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In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

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Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#271

Post by [deleted] »

santaclaus wrote: post #171
ryanSrich wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still buy a house in Portland for $500k. I live here. Bought in 2015. It's more expensive in 2017, but not 100% more. Once 1000sqft houses hit a $1mm average Portland will be too expensive. Until then we're doing just fine.

I dunno, developers were snapping up lots in our hood in Albina for 750, demoing them to lower the tax burden, and letting them sit empty to appreciate. Long term residents who had been renting for 30 years were getting chased out and moving to the numbers... those don't seem like great situations.

[deleted]

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#272

Post by sbrks »

anon374939 wrote: post #91
stevenwoo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious as to what was causing the stress specific to the Bay Area for you?

Most activities seemed at least 2x more difficult, and that differential probably becomes 3x with kids. Service all around isn't very good in the Bay, there is a higher chance of simple things to not go as planned. Over the years I've realized that stress is something that creeps up on you slowly but surely, and most often you don't even realize it. Over the years it adds up, and ultimately can reduce your lifespan.…

Can you elaborate a little more on the activities here being 2x more difficult? I'm curious because this is a metric I use when comparing quality of life between NYC and SF (I made the move about a year ago). Activities like laundry, grocery shopping, and commuting I find easier in SF than in NYC, even though some of the salient variables haven't changed much (e.g. in both cities I don't have in-unit laundry so I go to the closest laundromat).

Not to say things aren't harder here than in most places. Just having in-unit laundry seems like something most non high-COL, urban-dwelling Americans take as a given.

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#273

Post by froindt »

sideband wrote: post #241
ransom1538 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the exact same thing this year. Moved to Oviedo, FL from SF: 1) no state income tax, 2) public schools in my neighborhood are equivalent to a private school in sf [i] 4) weather is great 8 months out of year, 5) beaches you can swim in, 6) rent is ~1/4 of what it was in SF, 7) cuban food, 8) as a resident, kids have year round disney passes [i] http://school-ratings.com/Florida/schools/Carillon_Elementar... WARNI…

I also moved from the the Bay Area to Oviedo, FL not long ago (fun fact about our little town: Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, grew up here). I agree with everything on your list, and I'll add one more item: 9) Greater thought diversity and tolerance for opposing viewpoints. When I lived in the Bay Area it seemed that too many people I interacted with were of similar backgrounds: very educated, high income and s…

> When I lived in the Bay Area it seemed that too many people I interacted with were of similar backgrounds: very educated, high income and similar political and social values.

I think this is one of the most important things as a whole. I am in Iowa (a red except for the counties holding the ~5 largest cities) and have a friend who is in DC. She said she mentioned having a couple friends from high school who were conservative and that made her weird in her friend group. The rest were in the DC bubble, effectively not knowing people from "the other side" on a personal level.

The political polarization is really bad for the country. The concept that you can agree with the left on some issues and the right on others isn't popular. Personally I take the position that the "true, objective best" (if there was such a thing) solution is closer to the middle than the far right or far left.

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#274

Post by ajmurmann »

Dangeranger wrote: post #101
s3r3nity wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sidebar / off topic: highly recommend the cuban espresso in Florida if you're into coffee...blew me away when I had it for the first time, and is one of the top reasons I look forward to travelling there.

Colada is life for me in Miami. 4-5 shots of Cafe Cubano to share with friends, or just drink yourself and feel the buzz.

What the existence of Colada says about the culture is so awesome. I want to be part of that so bad!

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#275

Post by leesalminen »

sigstoat wrote: post #49
davidw wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boulder managed to copy a lot of the good stuff about Silicon Valley - but also seems to have copied the brutal, rampant NIMBYism https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/business/how-anti-growth-... Great place, and I understand not wanting sprawl, but... build up and in?

it's probably worse, in a sense. you can't build up in boulder because there are height restrictions on buildings.

Color me a NIMBYist, but I love the height restriction. It gives me amazing views from my little apartment.

Edit to add: An image from my balcony [0].

[0] https://storage.googleapis.com/lee-salminen-fileshare/IMG_24...

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#276

Post by arebop »

freyr wrote: post #115
baddox wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds great, but one of the common rebuttals is that the job market (remote or otherwise) may be more challenging outside of the Bay Area.

What good is a "hot job market" that can't keep up with the housing market or cover the costs of raising a family?

Treading water in a tech job in the bay area is kind of like being in a "normal" job (such as architect, as in buildings not software) any where else, except you don't have to worry about layoffs or a tyrannical boss because you can always just get another job.

Sure it would be great to have both a high income (relative to local costs) and a job you love and plenty of other options, but if one must choose... I choose to trade away the upper-middle-class lifestyle in order to have enjoyable and impactful work in my chosen field of software engineering.

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#277

Post by Element_ »

alkonaut wrote: post #206

Where do all the SV teachers, garbage truck drivers, police etc live? How long is the commute for a single person working at a grocery store checkout in SV?

I believe the average wage for jobs like nurses and firefighters is over 100k in California... some firefighters can pull in 400k with overtime [1].

[1] http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/03/02/firefighters-ear...

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#278

Post by pc86 »

phkahler wrote: post #227
geebee wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I ask you about one thing, though? Both my kids are in SFUSD schools, and San Francisco actually has a large number of 10/10 rated schools. This is based on test scores, of course, so it doesn't tell the whole story. For instance, take a look at this: http://www.greatschools.org/california/san-francisco/schools... Do you think that your elementary school in Colorado are vastly better than the top three we see her…

>> San Francisco actually has a large number of 10/10 rated schools. Is that on a national or state scale? I find my district in Michigan making all kinds of claims like that about many of our schools, but it's all compared to others in the state. Nationally we're still above average but nothing to get excited about.

It's almost certainly going to be whatever is the most prestigious or makes the school look the best. They'll obviously use national rankings if they're #9 in the nation. If they're #9 in Mississippi, they are probably not using national rankings.

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#279

Post by nommm-nommm »

wehadfun wrote: post #54
BadassFractal wrote: post #22

Let's set aside cost of living in the Bay for a second. Here's a completely taboo subject. At what point do we hold people accountable for their reproductive choices? You want to have 2, 4, 6 children in the most expensive slice of land in the US? Great, but please bear in mind that choice comes with real financial consequences to your lifestyle and you should not expect the state to bail you out of it.

I have mixed feelings about this. People say that state shouldn't have to pay for your kids, but the state can send your kids to war. If the state sends your kids to war and they get killed who reimburses the parent for $100K they invested in the kid?

>who reimburses the parent for $100K they invested in the kid?

The state pays death benefits.

Plus SGLI is around half a million dollars, last I knew. Plus ongoing payments to surviving spouses, I don't know about parents though. There's a small premium for SGLI though, around ~$300/year I think

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#280

Post by ajmurmann »

kmonsen wrote: post #223
phkahler wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> That sounds great, but one of the common rebuttals is that the job market (remote or otherwise) may be more challenging outside of the Bay Area. It amazes me how many people in tech can't do simple math. Hint: The Detroit area job market is on fire, but you will pass it over if your idea of compensation doesn't take into account cost of living. I'm sure there are several other cities that can say the same.

I'm not an expert, but from my experience this is not true. If you do well in Bay Area (lets say ~500k total comp) it will be hard to match that in another area even including cost of living.

How do you get to that level of compensation? Are you just referring to "luck" with stock or cash salary? If it's not stock what skills pay that much?
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