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My guy friend went to South Carolina and earned an Electrician certificate, real quick. He makes around 60k/year before taxes and pays $700 for a 2 bedroom apartment...with a pool...gated...
I snicker at all the anti-south sentiment on threads. My friends down south aren't even half as stressed as us. I envy them.
I will agree that we are more stressed, and in 2011, at that salary range, salaries are comparable in NYC and most other places in the country..which is why so many working/middle class people are leaving. Same salary, much lower cost of living, less BS, better schools, ability to save/buy a house....it seems like an obvious choice to me.
But if one doesn't like the salaries, shouldn't one just leave and move, say, to the South, where the cost of living is lower (and I hear the stress levels are also lower)?
As the labor force decreases, wages should improve for those remaining in the city. Now, xenophobes will point out that "filthy, low-wage immigrants" will just come in. But that's been happening since the 1860s, and that's what made New York--and America--great! That's capitalism, baby!
Congrats to your friend. I also have a friend who dropped out of high school, but earned a refrigeration repair certificate and is now doing okay for himself in NC (aka the "Promised Land" for many NY'ers). I myself was happy to get out of the South. And that was after doing my undergrad there and working there as well.
If you haven't lived in the South, please don't talk about the job prospects there. The cost of living is low because many jobs don't pay anything. A nurse in my family took a 40% cut in pay to live there. Her choice. Of course, everyone can come up with that one friend or cousin who's living well down there, but at the end of the day generalizations about an entire region cannot be made from secondhand accounts.
Yea many jobs down south pay low-wages, but as evidenced by this thread the jobs in the Big Apple don't pay that much better either...and we're stuck with high COL on top of that to add insult to injury! At least down south I could probably get my own apt and a car for $10 an hour as opposed to 3 roommates in the hood and a $40 metrocard.
(Why doesn't the CNN website offer Westchester County as one of the choices, but they have Dutchess County, a couple of city boroughs and then places way upstate? Dumb.)
Yea many jobs down south pay low-wages, but as evidenced by this thread the jobs in the Big Apple don't pay that much better either...and we're stuck with high COL on top of that to add insult to injury! At least down south I could probably get my own apt and a car for $10 an hour as opposed to 3 roommates in the hood and a $40 metrocard.
(Why doesn't the CNN website offer Westchester County as one of the choices, but they have Dutchess County, a couple of city boroughs and then places way upstate? Dumb.)
It's unreal! I chose Brooklyn, NY (because they didn't offer Staten Island as a choice) vs. Los Angeles and the difference was quite significant! Utilities would be 48% LESS!! Crazyyyyy!
The only thing that would go up is my transportation and that's because I would probably need to own a car, but I have a friend that moved out to California (West Hollywood) and he gets around fine without a car, he says the public transportation out there isn't as terrible as everyone says.
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Hysterical and so so true!
