Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs • Hacker News Board

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#161

Post by Johnny555 » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 6:15 AM UTC

masonic wrote: post #150

grandmczeb wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As the article points out, the huge influx of capital in the area is being returned only to the tech sector, who merrily spend it and drive up the cost of living. Most of the cost of living increase is due to bone-headed housing polices happily voted in by existing residents, the vast majority of which do not work in tech. I personally find it very sad that we've prioritized rewarding a tiny, vocal minority at the…

bone-headed housing polices happily voted in by existing residents "Residents" have no such authority. Cities and counties don't even have an initiative or referendum power open to residents, generally.

But most communities do have an elected city council that's supposed to represent the will of the voters. In my community any attempt to build new housing results in a lot of current reidents showing up at planning meetings and complaining about how the new development will ruin their quality of life, take away street parking, and cause gridlock.

Oddly, I only know of two people in my condo associate that work in tech, and both of us support new housing, the ones that are most vocally opposed have been here for 20+ years. Ok, maybe that's not so odd, the people that have been here the longest don't want more change.

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#162

Post by yjhoney » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 6:23 AM UTC

yjhoney wrote: post #76

space_fountain wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First thanks for what you're doing. I think it's definitely part of the solution. My worry though is that I don't think everyone is equipped to be a programer. The thing I keep coming back to is my younger brother. He's got mental disabilities which mean he can't read or do math at more than a very basic level (first grade maybe) and for what ever it's worth he also scored pretty low on IQ tests. Despite a bit of a f…

Thank you for sharing your story. I don't know the severity of your brother's disabilities but I believe that there is a potential place for him as a teacher to teach introductory courses (like JS basics, html, etc). The daily interaction someone like your brother might have with other people might help with his mental disabilities. Just a my two cents, but I'm not trying to advocate for everyone to learn coding thou…

I remembered one of our students has a brother who has severe ADHD (to the point where he had to be heavily medicated). He comes in and tries to learn but couldn't seem to hold his attention for more than a few minutes before disappearing into reddit and gaming sites. I wasn't able to help him. Remembering that, I realize my response above is (unempathetic? I can't find the right word to describe the feels) and I apologize for that.

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#163

Post by yjhoney » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 6:25 AM UTC

voxl wrote: post #142

yjhoney wrote: post #34

I started a nonprofit 2 years ago (garagescript.org) that hires low income people in San Jose and their full time job is to learn how to code and teach new students. Our nonprofit started off with 20 students, most were making about 25k/year and had no coding experience. I paid each of them 2k / month to quit their jobs and focus on coding full time. From the original 20 students, 6 are left. The other 14 are all ful…

Are you operating at a loss? It's hard for me to see how this is financially stable. Obviously its a non-profit, but you still need to pull in money to maintain the non-profit. I've heard of other ventures similar to this that would take a percentage of the students wages after getting them successfully hired, but even that seems to have fallen out of the news.

Its not financially stable. I have a hard time telling my mom where all my money is going to and I feel guilty every time I go home for family dinner.

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#164

Post by GeneralMayhem » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 6:30 AM UTC

masonic wrote: post #150

grandmczeb wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As the article points out, the huge influx of capital in the area is being returned only to the tech sector, who merrily spend it and drive up the cost of living. Most of the cost of living increase is due to bone-headed housing polices happily voted in by existing residents, the vast majority of which do not work in tech. I personally find it very sad that we've prioritized rewarding a tiny, vocal minority at the…

bone-headed housing polices happily voted in by existing residents "Residents" have no such authority. Cities and counties don't even have an initiative or referendum power open to residents, generally.

They do in San Francisco. There's the power of the referendum (for instance, Prop C 2016), but more importantly, there's the power of the "community review" [1], with which a dedicated neighbor can stall construction for years by forcing reviews and appeals. The rules in other Bay Area cities are slightly different in construction, but not in result.

[1] https://hoodline.com/2015/11/sf-planning-101-how-community-i...

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#165

Post by matt4077 » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 6:34 AM UTC

hiram112 wrote: post #43

Barrin92 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the jobs that are mentioned in the article that are being hit the hardest are teachers, firefighters, caretakers and so forth. How many of those have been automated away? It seems that tech workers in the valley have found their own analog to blaming immigrants for downward wage pressure, their particular boogeyman seems to be the robots. No, the answer is much more trivial. As the article points out, the huge influx…

> It seems that tech workers in the valley have found their own analog to blaming immigrants for downward wage pressure, their particular boogeyman seems to be the robots. While you'll no doubt continue telling the deplorables that they're racist and xenophobic for failing to welcome their currency and cost-of-living arbitraging foreign-replacements with open arms, could you at least refrain from pretending that the…

> That's not a boogieman. It's a fact.

Nope....

Immigrants are more likely to start businesses than the local population, thus creating jobs. Mostly that's small service and retail businesses. But also Google and Tesla.

Plus, obviously, a population increase also drives demand. In fact, for every job that somebody has, exactly one job was somehow created, on average.

In your theory, the US could radically lower unemployment by simply splitting up.

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#166

Post by throwawaythekey » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 6:35 AM UTC

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #138

throwawaythekey wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the policies bone headed? I'm not American so may not have this perfectly right but the Detroit of the past seems to be a good analogue to SV. Lots of well paid jobs in a single industry. When the eventual downturn occurs you don't want to be left with a ghost town.

The SV policies aren't about diversification -- they are about preventing housing from being built.

To be more clear;

The lack of diversification in employment makes the residents as a whole more vulnerable to the next sector based bust (see dotcom crash).

If there is a larger supply of housing then more properties will be put on the market in such an event. This could exacerbate any fall in prices or result in a large number of abandoned properties which can be pretty damaging to a neighborhood.

We get a sort of similar effect here in Australia. A mine opens in the outback somewhere and prices rise rapidly in the nearest town(s). Then a whole heap of new housing gets built to meet the demand and make some profit. One day resource prices fall, the mines cut back on operations, and suddenly there is a housing oversupply and the whole local market falls pretty harshly.

If you were a local resident who lived there the entire time you would probably be feeling pretty shortchanged by the end.

The correct answer is probably to build some new housing supply but definitely not as much as the peak demands.

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#167

Post by burlesona » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 6:42 AM UTC

orangecat wrote: post #107

burlesona wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. They’re spending it all on housing. To be clear the flow is: tech companies make enormous revenue but require high skill workers. To make this work they pay whatever it costs to get workers and no more - in this case that means just enough to offset the enormous cost of housing. Since the baby boomers practically banned all housing development in the bay once their little burns were built, this result in a little…

Employees are left with an equation that looks basically like: enormous salary - obscene rent = just a bit more cash flow than you’d earn in software anywhere else. It's probably true that the cost of minimally acceptable housing drives entry level tech salaries, but they go way up from there. A senior SWE at Google with salary+bonus+stock of $300k/year has a whole lot of disposable income even after the ridiculous h…

First off, Google employees are the outliers even in SF. Second, there are many situational factors that make a huge difference as to whether 300k leaves “a whole lot of disposable income.”

The simplest is families living on one income. In most of the country this is easily achievable if you can break six figures, but in SF housing is priced for two full area incomes, so if you want to make it work with one parent at home you either have a relatively small and ratty apartment (compared to housing stock elsewhere) or you spend $6000+ per month on housing which takes a dramatic bite out of that $300k you’re taking about.

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#168

Post by thepp1983 » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 6:43 AM UTC

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #2

Surprised? I'm not. Capitalists are well known to conspire together and create capitalist unions to block workers of all stripes. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/15/technology/silicon-valley... Google, Apple, Intel and Adobe in this one.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L... Adobe, Apple Inc., Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and eBay here. https://www.morganlewis.com/pubs/ftc-brin…

Capitalism != Corporatism.

We have a problem with corporatism not capitalism.

Please learn the difference.

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#169

Post by GeneralMayhem » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 6:45 AM UTC

clubm8 wrote: post #143

Aeolun wrote: post #28

Isn’t it ironic that the rates of poverty are increasing in possibly the wealthiest region in the world?

> Isn’t it ironic that the rates of poverty are increasing in possibly the wealthiest region in the world? Not really - a natural side effect of corporations not paying their fair share in taxes, alongside employees who are compensated in ways (stock options) where large chunks of their salary are untaxable by local governments. (It's my understanding it's much harder for local governments to tax stock options as cap…

That's half true at best.

Capital gains are reported on your tax return as a form of income. The rate at which they're taxed is up to each jurisdiction. For federal taxes, long-term capital gains happen to be taxed at a lower rate than other income. For California state taxes, there is no such distinction - all income, including capital gains, is taxed on the same progressive taxation schedule. So for Californians, getting paid in stock options usually results in lower federal taxes, but no change in state taxes.

Now, where it gets interesting is with local jurisdictions. In California, cities and counties are not allowed to collect income taxes. However, San Francisco does collect payroll taxes. Paying your employees in options could reduce the amount that counts as payroll, but only if the stock options are increasing in value quickly. If your employees are getting all of their money from you, the city gets its cut. If your employees are getting some of their money from you and some from the stock market, then the city loses out on the latter portion - but most employees should consider that a bonus and negotiate pay primarily based on current value, so that shouldn't matter too much in the long run.

What the city (but not the state!) definitely misses out on taxing is capital gains on wealth already accrued. When I make money on investments (not so much this year, but hypothetically), the city doesn't get anything from that, because there's no payroll involved. The feds get some of it (at the reduced capital gains rates, assuming I've held for a year); California gets some of it (at the full income tax rate); San Francisco gets none. But again, that story is only for investment income on money I already had, not for new stock compensation.

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#170

Post by jldugger » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 6:49 AM UTC

root_axis wrote: post #156

jldugger wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not wrong, a LOT of tech companies have opened up support offices in Texas. The inexplicable thing is why engineering stays in SV.

That's like asking why banking stays on Wallstreet. It's because that's where the biggest and most influential firms are headquartered.

I think it's a fair question though. Obviously talent is tough enough to recruit that you don't tell engineers they're relocating and expect to keep them. But you can choose to build offices outside one very influential city:

- Google bought the Port Authority building, which is like 2 empire state buildings in terms of office space. They have plenty of engineers working there: https://www.wired.com/2010/12/google-nyc/ This year they bought the building next door: https://www.blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/... - Apple has a large campus in Austin: http://fortune.com/2016/09/01/apple-austin-campus/ - Amazon's obviously diversifying "HQ" locations

The question is why companies hiring engineers by the thousands every year keep pushing to open more offices in the valley. Why is it ideal to shift HR and accounting away from the west coast but keep engineering local?