Job centers are damaging themselves with high cost of living. It easily offsets the increase in wage. They valley is a great example of this, if you're moving there for the first time you might get, what, 80k, which is equivalent to 55 or 60k in anywhere that's not California or New York. It's hard to justify a move when you see your standard of living dipping a little until you can establish a reputation that warrants higher wage.
I'd Love to Move, but I Can't
21–30 of 128 posts
Re: I'd Love to Move, but I Can't
#22It seems almost the opposite in the UK. Out of my original group of home town friends (from a pretty even mix of low and high income backgrounds), very few people haven't moved at least to another city. A large number of us have actually emigrated, at least temporarily. The modern, British means of surviving an economic downturn without going crazy seems to be doing a Teaching English as a Foreign Language course som…
At least 3 of my UK friends have TEFLed in Japan or South Korea, and I had it as a fallback plan at one point too.
Re: I'd Love to Move, but I Can't
#23The fundamental problem in most of these is "lack of a safety net". While there are safety nets in society they often exclude the years when someone is most likely to take economic risks - for example, in the US a minimum free medical coverage is provided to those people under 18 or over 65. Personally, I'm thinking that if people knew they couldn't incur permanent damage to themselves or their futures, they would ta…
Personally, I'm thinking that if people knew they couldn't incur permanent damage to themselves or their futures, they would take more risks.
Surely if people knew they couldn't incur permanent damage, it wouldn't be much of a risk? I don't think people's risk aversion has changed, I just think things are (or at least seem) more risky at the moment.
Re: I'd Love to Move, but I Can't
#24I'm 27 so I think I'm just a couple years outside of this generation that can't find jobs. That said, I'm pretty sick and damned tired of seeing lists of things keeping these 20-somethings from succeeding. It's time for people to man up (Though I'm not excluding women) and take responsibility for themselves and stop complaining about externalities keeping them from success and just go out and succeed. The problem isn…
This. I'm 26 and I had a decent paying software job in Florida. But I wanted to move up to New York so I convinced my job to let me work remotely. I made the move 2 months after they allowed me to work remotely. I sold a bunch of my possessions, made sure everything could fit into my car, gave away my furniture to my mom, and did the entire move for around $800 of my own money. (I had a place to stay when I got up he…
That's assuming you are young ,(presumably) have no kids and have a job that will let you will let you work remotely (the vast majority , like 95%+ will not).
Re: I'd Love to Move, but I Can't
#25The fundamental problem in most of these is "lack of a safety net". While there are safety nets in society they often exclude the years when someone is most likely to take economic risks - for example, in the US a minimum free medical coverage is provided to those people under 18 or over 65. Personally, I'm thinking that if people knew they couldn't incur permanent damage to themselves or their futures, they would ta…
I agree that safety nets are needed, but be careful with safety nets. There's a big problem in the UK with the various forms of disability benefits.
Some people find themselves trapped on benefits, and it's hard for them to move back into work.
An oversimplified (too long!) rundown:
Some disabled people incur extra living costs (for either transport or for care) just because they are disabled. This is covered by something called Disability Living Allowance. In theory you can get DLA whether or not you're working. (But sometimes the work you do will be used to reduce or remove the DLA you get.)
DLA isn't particularly controversial. But recently there's been disquiet about the way it works. It's strictly about "how disabled you are, how much support you need". When you realise that you can accept that an adult that has just lost a leg will need more help and support than an adult who has been without a leg for a few years - they've got a prosthetic and learnt how to move and got workarounds sorted out. This situation suddenly came to light when a bunch of soldiers with amputations suddenly had their DLA reduced from high to medium. From their point of view they still only had one leg.
The more controversial disability benefit is "Incapacity Benefit". (which is being replaced). (And various older benefits.)
People can have a disability and still work. Recent disability equality laws make this easier. Recent improvements in support for finding work for disabled people and supporting them while they're in work makes this much easier. Recent research showing that people (especially with mental heath problems) are better off in work helps too. But those improvements are trying to work with an old system of benefits and sub-optimal medical advice. "Bad Back" used to be 'untreatable', people would be given advice to lie flat on their back with a board under a firm mattress and to not get exercise. In areas of high unemployment (and little prospect of employment returning, eg mining towns) many people lived their lives on disability benefits. We now know that advice for bad back was terrible. We now know that mild to moderate depression responds really well to CBT (just 12 weeks!) and medication. People who used to spend years not working can now have a short amount of time away from work, and then get back in.
The controversy comes because benefits are so Political. People are not trapped in a system and need help to get back to work; they are lazy feckless scroungers stealing from the tax payer.
The other controversy comes from testing for the new benefit regime. This can be brutal for people with MH problems; who often don't have great medical support. Clinicians don't know how to work the bureaucracy, so even if a bunch of doctors think that Fred shouldn't be working for a few months it's not help to Fred.
The old benefits are being replaced by "Employment Support Allowance". In theory it's more compatible with modern attitudes to work and incapacity. In practice the UK needs a progression of gentle changes across everything (tax laws; support structures for disabled people entering work; employment laws; benefits offices; job seeking offices; clinical and vocational support for disabled people (especially those with MH problems) rather than huge disconnected changes in small areas.
Re: I'd Love to Move, but I Can't
#26As I see it the baby boomers, rightfully worried about their retirement, are going to camp out in most top positions longer than we expected or was normal in the past. This will inhibit upward mobility of younger people for quite some time (retirement ages are creeping up all across the Western world). Additionally they are demanding loyalty and commitment in the workplace from the younger generation for part-time and casual jobs with no security which would have been more secure full-time jobs in the past. There is constant bellyaching from the baby boomers on this point about flighty millennials without recognizing it's far less secure and stable than when they started.
All this combined with the student loans situation and the stagnant real wages since the 1970s is going to be a big problem. You can see it very starkly in the university system, but it applies everywhere. When the mass baby boomer retirement comes social security and health systems will be put into stress while the Western world is still in fairly deep debt. However, the baby boomers will still be dominant in politics as they will retire later there, and they will still be voting in retirement anyway.
On the long horizon graduates will then be fighting with a new generation of kids with cheap online education and more modern skills and middle class BRIC teleworkers. Non-graduates will, as has been the case for a long time, also be competing increasingly with the rising BRIC workers. While there is potential for full-automation to bring a lot of manufacturing back to the West in the next few decades, that's not going to mean that many jobs. "Motherboards now made in the USA again!" will be the cry... but by an automated factory supervised by a handful of Ivy league engineers and some cheap maintenance workers and self-driving trucks bringing in supplies. Amazon, Walmart and the like will continue to clean up "mom and pop" shops, drugstores with skype video connections to pharmacists in India to confirm prescriptions, even some restaurants going for more automation. Farming is already down to a tiny percentage of the population and the rest will be immigrants (illegal and otherwise) and perhaps some robots too.
In this situation it's insane to go into 60-100k commercial debt for a philosophy or fine arts degree given there are already distance and online study options for these at insanely low prices (the "hobby/cultural enrichment" argument is valid, I think society would be poorer without this influence, but it doesn't need expensive on-campus study or a brand-name). Those prices are only going to go down.
Things are going to get tougher.
Re: I'd Love to Move, but I Can't
#27I think one of the problems is that a lot of "twenty something's" still believe in their degree. A B.A. means pretty much nothing. As a recent graduate (about six months ago), I can honestly say that not letting my degree do the work for me was the smartest decision I've ever made. Grads need to realize that there are thousands holding the same, useless piece of paper. If you want to make money, teach yourself some cool shit and hit the road. It's terrifying, sure, but I think there's a lot of false hope in your four year stint magically converting into a $50k+/year job.
Re: I'd Love to Move, but I Can't
#28Job centers are damaging themselves with high cost of living. It easily offsets the increase in wage. They valley is a great example of this, if you're moving there for the first time you might get, what, 80k, which is equivalent to 55 or 60k in anywhere that's not California or New York. It's hard to justify a move when you see your standard of living dipping a little until you can establish a reputation that warran…
This short ebook explains it extremely well: http://www.amazon.com/The-Rent-Damn-High-ebook/dp/B0078XGJXO...
Basically, prices are so high because that is where building supply is constrained.
This book http://www.amazon.com/Gated-City-Kindle-Single-ebook/dp/B005... explains the nationwide economic consequences of constraining housing supply (and thus rising prices) in the most economically productive areas.
Re: I'd Love to Move, but I Can't
#29I saw this problem coming way in advance. As soon as a graduated college I moved directly to NYC. Do not pass Go, DO collect a lot more than $200. There are a zillion jobs here of all kinds, so I am not worried about losing my job at all.
The cost of living seems high, but it pays off. Wages are higher, for one thing. What money I lose because of higher rent I gain in that there are awesome things happening all over the place just a short bike ride from my house. That's worth the price of admission alone. But also I don't have to pay for a car, and many other expenses of the suburbs just don't exist.
Of course, now that I'm here I would not love to move. I think I might be a homeless bum before I moved somewhere else. I'd like to travel, but I can't imagine staying anywhere else as a permanent resident.
Re: I'd Love to Move, but I Can't
#30Reading through this list of anecdotes I had mixed emotions. I spent a significant amount of time unemployed 10+ years ago in the post-dotcom recession in the UK and it was awful. This was partly due to the highly unregulated nature of UK IT recruitment but the problem was the lack of jobs.
Still, a see some problems in this article. Like "I graduated with a philosophy major in 2008". Bzzzzt. Sorry, you made choices. People need to realize that college is an opportunity that comes with a significant cost (real and opportunity). You may want to major in South American literature but you need to have a plan for what you're going to do in the Real World. Or at least question whether the cost of college is worth it.
As for state residencies, depending on the state it may only take a year to establish residency in a new state. This can mean the first year of college is expensive but then it gets cheaper (IIRC California works this way) or it means you move there and flip burgers or whatever for a year.
The second thing I picked out was "there are no jobs in my area". I have no sympathy for this. Either you didn't think about this beforehand or your area is just hard to get into. Doing a degree in that area doesn't entitle you to a job. Get a job. Any job. Jobs are like social proof. It's far easier to get a job when you have a job.
The third thing I picked out was that it's expensive to move. No it isn't. You can get from pretty much anywhere in the US to anywhere else for under $500. What's that? You want your stuff? Ok, that's the real problem.
I think back to Fight Club: the things you own end up owning you. You basically need little more than a bed to sleep on. I think back to that photo of Steve Jobs from the 80s sitting on the floor of his apartment with just a lamp. He basically didn't own anything.
I can tell you from experience it's incredibly liberating to just get rid of your stuff.
If you want to move to New York City (as one example) to find work, it's not expensive. Bring yourself, some clothes and a laptop and you can get here for maybe as little as $100. Find a cheap town in the commuter belt and find temporary accommodation (eg I know someone who works in Manhattan but lives above a garage in Long Island for $300/month) and just come in to the city when you need to go to interviews.
And the beauty of NYC is you can get rid of that car too. Oh you want a car? You can have one... when you can afford it.
Oh you want a social life? And a furnished home where you can "entertain"? You can have those things... when you can afford them.
EDIT: let me clarify one point. I was careful to say you "need a plan" for the real world when it comes to college. That phrasing was deliberate and different to treating college as some kind of vocational processing plant. It means if you spend 8 years studying history at top schools and rack up $200,000 in debt then you probably made some bad choices. But if you studied philosophy at a state school and worked part-time such that you have little or no debt, then you've made far better choices.