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Texas's per capita income is 20% lower than California's
by 00joe 16y ago
Texas's per capita income is 20% lower than California's
- gojomo 16y agoIt would be interesting to perform a purchasing-power-parity comparison here. Houses seem to be 1/2 to 1/4 the California price in similarly nice (but not as wealthy on an absolute scale) neighborhoods. When I stroll the aisles of a grocery store in the Austin area, many staples are 1/2 the cost of bay area supermarkets. Edit: upped low-end of house ratio to more realistic 1/4 from 1/6
- 00joe 16y agocost of living has nothing to do with attracting manufacturing jobs. The lower the labor costs the more jobs you get. Same reason China has more manufacturing that California
- teaspoon 16y agoLabor costs are a function of cost of living.
- eru 16y agoAre they? Any data to back up your claim? (As an equally plausible hypothesis I'd guess that outside of extreme regions like Antarctica, higher wages are a prime reason for real estate values, and thus contribute to higher costs of living.)
- btilly 16y agoChicken meet egg. Egg meet chicken. Labor costs and the cost of living both affect the other. Arguing which came first is pointless since neither exists in a vacuum.
- eru 16y agoI don't know. The primary cause of high wages seems to be high productivity.
- btilly 16y agoNot so! During the current recession wages have gone down while productivity has gone up. Furthermore even people in marginal jobs will make more if they live in a high cost area. For instance a gardener can charge more per hour in Los Angeles than in Ohio, even though the productivity of the two are identical. Wages are fundamentally set by supply and demand. Productivity affects demand, and hence affects wages. But a high cost of living changes the supply curve, and also affects wages.
- eru 16y agoI do not disagree completely. > For instance a gardener can charge more per hour in Los Angeles than in Ohio, even though the productivity of the two are identical. Yes, that's because gardening isn't traded.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- gojomo 16y agoLower cost of living means lower labor costs: people aren't really working for abstract dollars, but for what those dollars can buy. BTW, to be having this conversation makes me feel like I'm trapped in Chapter 33 of 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court' (Mark Twain, 1889): http://www.archive.org/stream/connecticutyanke00twai#page/322/mode/1up/ http://www.archive.org/stream/connecticutyanke00twai#page/32... Though, Twain first lays it out on p. 304 of the same edition: http://www.archive.org/stream/connecticutyanke00twai#page/304/mode/1up http://www.archive.org/stream/connecticutyanke00twai#page/30... A man who hasn't had much experience, and doesn't think, is apt to measure a nation's prosperity or lack of prosperity by the mere size of the prevailing wages; if the wages be high, the nation is prosperous; if low, it isn't. Which is an error. It isn't what sum you get, it's how much you can buy with it, that's the important thing; and it's that that tells whether your wages are high in fact or only high in name.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- _delirium 16y agoI suppose it depends on what you do for entertainment, but I found my cost of living about the same when I lived in Texas overall as in California. Housing was cheaper, but entertainment cost a lot more. Most of my entertainment in CA is free or cheap---lots of nice coastline, state parks, etc.---but in TX I spent a lot of money at bars, movie theatres, etc., because the weather makes outdoors activities less appealing, and there wasn't much within driving distance of Houston anyway. I also flew places more for short-ish trips, while in CA I can drive all up and down the coast. It might have made a bigger difference if more of the rest of my spending was on stuff that actually varied in price geographically. But computer stuff and books cost the same everywhere; sadly TX's better purchasing power per dollar doesn't actually get you a $1000 laptop for $800, or a $50 book for $40!
- dwwoelfel 16y agoThat number is meaningless without the context of cost of living. According to cityrating.com, you need a 45% increase in income to move from Houston to San Francisco.