Population predictions for 2020? (Pittsburgh: income, moving to, housing)

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by sealie

That is crazy talk. People close schools due to declining enrollment? That kind of talk will cost you your job as a P.S. Superintendent.

My elementary school in Beaver Falls (actually Patterson Hts) was closed. My parents, and some others, had a catfit. I didn't care, didn't have any love lost for that place. (My parents did not go there.) Several elementary schools in Beaver Falls proper have been closed.

Originally Posted by charisb

Serious question because I do not go to any other city forums: Is it common to have so many people leave the a city, only to then haunt that city's forum and talk about how crummy it is? There just seems to be a lot of that on here.

Anecdotes are not evidence of course, but I just do not feel like Pittsburgh is dying. My neighborhood (Greenfield) has had a significant turnover of older people moving out/dying and being replaced with 30ish year old couples who have good jobs and are starting to have children. Most of them have moved here for jobs.
I certainly believe we need higher wages here but unemployment is relatively low and median income is reasonable. It is true that you are going to pay a lot for a shiny new apartment but I think that moving to the rust belt is always a problem for those who want shiny new housing.

Yes. Next question?

[BrassTacksGal]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

My partner and I each earn <$15/hr. with our degrees. We're still making a go of it here, though. It is what it is. He's a supervisor at a company he's been at since 2009. I work for the city police. We love Pittsburgh. We just wish Pittsburgh's employers would recognize the rising cost-of-living here and compensate us appropriately and respectably.

Employers don't raise the pay of their employees because suddenly decide they aren't paying 'appropriately'. They pay more when they have to, when they can't fill the jobs at that pay. Since you and your partner (and others) are willing to work for <$15 an hour, that's all your employers need to pay to fill the jobs they have available. Once again it's basic economics, supply and demand. You are being paid appropriately, by definition.

[norcider]

Hearing Southside was "hot and now it's in decline" is all I needed to hear to know this guy has no idea what the hell he's talking about.

[eschaton]

Speaking personally, I'm in a very specialized field as I work for a labor union doing research. There's only a few hundred jobs in the country doing what I do, most of which are in DC or NYC. Unless I wanted to work for SEIU (don't want to do that again - too corporate) I'd work out of the national office of a union, which would mean most likely working in DC or NYC - maybe San Francisco. I could make way more money working in those positions, but on the other hand the COL to live in an urban neighborhood would be so high that homeownership of a family-sized house would be pretty out of the question.

Add to this that my wife is from here. While she feels no particular attraction to this area, her parents live here, are in their 70s, and her father expresses the strong desire to die in their current house. And my mother moved out here to be closer to her grandchildren. As such, absent losing my job, I'm likely here till retirement (which hopefully will be at age 60 or earlier).

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by charisb

Eschaton, you may have some views on this--now that AGH has committed to raise their minimum wage to $15, do you think that will lead to other local employers raising pay, especially in the health sector?

In general it's true that raises in pay by large employers tend to be "sticky" insofar as they require other employers looking to hire the same workers to raise pay as well to ensure that they don't miss out in terms of attracting quality talent. It's why, for example, in highly unionized industries (back when there were such things) even the non-union employers needed to pay relatively well (although part of that was also to keep the union out, back when union avoidance wasn't just about sticks and had some carrots too.

That said, I can't say for sure whether AGH by themselves would make up enough of a critical mass in the local healthcare industry to make an appreciable difference.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by eschaton

In general it's true that raises in pay by large employers tend to be "sticky" insofar as they require other employers looking to hire the same workers to raise pay as well to ensure that they don't miss out in terms of attracting quality talent. It's why, for example, in highly unionized industries (back when there were such things) even the non-union employers needed to pay relatively well (although part of that was also to keep the union out, back when union avoidance wasn't just about sticks and had some carrots too.

That said, I can't say for sure whether AGH by themselves would make up enough of a critical mass in the local healthcare industry to make an appreciable difference.

It's not AGH, it's UPMC. (See link above.) It may make a difference for hospital work. I never did get Bernie Sanders going on about fast-food workers and totally ignoring CNAs, dietary aides, housekeeping people, etc who work in hospitals (and elsewhere, of course).

[charisb]

Allegheny General Hospital has already started the wage increase to get all workers up to a minimum of $15.00. They are unionized and the union has done a lot to make this happen. UPMC says they plan to do it by 2021 but has not started yet (they have also strongly resisted unionization efforts).
There is a research study going on at Pitt to study the impact of the AGH wage increase on the workers. They are collecting qualitative and quantitative data and plan to sample both higher and lower income workers (i.e., those who were making $8.00 an hour prior to the first increase and those who were already making $13.50). Part of what they plan to explore is whether people have only slightly higher wages but get pushed high enough to no longer qualify for social benefits.

[charisb]

AGH Service and Clerical Workers Celebrate Historic New Contract

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by charisb

AGH Service and Clerical Workers Celebrate Historic New Contract

Well that's interesting. So all the biggies are doing it. Good for the workers.

[Yac]

You all do realize we have an ignore function, right ? If you don't like someone for complaining (or any other reason you might have, it's up to you) -you can put him or her on your ignore list and you won't have to read their posts and derail threads with silly off topic squabbles.

Yac.