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After living here for awhile this article does not in any way surprise me. I overspent, like many, when I first arrived. I had to keep up appearance, or so I thought. Have a certain address. Eat out like the real New Yorkers. Then I realized it wasn't sustainable. I took up a less glamorous residence, stopped buying retail designer, and made meals at home. I am far from white collar btw.
When I started to live more frugally a lot of friends judged me. Where they like literally made fun of my out-of-date phone, my refusal to take cabs, my cooking skills and refusal to eat out except on special occasions. When really I was just being practical. Many of them moved back home in the middle of the country, broke, with parents... but I don't spite them. I'm sure there's a lot of really great programming they download into their iPhone 7s while living in Iowa.
I think people here get caught up in keeping up with the Joneses, especially with so much wealth right in their face. I also think, as others have said, a tremendous amount of income goes unreported. It may look that way on the face of paychecks but many have money overseas, hidden, etc. Not to mention undocumented assets like property and stocks, bonds, etc.
Just moving to either upper Manhattan or the outer boroughs alone will save you money. Also for when you do eat out, ethnic food restaurants tend to be a lot cheaper than name brands, and you'll find plenty of ethnic restaurants in the outer boroughs or Upper Manhattan.
I once overheard those fake charity services that claim to be helping the homeless standing on corners. One guy claims that he makes about $50/hr standing here. That's pretty darn good than working at Starbucks for $9.50/hr.
I once overheard those fake charity services that claim to be helping the homeless standing on corners. One guy claims that he makes about $50/hr standing here. That's pretty darn good than working at Starbucks for $9.50/hr.
As NYWriter would say, that fellow making $50/hr off the books, assuming that was his renumeration, is not paying into Medicaid and SSS hence he/she will be in for an unpleasant surprise upon old age. For a higher end coffee shop, the rate is about $19/hr for entry level with an opportunity to get promoted to manager or work for a larger hospitality company. It won't get to $50 for a long time but at least they will be paying into SSS and Medicaid.
The root cause is the education system. Why is it not preparing the natives for the jobs in this city?
No, the root cause is the dying of the capitalist system in the United States that is not providing jobs, whether uber educated or uneducated.
With few jobs, seeking higher education is a waste of effort and money.[/quote]
This isn't true. There are clearly jobs in the city, and some people are clearing making money. However, higher education tends to be expensive, and the best schools are for well off people who are going to get well off jobs.
If you're poor you either can't afford to go to college, or you maybe working so many hours at a stressful low skill job that you can't properly study. Of course there are poor people who overcome the odds, who do budget well and study well and who do pull themselves out of poverty.
But I do think Kefir is being disingenuous to claim that all people have the same access to the same resources, and that all majors are the same. Depending on the major, you'll easily get a job. Nurse, teacher, social worker, etc. For things relating to business (both grad and undergrad) a lot depends on your talent and on your social networks.
*mod cut*
Last edited by SeventhFloor; 12-06-2016 at 03:51 PM..
The root cause is capitalism. The ultimate end game for capitalism is to own everything and pay nobody for resources and services.
We're getting to a level with technology has over-extracted the utility from the few workers and paying huge dividends towards the job creators. Why should they create more jobs or even pay more when they have the cheap resources to make lots of money.
We need this country to allow for more competition to create more opportunities. We can't allow big companies to easily buy up competition with cheap loans and regular people can't get a loan.
Eventually our society will be the few people that have jobs and the rest live on government handouts.
The root cause is capitalism. The ultimate end game for capitalism is to own everything and pay nobody for resources and services.
We're getting to a level with technology has over-extracted the utility from the few workers and paying huge dividends towards the job creators. Why should they create more jobs or even pay more when they have the cheap resources to make lots of money.
We need this country to allow for more competition to create more opportunities. We can't allow big companies to easily buy up competition with cheap loans and regular people can't get a loan.
Eventually our society will be the few people that have jobs and the rest live on government handouts.
Except if nobody is paid for resources and services, no money circulates and there is no capitalism.
With that said access to finance is how people start new businesses, buy homes, etc. so I agree with you in saying we can't allow big companies to have easy access to finance when regular people have little access to finance.
But...............
Regular people do have access to finance. If you trust in the ability of someone, you can sign a formal loan agreement with someone and loan them the money. People do this with families and even with friends.
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