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Median Earnings for Graduate/Professional Degree Holders
Manhattan - $89,108
San Francisco - $86,292
Washington - $84,958
Houston - $74,144
Dallas - $71,838
Miami Beach - $71,119
Seattle - $70,152
Atlanta - $69,621
Los Angeles - $69,574
Chicago - $67,395
Boston - $67,324
Raleigh - $61,238
Baltimore - $61,173
Portland - $60,995
Philadelphia - $59,064
Cleveland - $52,851
Pittsburgh - $52,339
Where cities like Pittsburgh have a huge advantage over cities like Boston is in real estate. There's far more inventory in Pittsburgh than there is in Boston.
Median Earnings for Graduate/Professional Degree Holders
Manhattan - $89,108
San Francisco - $86,292
Washington - $84,958
Houston - $74,144
Dallas - $71,838
Miami Beach - $71,119
Seattle - $70,152
Atlanta - $69,621
Los Angeles - $69,574
Chicago - $67,395
Boston - $67,324
Raleigh - $61,238
Baltimore - $61,173
Portland - $60,995
Philadelphia - $59,064
Cleveland - $52,851
Pittsburgh - $52,339
Where cities like Pittsburgh have a huge advantage over cities like Boston is in real estate. There's far more inventory in Pittsburgh than there is in Boston.
Very selective with the cities you chose eh? Ironically the list you made puts Pittsburgh at the bottom
Location: Watching half my country turn into Gilead
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Quote:
Originally Posted by speagles84
Very selective with the cities you chose eh? Ironically the list you made puts Pittsburgh at the bottom
I don't think posting statistics suggests some kind of conspiracy, sorry. I know you guys are roasting Bajan in that other thread right now (rightly or wrongly, I have no dog in that fight), but this isn't some made-up stat. It is what it is.
Why would you need to pull down 2.5 times the salary you get in Pittsburgh?
$1,000 per month = $12,000 per year
$2,500 per month = $30,000 per year
So you don't need to make 2.5 times as much to cover the difference in housing costs. You need to make $18,000 more. Here's something else to look at.
Median Earnings for Graduate/Professional Degree Holders
Boston - $67,324
Pittsburgh - $52,339
So if you're the typical professional degree holder in Boston, you need to find an apartment around the $2,250 mark to break even with someone paying $1,000 per month in Pittsburgh.
I wasn't arguing that you couldn't live on a mid five-figure salary in Boston. But your choices at that price point will be more limited. You're also going to be paying a much higher percentage of your salary towards rent, which means your money for everything else is going to be more constrained.
As I said upthread, here in Pittsburgh I bought a 2,300 square foot house which has 6 bedrooms, and 2.5 baths for around $240,000. All of the original woodwork, stained glass, and hardwood floors are still here and in pretty good shape. The house isn't in a heavily gentrified or very walkable neighborhood, but it's not in the ghetto by any means.
I wouldn't be able to buy a house which is half the size for roughly the same price in Boston anywhere but places like Hyde Park, Roslindale, Mattapan, Dorchester, or Roxbury. Most houses even in those neighborhoods are significantly more expensive. I'd need to spend close to $600,000 to get even the smallest units I could fit a family of four into in JP, South Boston, Brighton, or West Roxbury. Between my wife and I we make close to six figures, so I'm sure technically we can "afford it" - but after living with cheap housing for ten years, I can't imagine going back to housing prices like that.
Very selective with the cities you chose eh? Ironically the list you made puts Pittsburgh at the bottom
Selective in the sense that I chose most of the big cities that are the subject of discussion in these threads. Of course, I included Pittsburgh because it's being discussed in the thread.
Buffalo, New York is slightly lower than Pittsburgh ($50,057). Milwaukee, on the other hand, is a good deal higher ($56,483) as is Cincinnati ($56,711). St. Louis is barely higher ($52,504). Indy is a lot higher ($58,557). Minneapolis is even higher ($62,856).
Are those city based, or metro wide? How much a teacher makes in Hempfield Township isn't really relevant to me.
I'd prefer a metro wide look actually. Sure there are a few city neighborhoods that have a decent amount of wealth, but it eliminates the well to do North Hills, Mt. Lebanon, and USC where I'm sure a large amount of those people making close to six figures have a graduate degree.
neither Boston nor Pittsburgh comes out looking very good in that chart.
yikes.
amazing with housing costs factored in, they come out about equally lousy. :banghead:
Both cities have a very high proportion of the overall population who are students of higher education. Considering this is a city limits only comparison, their averages may be dragged down because a lot of the people with Master's degrees may be working toward their PHD and making next-to-nothing as a graduate employee.
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