Lincoln's bad economy

[Rumblebelly]

Oh Great Simplifier Matt,

Have you bothered to ask yourself why a chemist in Indiana makes about as much as a chemist in Massachusettes or Maryland?

[MattDen]

http://www.bls.gov/OES/current/oes_26900.htm
Indianapolis OES survey, May 2005

Anyway, in regards to cost of housing compard to wages. Here is how Lincoln stacks up.

Average wage per year:
Financial Manager
Lincoln 75,210
Pittsburgh 87,890
Buffalo 97,680

Computer System Analysists
Lincoln 54,920
Buffalo 59,780
Pittsburgh 61,410

Civil Engineers
Lincoln 58,110
Pittsburgh 64,610
Buffalo 68,610

Biochemists
Lincoln 55,110
Buffalo 73,660
Pittsburgh 73,810

The median home value in Buffalo is 60,800; Pittsburgh 74,000 and Lincoln 131,700.

www.census.gov 2005 American Community survey

So not only is a house 47,000 more in Lincoln then Pittsburgh and 69,900 more then Buffalo but those Biochemists in Lincoln and Buffalo make on average about 18,000 more in Buffalo and Pittsburgh and the civil engineers in those two areas Buffalo and Pittsburgh also make between 6000-10000 more per year in the civil engineering category.

It gets even better though. The median property tax in Pittsburgh on a home is 1,677 according to the census. Buffalo's median is 1,305 and Lincoln median property taxes come in at 2,504.

Wow, its amazing biochemists in Lincoln make 18,000 less then their counterparts in Buffalo and Pittsburgh. They pay 47,000 more for a house then Pittsburgh and 69,900 more then Buffalo and then on top of that they pay 825 dollars in Pittsburgh in property tax and 1,199 dollars more then Buffalo in property taxes also.

[Rumblebelly]

You keep skirting the type of industries available. The type of industry greatly impacts the average pay. Also, you avoid the overall cost of living such as taxes, utilities, health care, insurance, fuel....once you figure all that in as well, you'll probably find that the numbers pretty much even out.

[mattpoulsen]

Mattden,

This is exactly what I'm talking about!! You cherry pick all your data! Of course you can find a bit here or a bit there to fit your needs, but it doesn't paint a broad sweeping picture.

BTW, why did you pick a college instructor and a painter to compare?? I'll tell you why. By the titles of the job you would expect the college instructor to make much more than a painter. However, you are also not considering that educators are typically far underpaid for their services until they reach tenure level full professor status. Painters, ironically, actually do pretty well, especially considering the amount of education required to fulfill the job. By the numbers most college instructors, and this is true across the U.S., are just that instructors...not professors. $50,000 for a college instructor is actually very nice pay. If you didn't realize this its because you haven't bothered to consider the industry that you so simplistically reduced to one number.

Why didn't you compare educator to educator and painter to painter??

And I'm sick of you constantly picking one or two cities in the U.S. to compare to Lincoln. Of course you can cherry pick and find cities that have a higher median income, lower tax rate, or low cost of living. The point is how does Lincoln stack up as a whole to the entire U.S.!!! I don't care how it stacks up to Juneau, Alaska!

Plus, you never respond to the critiques of your analysis...you simply go off on another unrelated tangent. I'll give you one thing you're very good at the art of misinformation. You should be in politics.

On another note, why did you arbitrarily pick the biotech field?? Who ever claimed that Lincoln was a burgeoning ground for biotech? The university does very well, but there aren't a lot of biotech jobs in Lincoln. So, why do you keep bringing this up. You might as well start comparing our average astronaut pay to the average astronaut pay for someone in Houston!

[mtgman3mil]

Wow, I think MattDen needs to do one couple things.
One, get a life other than trying to put on this site nothing more than negative statistics about the state of Nebraska. Every single state has issues, let me repeat that, every single state has issues.
Two, if in fact you believe Nebraska is really such a bad place to live, with low wages and a poor economy, then why are you still living there. How come you have not moved to a state where the "average" pay is higher and you will make more money? Is it because in those other places that you always talk about in your negative rhetoric, your higher pay you would "supposedly" receive wouldn't be able to keep up with the even higher cost of living maybe, and you wouldn’t be able to pay your higher monthly rent????? Dude, you really need to get a life outside of being so negative.
The fact of the matter is this, when someone is seeking information about a specific place, and receives allot of information from another person that is either all negative or all positive and not a mixture of both, they more than likely take that info with a grain of salt. Meaning, they don't take what you are saying seriously and think that the person stating the info is probably just some "TOAD" that has nothing but a negative outlook on life.
Anyway, that’s my opinion and I’m sure it’s what allot of the other people on here think as well.

[ehenningsen]

#97 out of 367 in per capita incoming and ranks in the top 20 for lowest cost of living per capita..
with nearby omaha ranking #41 in per capita income and #12 for lowest cost of living per capita

http://bea.gov/bea/newsrel/MPINewsRelease.htm

along with a very low cost of living..

Lincoln #56 out of 361 for overall standard of living
with nearby Omaha #18
www.business.duq.edu/faculty/davies/theses/curcio.doc (broken link)

[Macaroon]

MattDen said:

The median home value in Buffalo is 60,800; Pittsburgh 74,000 and Lincoln 131,700.

www.census.gov 2005 American Community survey

So not only is a house 47,000 more in Lincoln then Pittsburgh and 69,900 more then Buffalo but those Biochemists in Lincoln and Buffalo make on average about 18,000 more in Buffalo and Pittsburgh and the civil engineers in those two areas Buffalo and Pittsburgh also make between 6000-10000 more per year in the civil engineering category.

It gets even better though. The median property tax in Pittsburgh on a home is 1,677 according to the census. Buffalo's median is 1,305 and Lincoln median property taxes come in at 2,504.

Wow, its amazing biochemists in Lincoln make 18,000 less then their counterparts in Buffalo and Pittsburgh. They pay 47,000 more for a house then Pittsburgh and 69,900 more then Buffalo and then on top of that they pay 825 dollars in Pittsburgh in property tax and 1,199 dollars more then Buffalo in property taxes also.

MattDen, do you know what "median home value" is? It has to do with average value of the homes in the area. It CAN NOT be used to say a person will have to pay more for a house in one locale over another. That would depend on the particular house they picked. All this indicates is that the average of the houses in Lincoln are worth about double the average of the houses in Buffalo or Pittsburgh, which may have something to do with why the property taxes are higher.

The median house value of a slum area would obviously be less than that of a new suburban neighborhood, does that somehow tell us that the people in the suburbs are at some disadvantage because they have to pay more for their homes? GIVE ME A BREAK

[Macaroon]

MattDen said:

I think its humorous that when a community such as Lincoln has such very poor economic performance overall that some of its residents resort to personal negativity.

Finally, an explanation for why MattDen is so negative.

[thompson84606]

Originally Posted by MattDen

http://www.bls.gov/OES/current/oes_26900.htm
Indianapolis OES survey, May 2005

Anyway, in regards to cost of housing compard to wages. Here is how Lincoln stacks up.

Average wage per year:
Financial Manager
Lincoln 75,210
Pittsburgh 87,890
Buffalo 97,680

Computer System Analysists
Lincoln 54,920
Buffalo 59,780
Pittsburgh 61,410

Civil Engineers
Lincoln 58,110
Pittsburgh 64,610
Buffalo 68,610

Biochemists
Lincoln 55,110
Buffalo 73,660
Pittsburgh 73,810

The median home value in Buffalo is 60,800; Pittsburgh 74,000 and Lincoln 131,700.

www.census.gov 2005 American Community survey

So not only is a house 47,000 more in Lincoln then Pittsburgh and 69,900 more then Buffalo but those Biochemists in Lincoln and Buffalo make on average about 18,000 more in Buffalo and Pittsburgh and the civil engineers in those two areas Buffalo and Pittsburgh also make between 6000-10000 more per year in the civil engineering category.

It gets even better though. The median property tax in Pittsburgh on a home is 1,677 according to the census. Buffalo's median is 1,305 and Lincoln median property taxes come in at 2,504.

Wow, its amazing biochemists in Lincoln make 18,000 less then their counterparts in Buffalo and Pittsburgh. They pay 47,000 more for a house then Pittsburgh and 69,900 more then Buffalo and then on top of that they pay 825 dollars in Pittsburgh in property tax and 1,199 dollars more then Buffalo in property taxes also.

Have you ever been to Buffalo?????? My friend, you couldn't PAY me to live in the city proper, you need to see what your 60k dollar home looks like and how many dozens of murders are within a mile of your house. Your biochemist friend who makes a couple thousand more lives in Amherst, Tonawanda, West Seneca or the like, not Buffalo. How much do people make in Detroit? Do you think someone that makes 70k a year lives in detroit or ann arbor? Compare some real numbers.