8 ms·

>Moving from a poor area, where cost of living is generally lower (although not always), to a rich area, where cost of living is generally higher, does not mean

by lsc 8y ago

>Moving from a poor area, where cost of living is generally lower (although not always), to a rich area, where cost of living is generally higher, does not mean that you, yourself, will become rich. For the average person, that only results in skyrocketing costs, leading to a reduction in quality of life. Maybe? but there are claims that for those of us without education, how much we make depends largely on how many educated people we are near. The location-based pay differential is much larger for people who don't have a college degree than for those who do. That's a big part of why I am so stuck on the bay area; I don't have a degree, and I do really well here. All the offers I get from other parts of the country are terrible.

randomdata 8y ago
> but there are claims that for those of us without education, how much we make depends largely on how many educated people we are near. There are a lot of dubious claims about education though. I would take the whole thing with a grain of salt. Some even claim that gaining an education will result in earning more money, all while incomes have remained stagnant for decades upon decades and educational attainment has ballooned. How does one earn more money while also earning the same amount of money...? What they are probably referring to is the fact that the education system filters out people who are less capable. Someone with, say, down syndrome is unfortunately unlikely to withstand the academic rigour required to graduate from college, and is unlikely to possess the traits that employers want to see in order to pay the big bucks, leaving the data to show that this person who did not graduate from college is also paid poorly. But it is faulty logic to think that if you don't graduate from college that you will contract down syndrome. > That's a big part of why I am so stuck on the bay area; I don't have a degree, and I do really well here. All the offers I get from other parts of the country are terrible. Your strong ties to the Bay Area suggest that you are probably involved in tech. Which is no doubt centred around the Bay Area, and pays less outside of the Bay Area no matter who you are. But what if all you knew was farming? Do you think you'd see a huge pay bump by moving your farm to the Bay Area (or any other major metropolis)?
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  > But what if all you knew was farming? Do you think you'd see a huge pay bump by moving your farm to the Bay Area (or any other major metropolis)? This has been so common throughout history that there is even a name for it (rural flight): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_flight https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_flight As agriculture is increasingly mechanized, fewer farmers are needed. So it doesn’t really matter if all you know is farming, moving to the city is your best bet if you aren’t inheriting the family farm. That’s just how economics works.
  - Retric 8y ago
    The remaining farmers can make very good money. The median wage for ranchers and other agricultural managers is $66,360/year and this is for generally low cost of living areas. It’s farm hands that that really benifit from moving to city’s.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      Yes, but the number of farmers significantly decreases every single year. What happens to those that are squeezed out? They have to be going somewhere....
      - Retric 8y ago
        Not really. There where ~2.2 million us farms in 1982. It dropped to ~2 million in 2002 but it’s still ~2 million today. Many of theses are more hobby projects than giant industrial operations. Even still giant subsidy’s keeps the farm sector from the kind of massive consolidation you see in most industries.
        randomdata 8y ago
        > Even still giant subsidy’s keeps the farm sector from the kind of massive consolidation you see in most industries. The bulk of the massive subsidy received by farms is crop insurance premium assistance though. No doubt a huge benefit if you have a weather disaster, but not anything you see directly until you have a disaster, and that only provides stability in those freak years. I am not sure that alone is keeping farms from consolidating like other industries as most other industries don't have the same kind of instability from the weather. I would argue that in North America mega-farms, by and large, simply cannot compete with smaller farms. It takes farm expertise to run a farm and one person can only manage so much. Hiring more people with farm expertise is exceedingly difficult as anyone who has farming expertise would prefer to have their own business. If your thing is developing search engines, chances are you're going to have to align yourself with for Google or Microsoft for the network advantage. You have almost no chance of succeeding on your own in the search engine space at this point. But food is quite different. If you produce food, there is guaranteed to be a buyer for it. There is no real network advantage to working for someone else there like you see in other industries, so why let someone else take their cut off the profit of your labour?

by lsc 8y ago

randomdata 8y ago

> but there are claims that for those of us without education, how much we make depends largely on how many educated people we are near. There are a lot of dubious claims about education though. I would take the whole thing with a grain of salt. Some even claim that gaining an education will result in earning more money, all while incomes have remained stagnant for decades upon decades and educational attainment has ballooned. How does one earn more money while also earning the same amount of money...? What they are probably referring to is the fact that the education system filters out people who are less capable. Someone with, say, down syndrome is unfortunately unlikely to withstand the academic rigour required to graduate from college, and is unlikely to possess the traits that employers want to see in order to pay the big bucks, leaving the data to show that this person who did not graduate from college is also paid poorly. But it is faulty logic to think that if you don't graduate from college that you will contract down syndrome. > That's a big part of why I am so stuck on the bay area; I don't have a degree, and I do really well here. All the offers I get from other parts of the country are terrible. Your strong ties to the Bay Area suggest that you are probably involved in tech. Which is no doubt centred around the Bay Area, and pays less outside of the Bay Area no matter who you are. But what if all you knew was farming? Do you think you'd see a huge pay bump by moving your farm to the Bay Area (or any other major metropolis)?

seanmcdirmid 8y ago
> But what if all you knew was farming? Do you think you'd see a huge pay bump by moving your farm to the Bay Area (or any other major metropolis)? This has been so common throughout history that there is even a name for it (rural flight): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_flight https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_flight As agriculture is increasingly mechanized, fewer farmers are needed. So it doesn’t really matter if all you know is farming, moving to the city is your best bet if you aren’t inheriting the family farm. That’s just how economics works.
- Retric 8y ago
  The remaining farmers can make very good money. The median wage for ranchers and other agricultural managers is $66,360/year and this is for generally low cost of living areas. It’s farm hands that that really benifit from moving to city’s.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Yes, but the number of farmers significantly decreases every single year. What happens to those that are squeezed out? They have to be going somewhere....
    - Retric 8y ago
      Not really. There where ~2.2 million us farms in 1982. It dropped to ~2 million in 2002 but it’s still ~2 million today. Many of theses are more hobby projects than giant industrial operations. Even still giant subsidy’s keeps the farm sector from the kind of massive consolidation you see in most industries.
      - randomdata 8y ago
        > Even still giant subsidy’s keeps the farm sector from the kind of massive consolidation you see in most industries. The bulk of the massive subsidy received by farms is crop insurance premium assistance though. No doubt a huge benefit if you have a weather disaster, but not anything you see directly until you have a disaster, and that only provides stability in those freak years. I am not sure that alone is keeping farms from consolidating like other industries as most other industries don't have the same kind of instability from the weather. I would argue that in North America mega-farms, by and large, simply cannot compete with smaller farms. It takes farm expertise to run a farm and one person can only manage so much. Hiring more people with farm expertise is exceedingly difficult as anyone who has farming expertise would prefer to have their own business. If your thing is developing search engines, chances are you're going to have to align yourself with for Google or Microsoft for the network advantage. You have almost no chance of succeeding on your own in the search engine space at this point. But food is quite different. If you produce food, there is guaranteed to be a buyer for it. There is no real network advantage to working for someone else there like you see in other industries, so why let someone else take their cut off the profit of your labour?