6 ms·

How smart are they if they trade a 20% increase in pay for a 100% increase in cost of living?

adventured 9y ago
Your setup premise is false. The pay increase is far beyond 20%. 1) The median household income in Denver CO is $64,000. That's around 77% higher than in Altoona PA. Two locations specifically referenced in the article. 2) The opportunities that pay a lot more than that gap, do not exist to begin with in Altoona. Software, Internet, misc engineer jobs - the locations that people are fleeing from are death zones economically. Denver and Boulder are quasi boom cities; the Altoona's are the exact opposite; that means, over the next ten years your income will very likely expand nicely in those CO locations, whereas you're very unlikely to see meaningful improvement in Altoona. 3) Lifestyle is important for most people and likely that much more so for people willing to move across the country for better opportunities. Boulder and Denver are both incredible by comparison to Altoona PA, when it comes to lifestyle upgrade. To answer your question, the people desperately fleeing from all those dying economic zones, seeking a vastly superior future, are extremely smart indeed.
- minitel 9y ago
  I left Kentucky for California in my early 20's. I've been making > 100k per year since then and living as cheaply as possible to hold on to it despite the cost of rent. Most of my friends back home make 20-30k a year. The tradeoff is that quality of life is terrible. The cities are full of petty bug people. And COL makes living standards precarious for all but the wealthy and the extremely poor (government programs). The precariousness also inhibits the formation of stable IRL (as opposed to chat group based) friend groups. That said, after half a decade of this I've saved enough money to go back home and use stocks, real estate, and side hustles to put down roots with a decent quality of life. Sometimes I feel like Odysseus on Ogygia. It's easy to be trapped in one of these hubs so long that you miss out on the chance to exit young-adulthood gracefully. (Very sad the number of friends I have who decided to start a family too late and couldn't quite make it work out).
  - driverdan 9y ago
    > The cities are full of petty bug people. What does that mean?
    - potbelly83 9y ago
      I think they mean a cross between a bug and a person. Sure wish I lived near some bug people.
    - soared 9y ago
      > The precariousness also inhibits the formation of stable IRL (as opposed to chat group based) friend groups. Also what does this even mean?
      - khuey 9y ago
        You make friends here and then 18 months later those friends move to Seattle/Portland/Reno/Las Vegas/Phoenix where they can actually afford to live.
    - minitel 9y ago
      "Bugman" implies that the person has been cut off from their cultural roots, and totally subsumed into consumerist neoliberal hive. they are totally lack any sort of sympathy for their ancestors folkways, higher spirituality, or passion. if they do engage in activities that are somewhat human, they still are heavily tinged by global capitalism. if they are a sportsfan, they will participate heavily in fantasy sports(which is obsessed with statistics, 'scientific' analysis of performance). if they exercise, it will be all cardio, and tracked by fitbit and then uploaded to faceberg. tastes in food, art, music, movies are predetermined by review aggregator sites like yelp, metacritic or rotten tomatoes. political views only appeal to them if they seem 'rational,' and derived from the sort of conventional wisdom, economics influenced worldview seen in works like 'moneyball', nate silver's 538 blog, and 'freakonomics.'
- corpMaverick 9y ago
  4) Even if you already have a job. It is easier to finde a better job or find a new one if you are ever laid off in Denver than in Altoona.
- kbutler 9y ago
  Minitel[dead]'s comment below is worthwhile: > I left Kentucky for California in my early 20's. I've been making > 100k per year since then and living as cheaply as possible to hold on to it despite the cost of rent. Most of my friends back home make 20-30k a year. > The tradeoff is that quality of life is terrible. The cities are full of petty bug people. And COL makes living standards precarious for all but the wealthy and the extremely poor (government programs). The precariousness also inhibits the formation of stable IRL (as opposed to chat group based) friend groups. > That said, after half a decade of this I've saved enough money to go back home and use stocks, real estate, and side hustles to put down roots with a decent quality of life. > Sometimes I feel like Odysseus on Ogygia. It's easy to be trapped in one of these hubs so long that you miss out on the chance to exit young-adulthood gracefully. (Very sad the number of friends I have who decided to start a family too late and couldn't quite make it work out). --- Good luck making it to where you want to be! It's good to remember that different people have widely varying preferences of quality of life - urban/rural, ocean/mountain/plain, wet/dry, tropical/temperate/less-temperate, etc. I'm glad not everybody wants to live in the same place!
- bluejellybean 9y ago
  Number 3 is really massive and a large reason I picked Denver over the valley. I can wake up everyday, hike a 14er for the sunrise, and be back in the city for work. If you're into mountaineering or an outdoor lifestyle, the cost of living is easily worth it.. The great thing is what you bring up though, the cost of living isn't actually that large when wages are sky-high for techies. I live 3 blocks from my office and I don't have to spend thousands a month for some shitty studio 30 minutes away.
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    This is what people who are retirement age would have said about SV when they moved there. Enjoy being retired in SV 2.0
  - tspike 9y ago
    > hike a 14er for the sunrise and be back in the city for work Definitely not Longs. I guess you could drive to the top of Evans or Pikes Peak :)
    - bluejellybean 9y ago
      Definitely Longs! It's only an hour and a half out.. Getting back though... the traffic just gets brutal.
      - tspike 9y ago
        It's a 10+ hour climb though? I'm good with a quick jaunt up Sanitas before work haha- you're (respectfully) nuts!
AndrewGaspar 9y ago
Unfortunately the nature of specialization means that jobs you are qualified for and will be paid well for are more likely to be located in dense urban areas. My wife and I, who are both engineers but with different specialties, had to face this recently when we relocated to her home state.
dang 9y ago
This comment breaks the HN guideline which asks you to respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of a point, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize (please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow them). The model in which masses of migrating people are too dumb to consider their own interest is less plausible than one in which a snarky internet dismissal might be failing to consider everything.
SQL2219 9y ago
I am basing this on my own thought experiments while browsing jobs in various over-heated markets: Seattle, San Francisco, Denver, Boston etc. Actually, the 100% increase is understated, the true figure is probably higher depending on the inputs. Let's say you're living in Topeka, making $75,000, you happen to own an average home with a market value of $150,000. Amazon Seattle offers you a job for $130,000. Is taking the job a better deal when the average home in Seattle is $700,000? Your $1,000 Topeka mortgage payment will quadruple consuming 50%+ of your take home pay.
- goialoq 9y ago
  It doesn't matter how much you spend, it matters how much you save.
  - geoffreyhale 9y ago
    This. Not to mention, after saving similar (or more) you'll own a home 5x in value.
  - lotsofpulp 9y ago
    My mantra has always been spend your time and effort trying to make more money, not saving it. If you have a decent head on your shoulders, and a good family to fall back on, then investing in creating your network in a city or company with other aspiring people is going to win out many times over versus concerning yourself with saving.
    - madengr 9y ago
      Yeah, but maxing out your 401K contribution for the first 20 years of your career is much more productive than doing it the last 20 years. If it were not for the withdrawal penalty, I could retire now at 46 and live off the interest alone. If I keep slugging away another 20 years, I’ll have several $M. You need to save when you are young to take advantage of compounding interest. Don’t get caught up in the rat race.
      - 9y ago
analogwzrd 9y ago
Cost of living is higher and the increase pay doesn't always make up for it...but also keep in mind the non-tangibles. If you move to one of those areas, you're going to surround by some of the top tech talent in the country. That means you're learning, collaborating, competing, and socializing with some of the best peers you could have anywhere. That has a lot of career advantages...mobility, huge potential for upside, exchange of ideas, etc. It also boosts the standards of local universities, schools, etc.
bathwa80 9y ago
They're smart enough to know your numbers are wrong.

Your setup premise is false. The pay increase is far beyond 20%. 1) The median household income in Denver CO is $64,000. That's around 77% higher than in Altoona PA. Two locations specifically referenced in the article. 2) The opportunities that pay a lot more than that gap, do not exist to begin with in Altoona. Software, Internet, misc engineer jobs - the locations that people are fleeing from are death zones economically. Denver and Boulder are quasi boom cities; the Altoona's are the exact opposite; that means, over the next ten years your income will very likely expand nicely in those CO locations, whereas you're very unlikely to see meaningful improvement in Altoona. 3) Lifestyle is important for most people and likely that much more so for people willing to move across the country for better opportunities. Boulder and Denver are both incredible by comparison to Altoona PA, when it comes to lifestyle upgrade. To answer your question, the people desperately fleeing from all those dying economic zones, seeking a vastly superior future, are extremely smart indeed.

minitel 9y ago
I left Kentucky for California in my early 20's. I've been making > 100k per year since then and living as cheaply as possible to hold on to it despite the cost of rent. Most of my friends back home make 20-30k a year. The tradeoff is that quality of life is terrible. The cities are full of petty bug people. And COL makes living standards precarious for all but the wealthy and the extremely poor (government programs). The precariousness also inhibits the formation of stable IRL (as opposed to chat group based) friend groups. That said, after half a decade of this I've saved enough money to go back home and use stocks, real estate, and side hustles to put down roots with a decent quality of life. Sometimes I feel like Odysseus on Ogygia. It's easy to be trapped in one of these hubs so long that you miss out on the chance to exit young-adulthood gracefully. (Very sad the number of friends I have who decided to start a family too late and couldn't quite make it work out).
- driverdan 9y ago
  > The cities are full of petty bug people. What does that mean?
  - potbelly83 9y ago
    I think they mean a cross between a bug and a person. Sure wish I lived near some bug people.
  - soared 9y ago
    > The precariousness also inhibits the formation of stable IRL (as opposed to chat group based) friend groups. Also what does this even mean?
    - khuey 9y ago
      You make friends here and then 18 months later those friends move to Seattle/Portland/Reno/Las Vegas/Phoenix where they can actually afford to live.
  - minitel 9y ago
    "Bugman" implies that the person has been cut off from their cultural roots, and totally subsumed into consumerist neoliberal hive. they are totally lack any sort of sympathy for their ancestors folkways, higher spirituality, or passion. if they do engage in activities that are somewhat human, they still are heavily tinged by global capitalism. if they are a sportsfan, they will participate heavily in fantasy sports(which is obsessed with statistics, 'scientific' analysis of performance). if they exercise, it will be all cardio, and tracked by fitbit and then uploaded to faceberg. tastes in food, art, music, movies are predetermined by review aggregator sites like yelp, metacritic or rotten tomatoes. political views only appeal to them if they seem 'rational,' and derived from the sort of conventional wisdom, economics influenced worldview seen in works like 'moneyball', nate silver's 538 blog, and 'freakonomics.'
corpMaverick 9y ago
4) Even if you already have a job. It is easier to finde a better job or find a new one if you are ever laid off in Denver than in Altoona.
kbutler 9y ago
Minitel[dead]'s comment below is worthwhile: > I left Kentucky for California in my early 20's. I've been making > 100k per year since then and living as cheaply as possible to hold on to it despite the cost of rent. Most of my friends back home make 20-30k a year. > The tradeoff is that quality of life is terrible. The cities are full of petty bug people. And COL makes living standards precarious for all but the wealthy and the extremely poor (government programs). The precariousness also inhibits the formation of stable IRL (as opposed to chat group based) friend groups. > That said, after half a decade of this I've saved enough money to go back home and use stocks, real estate, and side hustles to put down roots with a decent quality of life. > Sometimes I feel like Odysseus on Ogygia. It's easy to be trapped in one of these hubs so long that you miss out on the chance to exit young-adulthood gracefully. (Very sad the number of friends I have who decided to start a family too late and couldn't quite make it work out). --- Good luck making it to where you want to be! It's good to remember that different people have widely varying preferences of quality of life - urban/rural, ocean/mountain/plain, wet/dry, tropical/temperate/less-temperate, etc. I'm glad not everybody wants to live in the same place!
bluejellybean 9y ago
Number 3 is really massive and a large reason I picked Denver over the valley. I can wake up everyday, hike a 14er for the sunrise, and be back in the city for work. If you're into mountaineering or an outdoor lifestyle, the cost of living is easily worth it.. The great thing is what you bring up though, the cost of living isn't actually that large when wages are sky-high for techies. I live 3 blocks from my office and I don't have to spend thousands a month for some shitty studio 30 minutes away.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  This is what people who are retirement age would have said about SV when they moved there. Enjoy being retired in SV 2.0
- tspike 9y ago
  > hike a 14er for the sunrise and be back in the city for work Definitely not Longs. I guess you could drive to the top of Evans or Pikes Peak :)
  - bluejellybean 9y ago
    Definitely Longs! It's only an hour and a half out.. Getting back though... the traffic just gets brutal.
    - tspike 9y ago
      It's a 10+ hour climb though? I'm good with a quick jaunt up Sanitas before work haha- you're (respectfully) nuts!

AndrewGaspar 9y ago

Unfortunately the nature of specialization means that jobs you are qualified for and will be paid well for are more likely to be located in dense urban areas. My wife and I, who are both engineers but with different specialties, had to face this recently when we relocated to her home state.

dang 9y ago

This comment breaks the HN guideline which asks you to respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of a point, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize (please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow them). The model in which masses of migrating people are too dumb to consider their own interest is less plausible than one in which a snarky internet dismissal might be failing to consider everything.

SQL2219 9y ago

I am basing this on my own thought experiments while browsing jobs in various over-heated markets: Seattle, San Francisco, Denver, Boston etc. Actually, the 100% increase is understated, the true figure is probably higher depending on the inputs. Let's say you're living in Topeka, making $75,000, you happen to own an average home with a market value of $150,000. Amazon Seattle offers you a job for $130,000. Is taking the job a better deal when the average home in Seattle is $700,000? Your $1,000 Topeka mortgage payment will quadruple consuming 50%+ of your take home pay.

goialoq 9y ago
It doesn't matter how much you spend, it matters how much you save.
- geoffreyhale 9y ago
  This. Not to mention, after saving similar (or more) you'll own a home 5x in value.
- lotsofpulp 9y ago
  My mantra has always been spend your time and effort trying to make more money, not saving it. If you have a decent head on your shoulders, and a good family to fall back on, then investing in creating your network in a city or company with other aspiring people is going to win out many times over versus concerning yourself with saving.
  - madengr 9y ago
    Yeah, but maxing out your 401K contribution for the first 20 years of your career is much more productive than doing it the last 20 years. If it were not for the withdrawal penalty, I could retire now at 46 and live off the interest alone. If I keep slugging away another 20 years, I’ll have several $M. You need to save when you are young to take advantage of compounding interest. Don’t get caught up in the rat race.
    - 9y ago

analogwzrd 9y ago

Cost of living is higher and the increase pay doesn't always make up for it...but also keep in mind the non-tangibles. If you move to one of those areas, you're going to surround by some of the top tech talent in the country. That means you're learning, collaborating, competing, and socializing with some of the best peers you could have anywhere. That has a lot of career advantages...mobility, huge potential for upside, exchange of ideas, etc. It also boosts the standards of local universities, schools, etc.

bathwa80 9y ago

They're smart enough to know your numbers are wrong.