8 ms·

It’s hard to believe you used to be able to get a normal job at a local company in your hometown and afford a house, car and children working 40 hours a week.

by ipnon 2y ago

tptacek 2y ago
This is what most homeowners do.
DANmode 2y ago
> Q: Is working overtime mandatory if I don't have enough hours? > A: No, overtime is optional and comes with risks to CEO Mental Health.
hnthrow90348765 2y ago
Like the game, it's still luck. You can luck out and get a 20 hr/week job writing simple code from home and coast.
jjice 2y ago
It’s fully dependent on your hometown’s COL. my home town is a moderately sized, but mostly forgettable city in the eastern time zone. This is absolutely possible there if you’re in probably 80% of the suburbs, but you may struggle to be in the very nice few towns.
dingnuts 2y ago
[flagged]
01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
They say taxes were higher at the top end, might be worth a shot
- aprilthird2021 2y ago
  Instead multimillionaire property owners in California pay no property tax because they're old and people who just bought a house with young kids pay all the tax. Most regressive tax system ever devised, designed to keep us underpopulated and our government services underfunded
  - sroussey 2y ago
    That’s not the purpose. The purpose is for people to age in place. Not have to move out of state at 75 because taxes on your home skyrocketed. Which is what happened and the population voted in a proposition to stop it. Yes, it had unintended consequences like all government things.
    - antognini 2y ago
      Wouldn't it make more sense for people to downsize to smaller homes as they age? Instead we have incentivized empty nesters to stay in huge homes with 5 bedrooms while young families have to cram into 1 bedroom condos.
      - sroussey 2y ago
        That’s why they changed the law to allow for this.
    - bobthepanda 2y ago
      If we wanted to keep old people in homes we could've written a tailored program for old people. As it stands, Prop 13 was sold as that, but also essentially used a sledgehammer on a thumbtack, because it applies to any property regardless of the age of the property owner, and also to commercial and industrial property. Not to mention, old people who want to downsize (say, into a home without stairs to fall down) can't afford to because of the massive jump in property taxes that would entail.
      - sroussey 2y ago
        That’s not true. The law was altered so people can downsize if they are very certain age.
      - sroussey 2y ago
        As for commercial… it’s more complex but it’s interesting. Often, anything that is not a starter office or retail, the renter pays the taxes. This is usually called triple net but lots of time it’s true even when not NNN. So you raise the costs on the renter. Take a 60yr old retail center owned by the same family and the rents are likely lower than market due to the buildings age (not necessarily true everywhere). Positives: lower costs across the board. Some businesses that just don’t seem like they can make enough do just fine. No forced gentrification. If you raise taxes above rents, well no use having that building even exist. Tearing it down would be cheaper than open and charging rent. Or tear down and rebuild. Often with national tenants. No mom and pop in new construction last few decades. Apartments rent on old building will go up… unless rent controlled. In which case, maybe no longer be a landlord. Remove those units. Negatives: long term owners benefit vs short term flippers. General feeling of unfairness. I find this stronger in residential than commercial though. Some commercial should be torn down. Very much an opinion though. Some call stuff blight and others character. ADA and lots of stuff is grandfathered in so lots of stuff with character is not ADA compliant. There are reasons why stuff built today all looks the same and somewhat soulless. BTW: new buildings, etc, get imitate hike to todays taxes even if the land does not.
sepositus 2y ago
Have you spent much time in non-urban areas? I live in a <10k town and it's very much possible to achieve that here. I mean, not working at McDonald's, but our industry zone has plenty of good-paying opportunities in the mechanical, electrical, engineering, and even aerospace fields (drones, mostly). I have plenty of blue-collar friends working in these areas, and they all have homes with families. We also have a huge green energy sector due to the natural geography. Our local community college even has a full program you can go through and come out making $35-40/hr.
- macNchz 2y ago
  My rural American hometown has surprisingly expensive homes because of highly restrictive building codes, many of the houses are owned by retired people or wealthy people from out of town, there's little industry to speak of, and multiple people from my 30-student 8th grade graduating class who stayed in town and did not leave for college have now died of heroin overdoses.
  - sepositus 2y ago
    Yeah, there will always be counter-examples to everything, especially given the size of the U.S. However, that same sort of town would have existed 60 years ago, anyway (minus the Herion problem, likely). Perhaps they are more common now, but my point is that cities like mine _do_ still exist. It's not entirely lost yet.
    - CtrlAltmanDel 2y ago
      How common is your un-named city? <10k pop, combination of economic opportunity and still affordable (after wfh tech crowd moved in) for someone starting out earning $40/hr to afford a house and family.
      - sepositus 2y ago
        Well this is the internet, so I'm not going to voluntarily dox myself :) As to your question, I'm not sure how common it is. There's another city about 30 minutes from me that has _almost_ the same scenario, it's just housing is more expensive because it's closer to a major city.
aprilthird2021 2y ago
I moved from Memphis, TN to Silicon Valley and it took me 10 years of working in software to be in the market for a home. Meanwhile my friends who worked odd jobs in sandwich shops or theatres or filming / taking photographs for magazines all had homes a few years after we graduated. It's a failure of the government that they allowed the old, senile landed gentry in parts of our country, especially California, to effectively be able to veto all new building while paying no property tax to fund our public services.
- guywithahat 2y ago
  Is it the old people? It feels like it's the new, young people moving to the city that do this. When people do investigative reporting on the SF housing market, they find a bunch of people who have been spent 8 years trying to convert dilapidated buildings into an apartment complex, but have been getting blocked by environmental reports on what shadows the building will cast, or other bureaucratic nonsense. This is a famous video demonstrating that point; where even if you're rightfully zoned to do something, it can take years and years of fighting bureaucratic nonsense if you haven't bribed the right people https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExgxwKnH8y4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExgxwKnH8y4
  - aprilthird2021 2y ago
    Yes it's the old people and their descendants who inherit titles from their ancestors allowing them to bypass tax payment and shovel more tax burden on productive members of society. Only in the city which has built much of the modern internet did we need to reinvent literal feudalism. If you don't believe me. Just find some seniors in the bay and ask them. They are majority opposed to "changing" the area and taking away its "character" without realizing that the character is something they do not pay to maintain at all, and instead almost all young people (except the landed gentry) have to fund and don't agree to fund anymore.
bigfishrunning 2y ago
I'm doing this right now, north of Pittsburgh. It's still possible
- nickpinkston 2y ago
  I was just back in my hometown of New Castle (~1 hr north) for TG, and it's the same story there. Though most professional people need to drive to Pittsburgh or similar big city to get a decent job.
michpoch 2y ago
But isn’t it still the same? You just need to be reasonable what a „normal job” is.

It’s hard to believe you used to be able to get a normal job at a local company in your hometown and afford a house, car and children working 40 hours a week.

by ipnon 2y ago

It’s hard to believe you used to be able to get a normal job at a local company in your hometown and afford a house, car and children working 40 hours a week.

tptacek 2y ago

This is what most homeowners do.

DANmode 2y ago

> Q: Is working overtime mandatory if I don't have enough hours? > A: No, overtime is optional and comes with risks to CEO Mental Health.

hnthrow90348765 2y ago

Like the game, it's still luck. You can luck out and get a 20 hr/week job writing simple code from home and coast.

jjice 2y ago

It’s fully dependent on your hometown’s COL. my home town is a moderately sized, but mostly forgettable city in the eastern time zone. This is absolutely possible there if you’re in probably 80% of the suburbs, but you may struggle to be in the very nice few towns.

dingnuts 2y ago

[flagged]

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago

They say taxes were higher at the top end, might be worth a shot

aprilthird2021 2y ago
Instead multimillionaire property owners in California pay no property tax because they're old and people who just bought a house with young kids pay all the tax. Most regressive tax system ever devised, designed to keep us underpopulated and our government services underfunded
- sroussey 2y ago
  That’s not the purpose. The purpose is for people to age in place. Not have to move out of state at 75 because taxes on your home skyrocketed. Which is what happened and the population voted in a proposition to stop it. Yes, it had unintended consequences like all government things.
  - antognini 2y ago
    Wouldn't it make more sense for people to downsize to smaller homes as they age? Instead we have incentivized empty nesters to stay in huge homes with 5 bedrooms while young families have to cram into 1 bedroom condos.
    - sroussey 2y ago
      That’s why they changed the law to allow for this.
  - bobthepanda 2y ago
    If we wanted to keep old people in homes we could've written a tailored program for old people. As it stands, Prop 13 was sold as that, but also essentially used a sledgehammer on a thumbtack, because it applies to any property regardless of the age of the property owner, and also to commercial and industrial property. Not to mention, old people who want to downsize (say, into a home without stairs to fall down) can't afford to because of the massive jump in property taxes that would entail.
    - sroussey 2y ago
      That’s not true. The law was altered so people can downsize if they are very certain age.
    - sroussey 2y ago
      As for commercial… it’s more complex but it’s interesting. Often, anything that is not a starter office or retail, the renter pays the taxes. This is usually called triple net but lots of time it’s true even when not NNN. So you raise the costs on the renter. Take a 60yr old retail center owned by the same family and the rents are likely lower than market due to the buildings age (not necessarily true everywhere). Positives: lower costs across the board. Some businesses that just don’t seem like they can make enough do just fine. No forced gentrification. If you raise taxes above rents, well no use having that building even exist. Tearing it down would be cheaper than open and charging rent. Or tear down and rebuild. Often with national tenants. No mom and pop in new construction last few decades. Apartments rent on old building will go up… unless rent controlled. In which case, maybe no longer be a landlord. Remove those units. Negatives: long term owners benefit vs short term flippers. General feeling of unfairness. I find this stronger in residential than commercial though. Some commercial should be torn down. Very much an opinion though. Some call stuff blight and others character. ADA and lots of stuff is grandfathered in so lots of stuff with character is not ADA compliant. There are reasons why stuff built today all looks the same and somewhat soulless. BTW: new buildings, etc, get imitate hike to todays taxes even if the land does not.

sepositus 2y ago

Have you spent much time in non-urban areas? I live in a <10k town and it's very much possible to achieve that here. I mean, not working at McDonald's, but our industry zone has plenty of good-paying opportunities in the mechanical, electrical, engineering, and even aerospace fields (drones, mostly). I have plenty of blue-collar friends working in these areas, and they all have homes with families. We also have a huge green energy sector due to the natural geography. Our local community college even has a full program you can go through and come out making $35-40/hr.

macNchz 2y ago
My rural American hometown has surprisingly expensive homes because of highly restrictive building codes, many of the houses are owned by retired people or wealthy people from out of town, there's little industry to speak of, and multiple people from my 30-student 8th grade graduating class who stayed in town and did not leave for college have now died of heroin overdoses.
- sepositus 2y ago
  Yeah, there will always be counter-examples to everything, especially given the size of the U.S. However, that same sort of town would have existed 60 years ago, anyway (minus the Herion problem, likely). Perhaps they are more common now, but my point is that cities like mine _do_ still exist. It's not entirely lost yet.
  - CtrlAltmanDel 2y ago
    How common is your un-named city? <10k pop, combination of economic opportunity and still affordable (after wfh tech crowd moved in) for someone starting out earning $40/hr to afford a house and family.
    - sepositus 2y ago
      Well this is the internet, so I'm not going to voluntarily dox myself :) As to your question, I'm not sure how common it is. There's another city about 30 minutes from me that has _almost_ the same scenario, it's just housing is more expensive because it's closer to a major city.

aprilthird2021 2y ago

I moved from Memphis, TN to Silicon Valley and it took me 10 years of working in software to be in the market for a home. Meanwhile my friends who worked odd jobs in sandwich shops or theatres or filming / taking photographs for magazines all had homes a few years after we graduated. It's a failure of the government that they allowed the old, senile landed gentry in parts of our country, especially California, to effectively be able to veto all new building while paying no property tax to fund our public services.

guywithahat 2y ago
Is it the old people? It feels like it's the new, young people moving to the city that do this. When people do investigative reporting on the SF housing market, they find a bunch of people who have been spent 8 years trying to convert dilapidated buildings into an apartment complex, but have been getting blocked by environmental reports on what shadows the building will cast, or other bureaucratic nonsense. This is a famous video demonstrating that point; where even if you're rightfully zoned to do something, it can take years and years of fighting bureaucratic nonsense if you haven't bribed the right people https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExgxwKnH8y4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExgxwKnH8y4
- aprilthird2021 2y ago
  Yes it's the old people and their descendants who inherit titles from their ancestors allowing them to bypass tax payment and shovel more tax burden on productive members of society. Only in the city which has built much of the modern internet did we need to reinvent literal feudalism. If you don't believe me. Just find some seniors in the bay and ask them. They are majority opposed to "changing" the area and taking away its "character" without realizing that the character is something they do not pay to maintain at all, and instead almost all young people (except the landed gentry) have to fund and don't agree to fund anymore.

bigfishrunning 2y ago

I'm doing this right now, north of Pittsburgh. It's still possible

nickpinkston 2y ago
I was just back in my hometown of New Castle (~1 hr north) for TG, and it's the same story there. Though most professional people need to drive to Pittsburgh or similar big city to get a decent job.

michpoch 2y ago

But isn’t it still the same? You just need to be reasonable what a „normal job” is.