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I am considering a move to Milwaukee, after having lived in Madison for 10 years.
I will have a BA as of this summer, but it seems that a Bachelor's degree does not go as far in Madison, as it does in Milwaukee. Many of my friends here are still doing basic clerical work with a BA degree, and hustling part-time jobs on the side of full-time jobs to pay off student loans.
The economic situation in Madison is rough. The major employers are the state, the university, and Epic Systems. Epic doesn't really hire people who just finished college in their mid-30's, while the state and university are facing deep cuts. I lost a good position in a budget cut, and so did my sister. (My boss looked like he wanted to cry when he found out.)
So - is the job situation better in Milwaukee, for degree holders? It seems to me that it might be. My BA will be in a liberal arts, basic, but I have experience as a programmer so I figure that will help.
Madison vs. Milwaukee? Seem to be fewer jobs in Madison now.
I am considering a move to Milwaukee, after having lived in Madison for 10 years.
I will have a BA as of this summer, but it seems that a Bachelor's degree does not go as far in Madison, as it does in Milwaukee. Many of my friends here are still doing basic clerical work with a BA degree, and hustling part-time jobs on the side of full-time jobs to pay off student loans.
The economic situation in Madison is rough. The major employers are the state, the university, and Epic Systems. Epic doesn't really hire people who just finished college in their mid-30's, while the state and university are facing deep cuts. I lost a good position in a budget cut, and so did my sister. (My boss looked like he wanted to cry when he found out.)
So - is the job situation better in Milwaukee, for degree holders? It seems to me that it might be. I am an experienced web developer and am just now completing a BA.
I'm not sure if Milwaukee's job situation is better (probably depends on the type of job) but Milwaukee has much bigger problems with crime, poverty, and gangs than Madison... and Milwaukee's public schools are much worse than Madison, too... all of that does effect the quality of life
Last edited by Moving_South; 03-15-2012 at 04:07 PM..
but Milwaukke has much bigger problems with crime, poverty, and gangs than Madison... and Milwaukee's public schools are much worse than Madison, too... all of that does effect the quality of life
Not if you don't live in the hood or send your kid to MPS however not all MPS schools are horrible. Rufus King is consistently rated as the states best public high school. There are many open enrollment and charter and private schools in the Milwaukee area to help with your decision in where to send your child to school.
The Milwaukee suburbs which are virtually crime free boast very high standards of living so much so that MKE area has 3 of the top 100 highest income counties in the country(Waukesha, Washington and Ozaukee) the best schools in the state are located in the Milwaukee area such as Arrowhead, Homestead, Whitefish Bay, Shorewood and the River Hills/Glendale district. Private or boarding schools in the Milwaukee area are also top notch St.Johns Northwestern Academy and University School of Milwaukee located in River Hills and Brookfield Academy.
As far as crime just as any big city you will have inevitable crime numbers, you cannot have a city of 600,000 or a County of a Million people and not have any crime. Milwaukee was recently ranked as the 42nd Most dangerous city right behind Minneapolis which people like to think is crime free. Milwaukee's crime numbers have been falling at a great rate and has been headlining news with double digit drops in crime every year. So to say crime and public schools are a reason not to consider Milwaukee is inaccurate and misleading.
Crime in Milwaukee mainly happens in two areas known as "the near northside" and "the near south side" if you live outside these areas even if its only by a half of a mile chances of you being a victim of a crime falls greatly. Milwaukee is one of these cities where you are driving by $600,000 condo one minute and the next minute you are in a bad neighborhood where homes sell for $17,000. The whole city of Milwaukee is not a ghetto unlike what some people may want to believe. I am not a Pollyanna and while in Milwaukee just by exercising city common sense can keep you from becoming a victim of a crime. I heard an old adage that said this: You can only chose 2 of these, safe, convenient, cheap. Meaning if you want to buy a cheap house it won't be safe or it won't be convenient or if you want to rent in a safe and convenient area it won't be cheap. This is generally true in bigger cities and probably is not an issue in madison considering there really is no major crime areas and madison is not that big area wise.
Now for the jobs issue, just be Milwaukee's size there will always be more job opportunities in Milwaukee. People in Milwaukee commute all over the area, people from Germantown drive down to Racine to work and people from Port Washington commute to Waukesha county to work this is not uncommon at all. So you have people from 7 counties commuting to jobs all over the area. Milwaukee's largest sector is now healthcare followed by manufacturing and MFG in Milwaukee has moved from factory work to smaller machine shops and small tech shops. Industrial parks have been popping up all over the MKE area from Oconomowoc to Saukville and down to new tech areas in Kenosha County. Milwaukee has a high number of financial sectors mainly mutual funds and insurance. Robert W Baird and Northwestern Mutual, Stark Investments, Heartland Funds, UMB Funds comes to mind. For healthcare Aurora is the big player here however there are many other major entities as well. The Milwaukee area is home to 2.1M so you have to have jobs for all those people and there is a far more diverse selection in Milwaukee than any other part of the state.
Quality of Life, it all depends where you live and how you live your own life. You don't need $400,000 to buy a house in a decent or nice area of Milwaukee. There are plenty of suburbs and city neighborhoods that offer a good standard of living for a relatively affordable price, Greendale, Wauwatosa and Franklin come to mind but there are many more.
Basically if you can't find a job or area in MKE for you then you are not looking hard enough but I could say that for a lot of cities but the smaller the city the more limited you are. It's just a numbers game.
The best way to find a job in today's economy and high competitive fields is to differentiate yourself from your competition. I sent out resumes, and then switched to staffing agency's and some are better than other so beware. Then I just started emailing companies I wanted to work for and using my best sales pitch, short and sweet and attached my resume but didn't copy and paste my resume in email. You don't want to overwhelm them. Then I switched to basically selling myself over the phone and in person to companies I wanted to work for and that weren't even hiring. I received great reception to this and if the company wasn't hiring I always asked for some referrals to companies that might need some help or companies expanding or recently opened in that industry. Just by asking the owner or hiring staff they would suggest places to try. You basically show you are more dedicated and willing to work harder to find a job than the next guy and often that will turn into something. Good Luck!
There seem to be tons of Librarian positions in the Milwaukee area which is weird considering they have a library school. At least that's the reason people give why there are not many librarian positions in Madison.
The best way to find a job in today's economy and high competitive fields is to differentiate yourself from your competition. I sent out resumes, and then switched to staffing agency's and some are better than other so beware. Then I just started emailing companies I wanted to work for and using my best sales pitch, short and sweet and attached my resume but didn't copy and paste my resume in email. You don't want to overwhelm them. Then I switched to basically selling myself over the phone and in person to companies I wanted to work for and that weren't even hiring. I received great reception to this and if the company wasn't hiring I always asked for some referrals to companies that might need some help or companies expanding or recently opened in that industry. Just by asking the owner or hiring staff they would suggest places to try. You basically show you are more dedicated and willing to work harder to find a job than the next guy and often that will turn into something. Good Luck!
I like how you take effort to do this. I am always using those various methods to get more work and more work. I am in the "rich" society class as a result. Otherwise I would be a normal middle class person.
I am in the "rich" society class as a result. Otherwise I would be a normal middle class person.
Not to get too far off of topic but I will, that "rich" requirement seems to be getting lower and lower. First you had to have a million dollars to be considered rich now we find out it's 250,000 gross income a year or 125K per couple. Now in news articles all across the nation they say $75,000 is rich or in their own words..."for the vast majority of families that don't make $75,000 or more" so I guess if your wife make $37,500 and you make $37,500 you are considered rich. Are we lowering the bar that much these days? There are numerous jobs that you can get without a college degree that pay well over $37,500 so when I hear people complain about money or how their life turned out I really wonder how "bad" they really tried to get a good job in life. To me it is not that hard to have a household income of $100,000. A UPS driver and CNC Machinist could do that. I guess what I am trying to say is that there is no excuse for people not to have a decent life money wise you would have to stop spending $8 bucks on cigarettes and make some personal decisions though like start using coupons or only buying a house that you can afford comfortably instead of buying at your max of $350K. There is no shame in buying a house for 100,000 and paying it off in 15 years. People tend to account for money on a yearly or monthly basis but you should really do it over a life time. For instance as an example: two houses, one has property taxes of $6,000 a year and the other $2,500. now assuming you buy a house when your 30 and you own the house until you're 80 which is now very common. the $6,000/yr property tax house would be $300,000 over your life time compared to $125,000 on $2,500 a year for property taxes. What could you do with $175,000 extra dollars over a life time? it would make retirement easier. This is just basic back of the napkin financial planning. Now take cigs or the $1,200 you spend a year on cable after 10 years that's a new car not a lexus but a new car with cash and no interest and no payment.
Let's say you get a job at 18 and work until you're 70 and lets put your average salary of $40,000 over a lifetime, it will be less early on but more later on so for the sake of this argument. That's 52 working years @40K = 2,080,000 Million dollars over a working lifetime, how will you manage your millions?
Thank you, Milwaukee City, for your excellent perspective on Milwaukee. The fact remains that Madison has less crime & less poverty and better public schools than the City of Milwaukee, but as you point out that doesn't necessarily mean that such elements of big city life will effect someone moving to Milwaukee
I do think that a lower-income or low-middle income person will have an easier time avoiding the pitfalls of crime & gangs and poorer public schools in Madison that in Milwaukee though. In Milwaukee you need a little more money to avoid that stuff than in Madison
Milwaukee is better for a working professional. No doubt about that. For the simple reason of there being more larger private companies to find employment at.
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Madison vs. Milwaukee? Seem to be fewer jobs in Madison now.
