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There are people here who are able to afford what they have b/c of their parents' assistance. As stated, the degree of assistance varies from somewhat nominal to essentially 100%. It can be tough to identify people in this situation.
That said, I don't think this group represents a large percentage of the total cohort of younger people (straight from College to 35 YO, let's say) in the metro area. When you take out students, it should drop to even less.
I'd agree that many employers that offer Health Policy positions or other positions within Public Health and or the Public/NP sector maybe able to get away with paying people relatively low salaries. Many such positions do not require specific and or
hard-to-find skills that, essentially, demand higher pay. Add to it the fact that many people in this area are interested in this sort of work and the employers gain the upper hand. I've looked through some databases and noticed that the Gov't is willing to pony up for certain types of people, many of whom are talented in Science/Medicine/Engineering, etc.
There are a lot of people who live off their parents' $$$, but this is definitely not limited to DC. I've lived in five cities and you definitely see it in all over the country. I know plenty people from my tiny, cheap hometown who are like 29 years old and still living with their parents and getting allowances. It *is* annoying (especially to those of us who have been completely independent for years), but that's life. I don't think it says anything about DC.
Alright, hindsight. You're clearly just bitter at intrafamily situations and taking it out on a city. I can assure you that DC has no more young adults living off their parents than any major, cosmopolitan city full of opportunities (New York, Miami, Chicago, LA).
You should consider the very real possibility that like minded people find like minded people, and that your sister has fallen into a group that feeds off one another and justifies their lack of independence and you have been presented with a very warped perception of the city. Could you imagine her hanging out with a bunch of people making decent salaries and self sufficient (which is the only people I've ever known there)? Her sense of self worth would plummet.
Take deep breaths, be proud of your sense of inherent superiority to everybody trying to live a slightly different life than conventional Americana, and find a way to forgive your sister without raging against millions of people who are not like her.
Alright, hindsight. You're clearly just bitter at intrafamily situations and taking it out on a city. I can assure you that DC has no more young adults living off their parents than any major, cosmopolitan city full of opportunities (New York, Miami, Chicago, LA).
You should consider the very real possibility that like minded people find like minded people, and that your sister has fallen into a group that feeds off one another and justifies their lack of independence and you have been presented with a very warped perception of the city. Could you imagine her hanging out with a bunch of people making decent salaries and self sufficient (which is the only people I've ever known there)? Her sense of self worth would plummet.
To hindsight's credit, I'm attending a college near DC, and many of the students that attend this school (at least the ones who stand out and those I constantly bump into) are exactly the snobbish, materialistic, trust-fund, spoiled types that he described. And about the part of how many of these kids empower themselves by feeding off each others' undeserved self worth, this definitely has been the case for the state college I've been in; having so many of them concentrated here allows them to be one of the major groups in this school, all while unifying to put down those who don't have the assistance of mommy and daddy. I just came back from visiting my friends at their college in Pittsburgh, the university I originally went to before being forced to transfer due to finances, and the students there are way more friendly, open-minded, and down-to-earth (or at the least, not worried about showing their wealth and access off to the world). Just the thought of dealing with the so-called fellow peers of the current college literally gives me feelings of regurgitating. And being a senior stuck w/ two individuals who already have their group of friends isn't helping either.
I know that the second I graduate, I'm out of the DC area and don't plan to step foot almost anywhere east of the Mississippi River, so save the "don't come back" and "don't let the door hit your a** on the way out" snippy comments, I've received enough of those on the Maryland forum. The only challenges remaining are finding cities where a lot of other college grads WHO DON'T have their heads up their a**es live, and how to survive one more year of the same old s**t.
While wealthy snobs exist, there are people from wealthy families who are not snobs/elitists. There are quite a few people here on both categories. I'm not sure that people segregate so strictly based on who supports them (family vs. self) and how wealthy their family is.
People are judged based on how they present themselves. Someone supported by family who is friendly and not arrogant is going to be much better-received by others than a self-sufficient person with attitude. There's more to the story than this.
I have to say that I love it in the DC metro. Rude people - they are everywhere - not just here. Cost of living - I make WAY under 100k - not even close, but I own a condo in Reston Virginia and this area is not much cheaper than DC. Of course, I am on a strict budget, I'm single, and I have lived here for 40 years so maybe I've just learned to adjust out of shear longevity, and also just one of the lucky ones, I don't know. but IT CAN BE DONE. I geuss I've learned to sacrifice. Just wanted to post something positive about NOVA/DC that's all.
To hindsight's credit, I'm attending a college near DC, and many of the students that attend this school (at least the ones who stand out and those I constantly bump into) are exactly the snobbish, materialistic, trust-fund, spoiled types that he described. And about the part of how many of these kids empower themselves by feeding off each others' undeserved self worth, this definitely has been the case for the state college I've been in; having so many of them concentrated here allows them to be one of the major groups in this school, all while unifying to put down those who don't have the assistance of mommy and daddy. I just came back from visiting my friends at their college in Pittsburgh, the university I originally went to before being forced to transfer due to finances, and the students there are way more friendly, open-minded, and down-to-earth (or at the least, not worried about showing their wealth and access off to the world). Just the thought of dealing with the so-called fellow peers of the current college literally gives me feelings of regurgitating. And being a senior stuck w/ two individuals who already have their group of friends isn't helping either.
I know that the second I graduate, I'm out of the DC area and don't plan to step foot almost anywhere east of the Mississippi River, so save the "don't come back" and "don't let the door hit your a** on the way out" snippy comments, I've received enough of those on the Maryland forum. The only challenges remaining are finding cities where a lot of other college grads WHO DON'T have their heads up their a**es live, and how to survive one more year of the same old s**t.
(This is going to be a mere rant, an effort to conduct some badly-needed venting. Feel free to disregard.)
I'm originally from Texas, yet I moved to the D.C. metro area six years ago to stake my career with the Federal government.
Now, I absolutely love my job. But when I first arrived in this area, I noticed that I immediately felt ill at-ease. The people seemed cold and harsh, incredibly rude and selfish, everything was expensive and crowded, and traffic was relentless.
I naively presumed that I merely had to give the area enough time, to "make the best of it", and I'd find myself comfortable enough to consider this place home.
It's been six years, seven in July...and that hasn't happened at all. In fact, I've only found myself hating this place more and more. I love, love the work I get to do for a living, but there's the unfortunate consequence that by its nature, one can only pursue it living in this god-forsaken place.
I'm sick of spending a minimum of two hours on the road everyday, primed like a feral cat to be wary of reckless, irresponsible drivers. I'm sick of having entire weekend plans torpedoed by accidents shutting down highway arteries at random intervals.
I'm sick of spending even more time trying to scratch out a parking space wherever I go that doesn't charge gouging prices and that isn't a marathon's-length away from my ultimate destination.
I'm sick of the rude, childish, horribly self-absorbed people that seem to make up the overwhelming majority of those who live here.
I'm sick of the snobbery and cliquishness and the subdued racism that seems to pervade every "decent" neighborhood, and the overwhelming crime and apathy that overwhelm the rest. It amazed me, a Southerner, just how racist some parts of this area can be.
I'm sick of having to commute long distances because I can't afford the astronomical prices of living closer to where I actually work (and go to school).
I'm sick of renting, I'm sick of rents going up every single year. Additionally, I'm sick of paying such exorbitant amounts of my income to rent what amounts to a tiny hovel when similar expenditures would've landed me a *mansion* back home.
Worst of all, I loathe the fact that after nearly a decade in my profession, that I'M NOWHERE NEAR BEING AT A POINT WHERE I MAKE ENOUGH MONEY TO AFFORD A HOUSE! I've lived here long enough to know that there's no way in hell I can actually afford a *house*, much less a condo that isn't roach-infested, for myself and my family for the modest $350,000 we could afford.
So, my dilemma is the fact that although I love my job and can hardly imagine myself doing anything else...that I just *despise* living here so effing much, it causes me such endless stress and anger that it's even beginning to affect my overall health.
I don't know what to do; on the one hand, I can't see myself going back to Texas to the civilian sector making the faceless rich even richer (I admit that sounds a little anti-free enterprise of me, but it's not at all what I mean), stuck in nowhere towns where no one can point to places like Iraq on a map (nor care to). On the other hand, well, I've made it pretty clear what it is about this place I don't like.
Where the hell is it possible to live like a human being *and* have a family here when you're not making over $150,000/yr? Every time I thought I'd found an answer, I turned out to be horribly wrong.
It just goes to show, in order to get something, sometimes we have to give up something. In your case, a great job, in an area of progressive on the move people who know where Iraq is on a map, OR, the opposite somewhere else. You have to take the good with the bad. No place is perfect. You have to find that place that is perfect for you. My hometown is the DMV area, so I love the culture, intellect all that is the DMV area, but, now a days, the ways things are going, reality sets in, especially if you've lived somewhere else. If it were me, and I were that miserable, I'd do, like someone else suggested, take your job with the gov't to Dallas, Austin, San Antonio or such. It all depends on what you really want out of your life, and THE QUALITY OF YOUR LIFE. Good luck to you, and here's a hug.
I've been reading this thread on and off and thought I would contribute my experience with a family member living there (sister).
She graduated from UM College Park and decided to remain in the area for all the aforementioned reasons college grads in their 20s are attracted to the area. In comparison I'm only two years older (26) than she is and have for the most part remained in areas of the country where the population and median income is smaller, with the execption of living in Atlanta for 3 years. I don't care how many museums and "cultural diversity" people in DC like to cling on, the grocery store doesn't take "drop me an exhibit name" for payment, they take cash. The reality of the matter is that my sister lives a largely parent-subsidized lifestyle, and many years of living in the DC area have earned her a couple of degrees but not much in the way of income that you can actually capitalize on considering the whacked out cost of living.
She could have obtained the same education for half the price anywhere in the country and STILL be in a better position to obtain livable wages elsewhere, but has instead remained a professional student, insistent that the DC area, with their "plethora" of govt health policy jobs (her interest) is "the place to be". Meanwhile, an MPH from GW (paid for again by mom and dad, suckers I could have pointed her at any state school in the country where she could have got that sucker done for half price, and end up in the same below median salary anyways) and eight years of her teens and 20s living there, the best she can get is to stand in line with the thousands of people just like her, looking for those primo public health policy jobs while draining their parents retirement's money as they pursue those term-limited DC jobs at consulting firm X for miserable wages (her words) while trying to live it up Connecticut Ave. DC is the LA of fed job wannabe's. I wouldn't call what tens of thousands of 20-somethings in DC call their "plan" iron-clad. Like my sister, all these young folks who move into the area and clamor cultural vibrance ad nauseum forget to consider life is a moving target, and they'll turn 30 at some point. At some point, they have to move on to other pursuits that normally require a change of lifestyle, and that's when people wake up to the reality of DC for a family. It's a dream killer.
From a family perspective, I'm way ahead of the game than my sister, here in my little corner of "culturally dispossessed" NW Lousiana (which is a lot like East Texas, which reminds me of the OP). My sister will have a hell of a time ever finding something in DC that pays enough to cut off my parents bleeding money hose AND set herself up in a position where she can afford housing and the nominal 'discretionary' expenses associated with BREATHING. A 70K job there sets you up to break even in DC as a single person, since what an irony would it be to live paycheck to paycheck on 70K; said income puts you on the poor house as a household in DC. In NW Louisiana I can break even as a household with that income, and live like a king as a single person. Again, who's seriously better off economically? I can ask my parents about that.
I've been to DC many times, visited the aforementioned places..let me get out my list....aaaand check! I don't have to pay a premium to accomplish just that though. And regarding all those great paying jobs, it's furious out there in DC. My sister is knee-deep in that. For every person that has a decent GS job out there there's 10 people on the street wanting that same job, your job. It's cut throat. I think that fundamentally feeds the retarded snobissh culture of college name-dropping in the DC market. I remember visiting my sister and observing how different we've grown up to be, considering we came from the same house not 10 years ago. At any rate there I was sitting on some snobby lounge listenting to these friends of her blab on and on about their multiple masters, intents for PhDs and how sweet would it be to get that federal X job. My whole expression that whole night is giving my sister the one eyebrow raised look while thinking to myself 'these mojito sipping urbanites think only people from the coast have masters degrees LOL'. There I was with my BS and MS in aerospace engineering, current Air Force pilot and officer, living in the southern central "sticks" and I'm getting the look like I'm a pity case because I lived in Alabama while an undergrad, Gasp! Yet all I have to do is break 80K and I can afford a comfy lifestyle. My GS equivalent in DC, even with locality pay, can't break into the housing market square foot for square foot. So once again, who's ahead? I can afford the plane ticket to visit the Smithsonian if it itches me, then again I don't have my sense of self-worth derived on what college I attended and how many exquisite galleries reside within a 50 mile radius of my 1800/mo "studio" (we call them closets here in Louisiana). To each their own, but yes I can vouch by my parent's constant struggle to assist my sister to survive the DC rat race that it is indeed a façade. My vote to the OP is to move. You can afford the pay cut, it really is no pay cut at all when you do the math. If your lifestyle expectations are not being met, for the sake of your long term contentment move, plenty of big city centers with better cost of living if living on medium to small cities is not your thing. good luck
Lol. Your sister reminds me somewhat of my sister. Lol. (Professional student and all..)
Have fun with their traffic. Like Nova on steroids. Texans are some of the most affable people on the planet until they get behind the wheel.
I do agree about prices though. It is very cheap down there.
You ain't never lied. Although it's not DC traffic, Texans and folks from Arkansas can't stand for anyone to be alongside of them driving, they must always be ahead of you. Very aggressive drivers.
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personally, i love DC
