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Old 06-03-2014, 09:30 AM
 
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,082 posts, read 80,136,113 times
Reputation: 56876

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Malloric View Post
The problem with your logic is that it is wrong and ignores the laws of supply and demand. If there ever was a shortage of janitors, the pay for janitors would just increase. You actually see the opposite a lot of times, especially in school districts where janitors are paid as much and in some cases more than teachers. There's no particular shortage of people willing to do the job, but it's union so the wage is set artificially high at about double the market rate. What happens in the school district just fires the janitors and makes the teachers clean their rooms after class. The school isn't as clean as it was but oh well. It's not like society stops functioning because there's some dust.

After Memorial Day I was in a building and there were CRUMBS ON THE GROUND as the janitor was still on vacation. You know what I did? I walked over them. I mean, there was a doorman doing just about nothing so he could have gotten a vaccuum/broom and cleaned it up in no time. He probably didn't have one though. Like the school districts, in a situation where there were no janitors the role would just be spread around the other people. That's not very efficient in reality since janitors are low paid workers and it's much more efficient to have janitors who are much better at their job cleaning than bank VPs who take twice as long to do a worse job and make five times as much per hour.
School janitors are paidmore than the classroom aids and special education paraprofessionals thanks to a stronger union. Ours start at about $18 and go up to $23. Paraprofessionals start at $16, classroom aids $13. Janitors for large facility management companies that contract with building managers and airports (such as ABM) are only getting $10-12 but there is no shortage of applicants.
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Old 06-03-2014, 10:29 AM
 
Location: Paranoid State
13,044 posts, read 13,782,298 times
Reputation: 15837
Quote:
Originally Posted by Malloric View Post
... Of course, my house is far below the average 2,400 of new homes...
Wow. I couldn't believe that the average size of a new home is 2400 sf (seems way high to me) , but 5 minutes of research shows 2400 is, indeed, the average.

We all know houses were a bit smaller in the past. How much smaller?

Well, in 1950, the average household of 3.37 people lived in an average house of 983 sf.

No wonder people at the bottom end of the economic spectrum keep feeling worse off - much of it is perception of what it means to be average.
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Old 06-03-2014, 12:33 PM
 
5,342 posts, read 6,132,422 times
Reputation: 4719
Quote:
Originally Posted by rzzz View Post
You can rent houses in Minneapolis for that much and the job market here is pretty good.
You can rent houses in about every area of the country for that much. There are very few exceptions (outside your huge metro areas like DC, NYC, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, large Cali cities, and apparently Hawaii). I rented a 6 bedroom house (built in 2004) in a beautiful area of Orlando, FL (gated community) for $1,400.

I spent most of my 20s living off of 1-1.5k/month while in grad school (2007-2011)
3-4 roommates

Rent: 350-400
Utilities & Cable: 100-125
Car Insurance: 60
Food: ~200
Gas: ~100
Entertainment: ~100-150
Cell Phone: 50-75



When I got married to my wife I was 27 and she was 24. I took home exactly 1k/month Grad school stipend and my wife took home slightly more (making about 12 dollars an hour).

Together we took home about $2,400 a month after insurance, taxes, etc.

Rent: $880
Cell Phones: $100
Utilities: $150
Cable: $90
Internet: $50
Gas: $200
Food: $320
Car Insurance: $100
Total: $1890

Remaining: $510


Most people who are talking about how difficult it is to live on or near min. wage budget have probably never even done it. Sure I couldn't go buy a new car, but I had a car worth about 3k and it sufficed. Sure I didn't have a flat screen tv, or a ps3, but I didn't need it. I biked to campus a lot (6 miles) and showered at the gym, especially when gas prices in Florida were hovering around 4-4.50 a gallon. I spent a lot of time doing free stuff, hanging out at the apartment pool, going to the beach, watching a sporting event with roommates or friends or playing pickup soccer or basketball.

I guess according to most here, I wasn't really living, more like resembling a third world country citizen, but I loved it.
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Old 06-09-2014, 01:19 PM
 
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,082 posts, read 80,136,113 times
Reputation: 56876
I grew up in San Bruno, CA in a house that was 2 BR a BA, just under 1,000 sf and there were 5 of us kids. Eventually before the 6th-9th kids came along, we did move to a 5 BR house on 1/2 acre but that was still tight for 11 people. That may be why we went for 3,000 sf with just 3 kids.

New homes being built in our area now are 3,200 SF on 5,000 SF lots, and take up most of the lot so very little yard. They start at $800k and are selling well so somebody can afford them.
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