Do you get "paid" to live in high cost of living areas?

[free4now]

While it is true that you do get higher salaries in higher COL areas, I think it is likely that will become less true over time. In the Silicon Valley we are already seeing the programming jobs drying up as better electronic connections allow the work to be done in other cities or even over in India where they can hire 4 (used to be 5-6) Indians for the price of one SiliValley engineer.

On the other hand it seems like the very top "movers and shakers" will always live in the more desirable areas partially because they can work in person with other top people and also just because they like the area more. So like everything else I see things stratifying more over time. The desirable areas will probably pay the top people more while the medium-skilled workers get paid closer to national averages. The lower skilled service workers (e.g. restaurant employees) will have to be paid more in the desirable areas just to be able to afford to live nearby, but probably not enough to get ahead.

[dougdo]

NYC Employers definitely need to pay more than other places to account for the cost of living and competitive salary environment.

I had a great tactic--i got the job in NY and then decided I didn't want to live in NY and negotiated to work out of Seattle where my cost of living was much less but I kept my NYC salary.

[grumpy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BunsOfVeal Grumpy, you forgot to mention that DC has the highest concentration of single, educated women. I never get tired of visiting my buddy's apartment in DC because the building's roof always has a few hotties sunbathing topless, and you get to run into them later at the building's business center or while taking the elevator. There are also plenty of babes scoping out guys at the Smithsonian. None of these you'll get living in the boonies.

Well, Buns, having been married 36 years and having reached the age when libido is not what it once was, those advantages just didn't occur to me.

Grumpy

[BunsGettingFirm]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords That depends. Was the robber an educated topless single hottie?

Ah, since when have educated, single, topless hotties need to stick up guys for anything? Hence the threat, "Stop, or I'll blind you with my headlights" has never attained any level of popularity among would be muggers.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I've been "stuck up" by educated, single, topless hotties on a number of occasions.

[justin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by (Cute Fuzzy Bunny) I've been "stuck up" by educated, single, topless hotties on a number of occasions.

You mean "stood up"?

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Noooooo.....

[slalom]

the hotties were transgender

[sgeeeee]

Quote:

Do you get "paid" to live in high cost of living areas?

Finanicaly . . . No.

But that's not the only consideration.

[Spanky]

Quote:

But do you get "paid" by being in a place with more opportunities to create wealth - whether it be real estate, opportunity to work for some start-up company, high paying jobs? What do you think?

A friend of mine moved to Irvine, CA in 1997. He received a 15% increase, but that was insufficient to compensate the increased cost of housing. However, the house that he bought for $400K then is now valued at $1.4M. He also says that job opportunities are much better there and will never return to Minnesota. He just cannot stand the sub-zero temperature and the long, long winter. He is probably sitting in front of his pool and enjoying the warm sun while we are staying indoor to stay warm.

[macdaddy]

For some reason companies continue to locate to CA to find workers which perpetuates this cycle. Nissan may be able to relocate a factory to TN but I don't think they could attract skilled workers there. Maybe people who spend so much time in a city environment for their education don't want to move back for small/medium sized city life. I had hoped Little Rock, Memphis, Nashville, Charleston, and a few other cities would start to boom but I haven't really seen it yet. However, I have seen three companies relocate to CA in the last year.

[kramer]

Companies are net relocating staff out of California (this can still be true even though companies are growing within the state). So are people -- California has had net negative domestic migration for many years -- all of the net new migration is people who are from other countries. If memory serves, California gets 1 in 3 USA immigrants whereas it is only 1/9 the USA population.

This is slowly changing the voting pool here. We have large Democratic majorities in the legislature and only have one statewide Republican official and he now governs left of center due to recent setbacks -- Arnie's election was sort of a fluke via a recall election you might have heard about. When you consider that the voting population represents California demographics about 10 years in the past because it takes folks time to become citizens and vote, then the future is predictable.

These changes have led to an environment of high taxes and many regulations that are not conducive to business and have also led to shortages of housing.

I work for one of the 5 biggest tech companies in Silicon Valley. We are moving from less than 10% third world engineers to over 50% in a period of less than 5 years (we are in 4th year now). This has been in a number of company press releases with exact numbers -- something we didn't really understand, why they were publicizing it, but to their credit they have. I think this is an excellent move by the company overall. From time to time, my company also has "California" hiring freezes in certain groups.

Kramer