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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”

#421

Post by amyjess »

jamck23 wrote: post #417
amyjess wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a Texan looking to move out of state because I'm transgender and our legislature wants to make it impossible for people like me to exist. Since that's the only reason I'm wanting to move, I'm looking for the most Texas-like place I can find. Unfortunately, the closest I can come is Southern California. I dragged my heels like crazy on admitting that SoCal was the only place that has most of what I wanted because…

Have you looked at Tucson? Similar to Austin, it's a liberal artsy city surrounded by reds, and yes the AZ legislature has done some AWFUL things, but Tucsonans are passionate about protecting people and it's one of my favorite places on Earth. Grew up there and since I left, the diversity has been growing since Tucson takes in a ton of refugees from all over the world. It's a sweet little bubble, beers are $1.50, fo…

Arizona has no transgender protections at the state level. Local protections mean jack shit. It must be done at the state level or it's meaningless.

Also, I hate artsy hipsters with a passion. Even though I'm transgender, I'm deeply conservative in most other respects, I specifically want to live in a conservative suburb in a blue state. I don't want independent record stores and third-wave coffee shops. I want shopping malls, strip centers, cookie-cutter housing, and Asian people operating restaurants that serve their traditional food (I especially don't want white people remixing ethnic food that's not theirs). What I want is Plano, TX dug out of the ground and transported into a blue state. This is why I'm looking at Torrance and Orange County in CA.

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

#422

Post by closeparen »

xaa wrote: post #418
closeparen wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My federal income taxes (which treat me as though I am rich, because income taxes are not cost-of-living adjusted) buy: - The diplomatic, covert, and military apparatus which dominates the world to the extent necessary to secure the flow of cheap oil for your car. - The interstate highways you drive on. - The stability of the mortgage-lending ecosystem (via bailouts), and FHA subsidies that privilege suburban single…

> income taxes are not cost-of-living adjusted Well, this is another issue. It's incoherent, honestly, that someone can be considered both rich and poor from the federal perspective. But in the end, a COL adjustment on income tax would be equivalent to the type of subsidy in question. - The diplomatic, covert, and military apparatus which dominates the world to the extent necessary to secure the flow of cheap oil for…

>If there was ever a point that our military paid for itself (even on the margin) in terms of cheaper oil

Of course it doesn't pay for itself. Cities with their GDP growth pay for it (financially), and exurbs with their cheap sprawling subdivisions and giant SUVs benefit from it.

People are most needed where they would create the most value, regardless of cost of living.

Let's say your programming labor would be worth $120k/year ($40k in taxes) in San Francisco, but you're stuck making $50k/year ($10k in taxes) in Indianapolis because San Francisco would still be a net less for you.

Your not being in San Francisco costs the government $30k/year. Any subsidy below $30k/year that gets you to that more productive job is profitable for the taxpayer.

Now imagine someone who costs taxpayers $20k/year in Appalachia, but could generate $30k/year ($5k in taxes) as a barista at the Googleplex. It's still worth any price below $25k to get her to Mountain View.

Of course, these subsidies might just arm you (and the barista) to displace other, also productive Bay Area residents, resulting in no net change. There would also have to be a zoning policy intervention to create new units.

I do agree that high and low density regions are codependent, and subsidies are appropriate in both directions. I simply argue that subsidies to get people to high-productivity cities are much less costly (they can even be profitable!) than subsidies to help people stay in low-productivity situations.

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

#423

Post by nradov »

Danihan wrote: post #414
nradov wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reliable evidence would be a large scale, double blind clinical study establishing statistically significant correlations between particular genes and high scores on multiple standardized intelligence tests, followed by a finding that those genes are significantly more common in the Bay Area than in other regions. Without something like that you can't legitimately make any claims about heritable intelligence. There a…

Sure, you're correct. But you'll have to excuse me if I don't wait decades for data like this to build a worldview.

It would be a shame if you build a worldview based on narrow geographic prejudice not backed by any hard evidence. I think we can do better.

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

#424

Post by xaa »

closeparen wrote: post #422
xaa wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> income taxes are not cost-of-living adjusted Well, this is another issue. It's incoherent, honestly, that someone can be considered both rich and poor from the federal perspective. But in the end, a COL adjustment on income tax would be equivalent to the type of subsidy in question. - The diplomatic, covert, and military apparatus which dominates the world to the extent necessary to secure the flow of cheap oil for…

>If there was ever a point that our military paid for itself (even on the margin) in terms of cheaper oil Of course it doesn't pay for itself. Cities with their GDP growth pay for it (financially), and exurbs with their cheap sprawling subdivisions and giant SUVs benefit from it. People are most needed where they would create the most value, regardless of cost of living. Let's say your programming labor would be wort…

> exurbs with their cheap sprawling subdivisions and giant SUVs benefit from it

I guess I'm with you to the extent this means they "recoup a larger proportion of their losses on these pointless endeavors".

> Your not being in San Francisco costs the government $30k/year. Any subsidy below $30k/year that gets you to that more productive job is profitable for the taxpayer.

With this I agree, although it seems at odds with what I think you were saying earlier, that tax should be COL-adjusted. If this were the case, it would no longer be true.

> People are most needed where they would create the most value, regardless of cost of living.

Nope! True, this would be best from the government's perspective. From the individual's perspective, it is most rational to live where they have the biggest surplus of wages over costs. Doesn't do you much good to make $1M if it's $1.5M for a crappy apartment and basic food.

Unless you are separating the concept of "people are needed most at X" from the concept of "it is most economically rational to live at X".

> imagine someone who costs taxpayers $20k/year in Appalachia, but could generate $30k/year ($5k in taxes) as a barista at the Googleplex

OK, yes, but this sets up a mostly false dichotomy between "employed in SV (etc)" or "unemployed in Appalachia". There are a lot of places in the US that are less dysfunctional than either one of those two places.

> I simply argue that subsidies to get people to high-productivity cities are much less costly (they can even be profitable!) than subsidies to help people stay in low-productivity situations.

It just seems self-contradictory. You say that people in SV pay more tax than people not in SV. That's right. But then you say people in SV should be subsidized, which removes the logical basis you're using to argue they should be there in the first place.

It is helpful to remember that subsidizing someone's COL in a low-cost area is by definition going to cost less than someone in a high-cost area. In short, if we HAVE to subsidize people a lot, then we should subsidize them to live in Appalachia, not SV. But if only a little (i.e., they still pay tax in net), then it could make economic sense to subsidize people in SV. Ironically, by this logic, it makes more sense to subsidize the $90K person in SV than the $30K person.

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

#425

Post by tastythrowaway »

anon374939 wrote: post #67
tastythrowaway wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what were you doing/where were you working that you were pulling in 250k?

I prefer not to say exactly, but it was multiple sources of income from different small businesses I've built over the years.

That's obviously completely fair, and I appreciate you replying at all. I guess I took it as you were working for a single company and not a proprietor in any way. So that was (false) context I injected, and that's on me.

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

#426

Post by thescriptkiddie »

vonmoltke wrote: post #390
thescriptkiddie wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple, you don't buy a house. At least, not unless you can afford to pay cash. For most people, buying a house on a mortgage is financial suicide. It only makes sense to buy a house on a mortgage if the price-to-rent ratio is under 25. Anything over that and you could rent the same house and invest the money you save and come out ahead. The price-to-rent ratio in San Francisco is 45.88, meaning that a house that ren…

Something seems way off on those SmartAsset numbers. There is no way you are renting a $600k place in Manhattan or a $195k place in Dallas for only $1000/month. Ante for renting a standalone place in Manhattan right now is around $2500/month, but I can buy places for as little as $500k (if I don't care about space). Some condos in Manhattan don't even allow rentals. We just sold our house in Dallas for $220k, and I g…

I believe that their number is an mean of all properties weighted equally. So if you're only looking at single-family homes you could be paying much more, and if you're only looking at apartments you could be paying a lot less. They're also not considering factors like brokerage fees, property taxes, insurance, maintenance, or depreciation.

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

#427

Post by Veelox »

linkregister wrote: post #404
Veelox wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with your edit I would like to chime in that I got a condo in San Jose that is 3 bed, 2 bath for <500k. It isn't fancy but it is home.

When did you buy this condo? Surely not recently.

I closed in December of 2016, as I nice side affect I got a rate that was a little lower then they are now.

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

#428

Post by madcaptenor »

amyjess wrote: post #421
jamck23 wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you looked at Tucson? Similar to Austin, it's a liberal artsy city surrounded by reds, and yes the AZ legislature has done some AWFUL things, but Tucsonans are passionate about protecting people and it's one of my favorite places on Earth. Grew up there and since I left, the diversity has been growing since Tucson takes in a ton of refugees from all over the world. It's a sweet little bubble, beers are $1.50, fo…

Arizona has no transgender protections at the state level. Local protections mean jack shit. It must be done at the state level or it's meaningless. Also, I hate artsy hipsters with a passion. Even though I'm transgender, I'm deeply conservative in most other respects, I specifically want to live in a conservative suburb in a blue state. I don't want independent record stores and third-wave coffee shops. I want shopp…

What's Georgia law on this? There are definitely some northern suburbs of Atlanta that would fit the bill.
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