In any case, the "typical rent" on a SF/Oakland apartment already affords a lifestyle more luxurious than most people in this country ever experience, which is why IMO aetherson is right in calling it "Oh poor well-paid me". This meme that 6-figure incomes in the Bay Area is "break even" is a special kind of myopic: "Oh dearie me, I'm making 6-figures, enjoying quality of life way higher than is typical for my country, but I'm just breaking even!"
- djcapelis 11y agoI live in the Bay Area and I don't know anyone who pays $3k for something in Oakland by themself. I think the averages you're looking at probably show a bunch of places multiple people live in together and split.
- aetherson 11y agoWell, when I met my wife (this was a few years back, but also her pre-tax salary was about $45k at the time), she lived in a very small one-bed apartment in a bad part of Oakland. Prior to being able to afford that, she rented a room in a house (not with relatives) in Berkeley. I haven't been to the living places of my wife's coworkers, but I would expect that the ones who live alone tend to live in small apartments in undesirable areas of relatively inexpensive cities.
- arebop 11y agoRent control, or they bought a long time ago.
- akgerber 11y agoThey find 'non-typical' rentals, e.g. group houses (even as a married couple), trailers parks, etc. Or they commute obscene distances.
- crpatino 11y agoMedian income does not mean what you think it means. There are basically 4 socioeconomic classes in modern society: the disposessed, the working poor, the middle class and the wealthy class. You can split hairs and make different cuts, but if you follow this model. * The disposessed is the people that fell through the cracks. They are struggling to survive usually for multiple issues that are holding them back, even if they have incomes. In a healthy society they should be a small minority. * The working poor is the people that manage to make ends meet, but are one unexpected big expense away from financial disaster. Unlike the dispossesed their main problem is that the jobs they are qualified to hold do not pay enough, so they may do everything right and still land in trouble. * The middle class is people that is financially relaxed, even if not rich. They can afford luxuries, and are the prefered target market for many business both because there are many of them and because they have disposable incomes. * The wealthy run the show. They are not relevant to this dicussion. The point about "median income" rethoric is that Americans assume the middle class is always 50% or more of the population. So, by definition, median income == middle class. This is not the standard way of things around the world or through American history. Instead, there was an historic anomaly after WWII, when all the other industrial economies were blown up during the war and Americans enjoyed the advantage of being isolated enough to keep their infrastructure mostly intact. Every Risk player knows how this go. This allowed the American economy to grow faster than population during the second half of 20th century, so most people could aspire to join the middle class, and the upper tiers of middle class could aspire to join the whealty class. Arguably, the oversupply of money in the Bay Area is reverting this trend. This is what happened to Spain in the 17th and 18th century. The country itself got rich because of all the resources they extracted from their colonies in the Americas, but the rest of their economy did not grow as fast. The result is that everyone that was not connected to the gravy train from overseas was, in effect, poor... even if they had enough money on their pockets to qualify as well to do in places like Central Europe that did not have colonies of their own. The well-off German farmer had access to cheap food, shelter, craft goods and the occasional specialized service that were simply not available to the average Spaniard lackey, because those last were priced out of the market by the soldiers and the customs officers. Now the colonies are in the cloud, and software developers are the workers that help bring the value produced there into the realm of physical reality.
- xmj 11y agoWith the difference that $100k is easily reachable in Silicon Valley for engineering positions even before reaching senior levels. Here in Tallinn, not so much.
- sireat 11y agoWas going to say that in Baltics 50k a year is not a salary that an average engineer can aspire to. It is more than the premier makes.. Additional data point: UBNT is paying 36k in Riga which is an outlier at the top. I think most positions with a few years of experience are around 25k in Riga and starting salaries are around 12k.
- xmj 11y agoTime to move to Tallinn. ;-)
- jkaljundi 11y ago$50k gross is <€3k net monthly. There are quite many who make that, probably over 2% of the tech workforce (more than 2-300 people in Estonia). But even with €2k net your consumable income is bigger than for someone making $100k in the Valley.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]