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Location: Live:Downtown Phoenix, AZ/Work:Greater Los Angeles, CA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by s1alker
You have two types of people in major cities today. The wealthy, and an underclass that serves the wealthy. Middle class has either been eliminated or have gone elsewhere.
Really? I'm middle class and live in a major city. Good to know I don't exist lol
I have never been to NYC, but in San Francisco and Los Angeles people usually go out in large groups and it's considering weird to go out to eat alone or go to nightlife establishments alone.
People also don't go out to meet others in big cities. In every liberal city, I have ever lived in people go out in groups so it serves very little purpose to pay a 350% profit margin on food and quadruple percentage profit margins for other establishments to be around people in cliques.
If I recall, you live in the Austin metro area ,and as you know, Austin is one of the fastest growing cities in the US. It recently raised its Minimum Wage to $15/ hr. It is a very liberal city that continues to attract people who relocate from all over. Many arrive not knowing a soul and yet manage to meet others and engage in social activities. How do they manage this?
Speculation on my part is that they focus on what they have in common with others instead of painting entire populations with a broad brush.
It's not just the $15 of course they pay FICA on top of it, Unemployment Insurance to state and federal governments, workers compensation, employment training taxes in some states, some places have 1 hour sick leave for every 30 hours of work so it's about a day every 6 weeks.
I don't eat out. $2 Coffee is about the extent of it.
Oh the horror of it all! Gee, so in a year a low paid worker can actually accrue about 8 days off paid. We need to get back to the good old days where if they took a day off it was unpaid.
Owners of businesses have had to pay FICA and everything else you mentioned already, so nothing to see there.
I'm confused. High wages are plaguing cities and this is a bad thing?
Know what else plagues cities?
A wealth of activities for every interest, easy access to travel and airports, easy access to hospitals, a wide choice of physicians, excellent restaurants, tourist dollars, high employment, live music of every variety, any film you want to see, restaurant delivery, everything delivery, energy--lots of energy.
In fact, the rural areas are the new 'urban areas' in terms of negatives.
..“Today, however, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows that by many key measures of socioeconomic well-being, those charts have flipped. In terms of poverty, college attainment, teenage births, divorce, death rates from heart disease and cancer, reliance on federal disability insurance and male labor-force participation, rural counties now rank the worst among the four major U.S. population groupings (the others are big cities, suburbs and medium or small metro areas).”...
Seems like the cities having the most problems have minimum wages going up to $15 plus FICA, State and Local UI, health care costs and other regulations like paid sick leave.
I am in favor paid sick leave but it is another very expensive item for businesses, about an extra 50 cents an hour on top of $15.
The other thing is that inner-city retail businesses can no longer have open restrooms these days and there are massive amounts of people with drug addictions and homeless who are desperate causing disturbances.
Then there is the very high commercial taxes and many real estate investment firms holding out until they get top dollar which only big national chains can pay.
I have never been to NYC, but in San Francisco and Los Angeles people usually go out in large groups and it's considering weird to go out to eat alone or go to nightlife establishments alone.
People also don't go out to meet others in big cities. In every liberal city, I have ever lived in people go out in groups so it serves very little purpose to pay a 350% profit margin on food and quadruple percentage profit margins for other establishments to be around people in cliques.
The key is, they have to be a blue city in a red state.
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