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I grew up in the 50's and 60's in Nassau County, and to me it was the best place to live. I made lifelong friendships, received an excellent education, and had a wonderful life there. From the proximity to NYC and all it has to offer, to the amazing beaches, excellent medical facilities and educational opportunities, it would be hard to find a better place to grow up.
I left in 1990 due to divorce, and I could never afford to go back. But if I ever win the lottery, Long Island is where you will find me. Traffic? Name a major metro area without traffic and rude drivers, it just goes with the territory. All of my friends on LI that are retiring now are moving not because they want to leave, but because they no longer can afford the taxes and COL on a reduced income, and some want to be near children who have moved away.
My parents were fortunate in that in the 50's, homes were affordable on LI. All of my friends' parents had blue collar jobs but all owned modest houses and no one's moms had to work. But that was then and this is now and the entire country has changed in that respect. Every time I go back I am home, and will always cherish the memories of my life there.
How can you compare a southwestern pa school to a Long Island school? It's by its nature an apples to orange comparison. Different states, different standards. Should we measure how many kids go to a 4 year college? As I said before that is a poor measurement. My town has a solid blue collar contingent and many of these kids are interested in trade school. Shale jobs here can pay way over 100K and such a kid will be way better off than your 4 year college degree kid with a ton debt working at Starbucks at the Smithhaven Mall.
PS: I hear IBM, GE and other big outsourcers are no longer "saving enough money" by hiring people in India, China, etc. There are rumors that they are now scouting Papua, New Guinea for new talent that they propose to pay with shiny rocks instead of money. I'd advise getting in now ... maybe you can get a management job (although with IBM I have to warn you they pay expats to China from the US the exact same pay as they pay the Chinese if their employees want to migrate to China, so get used to shiny rocks!)
Where are the jobs going? Mercedes just said bye bye to the NE (major loss) and I could name more. I can't remember the last significant employer to move into the NE (certainly not NYC). How long you think Wall St and Unions can hold out carrying the load with all those "money managers" and "civil servants"?
How can you compare a southwestern pa school to a Long Island school? It's by its nature an apples to orange comparison. Different states, different standards. Should we measure how many kids go to a 4 year college? As I said before that is a poor measurement. My town has a solid blue collar contingent and many of these kids are interested in trade school. Shale jobs here can pay way over 100K and such a kid will be way better off than your 4 year college degree kid with a ton debt working at Starbucks at the Smithhaven Mall.
I'd be careful counting on that Shale play with oil prices where they are... very careful.
Where are the jobs going? Mercedes just said bye bye to the NE (major loss) and I could name more. I can't remember the last significant employer to move into the NE (certainly not NYC). How long you think Wall St and Unions can hold out carrying the load with all those "money managers" and "civil servants"?
True. Why pay Union employees a decent wage when you can move down south and hire mostly temp employees with minimal benefits at 12 bucks an hour, just like BMW does in SC and Mercedes already does in AL. I'm surprised it took them this long to move frankly.
True. Why pay Union employees a decent wage when you can move down south and hire mostly temp employees with minimal benefits at 12 bucks an hour, just like BMW does in SC and Mercedes already does in AL. I'm surprised it took them this long to move frankly.
The manufacturing jobs have been long gone... The Mercedes move (among other high profile ones) is their Headquarters with many high paying jobs.
Just curious, where did you get this info from? I have come across many people who work there, and they actually seem to do well, including a really good benefits package.
The attractiveness of the amount of the hourly wage/salary is highly dependent upon the area's COL, and the COL here in AL is drastically lower than LI (not surprising to anyone). It makes perfect sense for corporations to move to areas with lower COL (Mercedes, Honda and Hyundai have all opened plants in AL within the past 15 years), which is one of the major obstacles that LI will face in the future. Trust me, I hate it for the area I was born and raised, I would love nothing more than to see things make a turn for the better, but that is a real concern.
I grew up and was raised near Babylon and I moved from LI a few years ago to Chicago. I'm a young professional and worked in the city and my commute amounted to around 3 hours round trip and my monthly LIRR ticket was near $300 at the time. I was growing tired of the commute and was looking desperately for jobs in Long Island but unfortunately most of the jobs for yuppies such as myself are in the city. My job at the time paid around $50k and I knew the prospects of me of living a decent middle class were probably unrealistic as I would have to either get a new job that paid more but would require me to work much longer hours along with a dreadful commute.
I still live in the suburbs but my commute to the city is no more than 70 minutes round trip and my train ticket is 1/3 of what I was paying in LI. All this while buying a condo that was under $130k and my salary remained the same. I would have never been able to achieve this in Long Island.
I do miss Long Island and NYC along with the beaches, the weather, etc but Chicago is a good substitute. Property taxes (while still high in Illinois), income tax, general prices and my commute are things I do not miss.
Bottom line is I think Long Island is a great place to live and a great place to raise a family. If I was able to make more and work on the Island with a shorter commute I think I would consider moving back.
Just curious, where did you get this info from? I have come across many people who work there, and they actually seem to do well, including a really good benefits package.
The attractiveness of the amount of the hourly wage/salary is highly dependent upon the area's COL, and the COL here in AL is drastically lower than LI (not surprising to anyone). It makes perfect sense for corporations to move to areas with lower COL (Mercedes, Honda and Hyundai have all opened plants in AL within the past 15 years), which is one of the major obstacles that LI will face in the future. Trust me, I hate it for the area I was born and raised, I would love nothing more than to see things make a turn for the better, but that is a real concern.
I'm actually more familiar with the BMW plant in Spartanberg, SC but have heard Mercedes does something similar in AL which may not be true for them. BMW takes virtually all new manufacture hires from a temp company called MAU solutions you are paid 15 an hour or 12 a hour if you take benefits (which are bare bones), you then work along employees who were lucky to get hired early on as actual BMW employees who do the same job for 25 an hour with full benefits. As a temp they can also lay you off at the drop of a hat. It's also very very difficult to covert from temp to full time employee. This has worked out very well for BMW, in fact they recently laid off 5000 German workers so they can further expand the SC plant due to the dirt cheap labor. Do a search and you can find articles about this.
The manufacturing jobs have been long gone... The Mercedes move (among other high profile ones) is their Headquarters with many high paying jobs.
Ok makes more sense as they already had manufacturing facilities down south.
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