philly cost of living vs salary compared to nj or nyc. (Philadelphia: apartments, lease)
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philly cost of living vs salary compared to nj or nyc.
long story short........
I've lived in nj all my life and am currently living by the shore. My it job will probably vanish within the next six months. Usually my options would be to search in nyc or nj but, just for fun I checked out craigslist and saw apartments in philly. I was shocked to see what looks like (and I could be wrong about this because I'm not up to speed on what the local economy is like) apartments in cool areas (old city, south st., penns landing) that looked like I might be able to afford.
Now i'm contemplating on looking for a new it job in philly but am wondering (since it seems that none of the job sites show salary info anymore) if the pay salary for most it jobs is on par w/nyc or at least nj. The reason I ask is because if it pays the same then i'd be able to afford something like a 1 bedroom in old city w/nice amenities and close to everything....
a similar apartment in nyc would be a pipe dream and completely unaffordable unless I won the lottery or something like that.
Assuming of course you can find said job in Philadelphia with close proximity to the "cool areas". The actual unemployment rate in Philadelphia proper is very high, around 20-25%. That figure is the unreported amount, not the "official" government number that does not take into consideration those whose unemployment benefits have run out. If you were to consider looking in the western suburbs, around King of Prussia for example, your chances of finding employment would improve somewhat. The reverse commute from the areas mentioned would be brutal, PA isn't known for it's traffic engineering genius as the only highway headed that direction was designed for 1960s-1970s traffic flow. Additionally the lack of genius overflows into public transit, with only buses operating on the same overwhelmed interstate, despite the largely unused rail tracks that parallel the highway. So in other words, reconsider the thought. If I were in your shoes I would look for a job in NYC and commute in from a place with more affordable housing and light-years better transit options.(ex: Jersey City, Astoria-Queens or Bushwick-Brooklyn), versus the very probable nightmarish reverse commute to a job here.
BTW, I am aware of all of those places you mentioned. The thing is, the apartments in Philadelphia looked way nicer for price.
Forget the unofficial unemployment rate. The unofficial number is higher EVERYWHERE including NY and NJ. Pa actually has a pretty stable economy compared to markets in California, Nevada, and Florida. Those areas have ENTIRE developments sitting empty.
Pa, NJ, and NY are not that much different. We are all in the same region. You will make more in NY but the cost of living is more so it offsets the higher wages. You should at least checkout Philly before you decide.
Assuming of course you can find said job in Philadelphia with close proximity to the "cool areas". The actual unemployment rate in Philadelphia proper is very high, around 20-25%. That figure is the unreported amount, not the "official" government number that does not take into consideration those whose unemployment benefits have run out. If you were to consider looking in the western suburbs, around King of Prussia for example, your chances of finding employment would improve somewhat. The reverse commute from the areas mentioned would be brutal, PA isn't known for it's traffic engineering genius as the only highway headed that direction was designed for 1960s-1970s traffic flow. Additionally the lack of genius overflows into public transit, with only buses operating on the same overwhelmed interstate, despite the largely unused rail tracks that parallel the highway. So in other words, reconsider the thought. If I were in your shoes I would look for a job in NYC and commute in from a place with more affordable housing and light-years better transit options.(ex: Jersey City, Astoria-Queens or Bushwick-Brooklyn), versus the very probable nightmarish reverse commute to a job here.
Couldn't that, then, be said for any city? It's not like Philly is in some unique category when it comes to "underemployment." New York is absolutely in the same boat as Philly in that regard.
Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics report for Jan. 2010, the Philadelphia area has a 9.5% unemployment rate, whereas New York's 9.7%. Clearly they are on par with one another:
BTW, I am aware of all of those places you mentioned. The thing is, the apartments in Philadelphia looked way nicer for price.
Take everything you read on these boards with a truckload of salt.
I think you're definitely on the right track by expanding the scope of your job search into a broader area, and that should include the Philadelphia area. Although you're likely to have a lower salary in this area that in the NNJ/NY area, you'd have a much lower cost-of-living and a greater opportunity to live in nicer neighborhoods that are far more attainable to the middle class than comparable neighborhoods in NY. To illustrate what I mean, a cost-of-living calculator finds that a 50K salary in NY could decrease to about 28K to maintain the same standard-of-living in Philadelphia. This is dramatically reflected in housing price differences, as housing is 72% cheaper in Philly than NY. That's should be a HUGE consideration for any working person:
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed
If it happens that you have to commute to the 'burbs, that isn't necessarily as hectic as some would lead you to believe. Reverse commuting is definitely doable via regional rail; in fact, some suburban employers offer shuttling from rail stations in the suburbs.
Bottom line, keep your options open and you may be pleasantly surprised at what opportunities may unfold.
PA isn't known for it's traffic engineering genius as the only highway headed that direction was designed for 1960s-1970s traffic flow. Additionally the lack of genius overflows into public transit, with only buses operating on the same overwhelmed interstate, despite the largely unused rail tracks that parallel the highway.
The Schuylkill Expressway's problem has nothing to do with a lack of engineering ingenuity, and everything to do with the cost of upgrading the highway. Most of the cost would be required to purchase additional right-of-way that didn't come with the highway when it was built prior to the implementation of the Interstate Highway System. The cost of acquiring right-of-way adjacent to the highway between I-676 and I-95, let alone adjacent to other segments of the highway would make such a project astoundingly expensive.
As for the train tracks, they're owned by the rail companies that use them, so building commuter rail on those lines would require not only approval from the company that owns the tracks, but lease payments by SEPTA to the company. Train-track politics are tricky. For example, they're the main reason why PA 28 is only now being prepared for widening between downtown Pittsburgh and Millvale, because PennDOT first had to get Norfolk Southern's approval in order to realign the train tracks to make widening the highway a possibility. (And realigning the train tracks requires a strict engineering procedure as well.)
A lot of people simply do not understand the politics of infrastructure, which is why I tend to get the most heated about infrastructure-related topics.
For the OP - the cost of living here is decidedly less expensive and the pay differential isn't close to being enough to make NYC more affordable.
If you have a good resume it shouldn't be hard for you to find work in your field. Just be prepared for the possibility that you'll have a longer commute.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gnutella
A lot of people simply do not understand the politics of infrastructure, which is why I tend to get the most heated about infrastructure-related topics.
Sorry, but that's garbage. The Route 100 extension (SEPTA/PennDOT owned ROW) to KOP/Valley Forge has been talked about for decades and is one of the cheapest to build projects SEPTA has on its books. The R6 could've been up and running to Pottstown 5 years ago but instead they wasted enough money studying the pipe dream that was the Schuylkill Valley Metro that they could've built the Route 100 extension.
R3 to West Chester - ditto.
The expressway was built 60 years ago. In the last 25 years there has been a complete failure at nearly every level of government to link land use to transportation. For instance, it's great that there's a nice mall and bunch of office buildings at Plymouth Meeting. It's just too bad the R7 Chestnut Hill ends 5 miles short of it. The R5 and Route 100 cross each other in Radnor. In fact, both lines have a Radnor Station, they're just 1/4 mile apart. Seriously, google map it and check the hybrid view. In 100 years and 4 or 5 station rebuilds on both lines no one has thought it might be a good idea to move the two closer together? The Route 101 ends 4 blocks from the Media Station on the R3. The Route 102 and R2 both have Sharon Hill stations but they don't connect. The Route 102 terminates 3 miles from the airport - so instead of extending the route SEPTA runs a separate bus that more or less parallels the Route 102 for the entire route but goes all the way to the airport. The Route 36 trolley terminates less than a mile from the airport terminals.
People don't like sitting in traffic. You want to get people off the roads? Give them some alternatives to getting around the region without having to come all the way into Center City from the suburbs just so they can get to someplace 5 miles away.
The expense of widening isn't why we have overburdened expressways. It's because too many people are using them (all in the same 3 hour window) to make relatively short trips.
95 only fails during rush hour because too many people in the Northeast don't have the Roosevelt Blvd. Subway as an option, because the R8 to Newtown was truncated to Fox Chase in the 80s, because the R3 and R7 need more trains and because overall we need better connections between Regional Rail and city transit.
I've lived in nj all my life and am currently living by the shore. My it job will probably vanish within the next six months. Usually my options would be to search in nyc or nj but, just for fun I checked out craigslist and saw apartments in philly. I was shocked to see what looks like (and I could be wrong about this because I'm not up to speed on what the local economy is like) apartments in cool areas (old city, south st., penns landing) that looked like I might be able to afford.
Now i'm contemplating on looking for a new it job in philly but am wondering (since it seems that none of the job sites show salary info anymore) if the pay salary for most it jobs is on par w/nyc or at least nj. The reason I ask is because if it pays the same then i'd be able to afford something like a 1 bedroom in old city w/nice amenities and close to everything....
a similar apartment in nyc would be a pipe dream and completely unaffordable unless I won the lottery or something like that.
I agree completely with Solibs' comment : the difference in cost of living is like night and day (I just moved from NJ to PA and that was one of the factors behind my move). Your mileage may vary of course, but I was offered more in PA than they were paying me in NYC.
Housing is cheaper by an order of magnitude, as you've already seen. Most of the 2br/2ba places we looked at were 1000-2000/month. If you ever want to buy a place of your own, places are substantially cheaper, and property taxes are about half as much. Auto insurance is about 1/3 less. You could take a 20% or so pay cut (that's a conservative number) and you'd still enjoy a higher standard of living overall.
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