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How much Americans make in wages

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Re: How much Americans make in wages

#181

Post by extra88 »

anoncoward111 wrote: post #155
extra88 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homeownership is not necessary for well-being. The absolute cost of property taxes in some parts of the Northeast are high because the properties are highly valued. Taxes are not robbery, people in higher taxed areas get more services than low-tax places like Texas. Higher property taxes correlate with higher rent but the inverse can be true when home buying (i.e. a seller can ask more for a home in a low property ta…

I appreciate your reponse, and agree that the entire country is not the Northeast :) However, I would urge you not to discount the existence of 50m people in the Northeast megacorridor[1]. I am not particularly aware of what services are received that directly benefit people living here other than the ones that I have personally experienced, which are unemployment income and pension income for teachers (my parents).…

My original point was simply that property taxes come way behind many other problems in the Northeast. Housing costs, whether it's renting or buying, is near the top of the list but it's not like having a property tax rate comparable to Houston would make those homes affordable.

Sometimes there are situations where a senior citizen wants to stay in their home but the assessed value has gone up so much over the decades (plus some tax rate increases) that they can't afford the property tax. They may not value the financial windfall of selling the home and downsizing but there are worse problems to have. Anyway, the original topic was about wages and people of traditional working age.

Re: How much Americans make in wages

#182

Post by toasterlovin »

peterwwillis wrote: post #176
toasterlovin wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being downvoted, but if you look at a ranking of household income by ethnicity in the U.S., it's pretty clear that you're right. The highest earning ethnic group is Indian Americans. You can make the (terribly convoluted) argument that East Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) are somehow white, but there's no getting around the fact that Indians are brown . At least as brown as Mexicans and probably browner (Me…

Hooooo boy. First off, it's not in any way accurate to refer to groups of people by skin color. I know "white" Mexicans and "brown" Caucasians. Second, the parent comment is misguided for a number of reasons. Anyone suggesting "all white people do " are misguided because they're trading in racist stereotypes. But there is a trend that they are trying to point out, which is an inherent bias of the majority population…

So you have an ethnic group that A) is many shades darker that even the darkest European ethnicities, B) speaks with an accent that is very difficult for native English speakers to understand, C) only had a meaningful support group of people with the same background in the last several decades, and D) is able to pull in 2x the income of white Americans and your position is that somebody's race is the most important limiting factor to their success in this country?

Re: How much Americans make in wages

#183

Post by anoncoward111 »

bzbarsky wrote: post #162
anoncoward111 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your statistics but I'm not quite sure how they are related to our discussion. Most of the kids in NY state are living under the care and support of their parents and aren't working, therefore they shouldn't even be a factor in population/labor force participation metric. Additionally, many of the old people who aren't working shouldn't be factored in either because they are receiving quite high pensions…

The original context, as far as I can tell, was "what fraction of workers live in the high-cost metro areas?", right? We're trying to estimate this in all sorts of indirect ways, when the real questions, which I am sure we should be able to find answers for, are: 1) How many workers are there total? 2) How many workers are there in high-cost metro areas? What we can't easily do is derive the answer for #2 from the to…

Thank you so much for your well-reasoned response :) I think we've found middle-ground in trying to estimate these numbers too.

It sounds like we could ball-park the number at 33% of Americans being in high cost of living areas.

Additionally, it sounds like we agree that that percentage might change based on if you're looking at urban, suburban, or rural areas, and if you are factoring in dependents or retirees.

I think the question we ask from here is, "how do we increase the number of people who are able to have a large chunk of discretionary income coming in?"

For this the answer is probably political, contentious, and complex. Not everyone can be a programmer, as there's only 4 million computer professionals in the US right now. Not everyone can be a licensed employee either, who tend to make more money (health care, law), because labor supply is strictly regulated for these professions.

I think if we were to somehow reduce rent-seeking behavior in the economy (real estate and health insurance prices are pretty good indicators of state-enforced supply restrictions), then prices and salaries would begin to approach the mean again, which is around 50k per person.

I guess what I'm saying here is I think the roofer who makes 37k a year in Newark NJ is being underpaid, and the physician's assistant who makes 100k a year in Scottsdale AZ is being overpaid. I would wager their labor is of equal value, but is being artificially disrupted.

Re: How much Americans make in wages

#184

Post by opo »

fzeroracer wrote: post #122
notyourwork wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep your family and money separate. It usually always ends poorly otherwise.

Sounds like you haven't had to deal with family members in abject poverty before? My parents can't work, for example. They're both disabled and rely on food stamps plus medicare just to survive. This puts a rather large financial burden on me at times to say the least, because I would rather not see my parents starve to death. If only we had a government that took better care of people in poverty. Imagine that.

>...If only we had a government that took better care of people in poverty.

Have they tried getting SSDI? No one gets rich off of that, but it is one of the major government programs to help support those with disabilities.

Re: How much Americans make in wages

#185

Post by TheMagicHorsey »

jurassic wrote: post #52
kough wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, do you subsidize your siblings? I'm going to be in the same situation and I'm not sure what I'm going to end up doing but I think I'm going to end up doing it.

Yeah, moderately. This year I gave about $7k to each sibling which is life-changing for them and not really a hardship for me other than slightly delaying my home-ownership goal. For one sibling, I'm the safety net when crises happen that they can't afford. E.g. can't come up with their car insurance deductible, water heater broke, etc. They don't ask but I always offer when it's clear that a small outlay would spare…

Just realized I am very privileged to have siblings and cousins who all equal or outperform me.

Re: How much Americans make in wages

#186

Post by ryanmercer »

notfromhere wrote: post #174
scarface74 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to paycheckcity.com, 30K a year is a net income of $2000 a month in GA. Rent - 800 Food - 400 Power/Water/Gas - 300 Internet - $50 Cell - $50 These are all reasonable numbers for Atlanta. It would be a stretch and you should probably have a room mate to give you some breathing room but it can be done. Also if you have roommates, you could afford a car and insurance. My son is living on his own in Atlanta so…

Now imagine this without familial support of any kind.

I don't have to I live it except I gotta help a 66 year old, retired early via disability, parent on top of it in Indy at 33k a year.

Re: How much Americans make in wages

#187

Post by ryanmercer »

rayiner wrote: post #126
fzeroracer wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is remarkably ignorant of the actual circumstances that lower-class Americans have to deal with, especially when you share almost improbable statistics that are completely out of touch with reality. 30,000 is far from a decent income considering people get gouged on health insurance, which effectively functions as another tax on their post-tax income. When you start adding in the costs of food, internet, phone,…

I'm not disagreeing that there is a "lower class" of Americans that face these circumstances. What I'm disagreeing with is the article's implication that the median American somehow shares this plight. The article ignores a crucial fact: that the "median income" does not represent the "median American." The "median American" makes over $50,000 at age 35+. The "median income" reflects everyone just starting out in the…

> The "median American" makes over $50,000 at age 35+

TIL I should start magically making an extra 17k a year in 14 months, yay! I guess the 100ish people in my office (and the fact that no one at my level, anywhere in the country, for my employer makes anywhere near 50k) over that age, not making that much, are anomalies.

The 'median American' doesn't make over 50k$, the median household income in my state is only 54k.

Re: How much Americans make in wages

#188

Post by odorousrex »

mc32 wrote: post #45
kough wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, do you subsidize your siblings? I'm going to be in the same situation and I'm not sure what I'm going to end up doing but I think I'm going to end up doing it.

Don’t you think they migh become codependent? I’d lead them in the right direction, give them advice, etc., but not subsidize, unless they are truly out in the streets. I can see if it’s your little brother or little sister and helping out with some tuition though. Also hand-me-downs are okay.

I felt like this for a long time, until the financial crisis in 2008.

My sister and her family were struggling so badly. Underwater mortgage, lost the house to foreclosure, could barely afford to rent a place. They were discussing having to leave the area (Southern California) moving hours away from grandparents, uncles, aunts and friends, and of course me and my family.

In the end, I bought a house in 2010 specifically for her and her family. I continue to rent it to them at below market rate (They don't cover the morgage payment, but come close), and although we've had a few close calls, they have yet to miss a rent check, and have recovered significantly on their own without further help from me or other family.

There has been zero co-dependence.

Since they pay rent, and take good care of the house, it really has helped them maintain a sense of dignity. I let them treat the house as if it was their own, and they take excellent care of it.

I think this was a better option than just bailing the out. All parties really get something out of it, not to mention the emotional aspect of having close family continue to live close by.

Re: How much Americans make in wages

#189

Post by ryanmercer »

jdlyga wrote: post #4

30k is very low. If your company offers 6 holidays per year, that equals out to $14.71 per hour. That's below minimum wage in New York City right now.

>30k is very low.

Where you live

>$14.71 per hour. That's below minimum wage in New York City right now

Federal minimum wage is 7.25 and that is the minimum wage for many states as well, mine included. 30k is actually doing decent, after 12.5 years on the job I only make 33k with good reviews every year. If I was suddenly unemployed and had to go work retail I might get lucky and hire in at 8$ an hour.

Re: How much Americans make in wages

#190

Post by bostik »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #84
tfigment wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are a good person. Money is really good to keep separate though at least for many people I think. I've done similar things like loaned my older brother enough to get through nursing school as he was stocking at Target at 33 and I thought this was a better path. I was better off then but not well off and this cause some strains. When he was doing better it was hard to get him to pay back anything even at 0% intere…

> Money and family can be tricky. Maybe, but on your death bed which one do you think you are going to have the most regrets about?

The fact that I didn't impress financial prudence on them when I had the chance?
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