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I know many people in my area who think things are going downhill. The biggest differentiator I think is education, not location. If you have a college degree, you are less likely to have experienced unemployment and stagnant pay, and are more likely to have a significant nest egg.
On the other hand, some of those "down and out" sorts also have a $40,000 pickup truck, a bass boat and a Harley in their garages, so to some degree it is about choices.
The more education you have, the better off you'll be usually, but location is still a huge determinant.
I know four software engineers that left TN because there was little demand for their skills here. They earned less than an average worker would in a rich, prestigious area like the Boston metro.
They moved to greater Detroit and one guy is making three times his last TN salary three years ago. His STEM education was useful, but not in this area.
Most rural areas and many Non-coastal states are hemorrhaging educated talent to increasingly fewer areas. Eventually this will impact the quality of life for everyone from newborns to seniors
The more education you have, the better off you'll be usually, but location is still a huge determinant.
I know four software engineers that left TN because there was little demand for their skills here. They earned less than an average worker would in a rich, prestigious area like the Boston metro.
They moved to greater Detroit and one guy is making three times his last TN salary three years ago. His STEM education was useful, but not in this area.
Most rural areas and many Non-coastal states are hemorrhaging educated talent to increasingly fewer areas. Eventually this will impact the quality of life for everyone from newborns to seniors
The following link is from CNN Money and for me says it all and not just that the circumstances described are very familiar to me as my wife is from Clearfield County Pennsylvania. It just reinforces what I have said previously that we are blessed to have made the decisions we did years ago and one of the most critical ones was to move after college from where we grew up to areas just beginning to surge and develop.
It didn't used to be like this in Clearfield County, which lies within the tree-covered rolling hills just off Interstate-80. Like in other parts of the U.S., high school graduates used to be able to make a comfortable living. The disappearance of those opportunities has fueled resentment among the working class.
The area did see a Fracking boom with workers coming to the community and hotels popping up for them to live in and then boom. The oil recession and fracking has gone leaving many older citizens as a tax base with many younger having moved away including some of their best educated.
All of this will come back to bite us as a society for generations to come. Folks not working or working in menial jobs are folks not earnings SS benefit credits or at best minimal dollar value credits.
The following link is from CNN Money and for me says it all and not just that the circumstances described are very familiar to me as my wife is from Clearfield County Pennsylvania. It just reinforces what I have said previously that we are blessed to have made the decisions we did years ago and one of the most critical ones was to move after college from where we grew up areas just beginning to surge and develop.
The area did see a Fracking boom with workers coming to the community and hotels popping up for them to live in and then boom. The oil recession and fracking has gone leaving many older citizens as a tax base with many younger having moved away including some of their best educated.
All of this will come back to bite us as a society for generations to come. Folks not working or working in menial jobs are folks not earnings SS benefit credits or at best minimal dollar value credits.
Personally I'm doing as well here as I was "up nawth" but I hear locals complaining all the time. Most of my friends and peers here are doing a lot worse than I am unless they are a pharmacist, nurse, etc. Basically you see the same stuff here as that article.
Many of these communities try to market themselves as retirement destinations but some are contracting so fast no one wants to live there.
There is a body of opinion that much of the rural resentment within states towards urban areas is heightened by transplants especially retirees bringing wealth and perspective to metro areas and not rural areas. They don't understand why they have worked hard and have what they have and don't understand how others can have so much more. Remember in many states folks now in their 60's and up and in some cases 50's went to segregated schools and now see those they thought disadvantaged retiring to their state with much more than they have.
Maximum effort doesn't yield the same result from region to region. Social Security is income based and the higher the income area you work in the greater your SS benefit for the most part when compared to the same job in a low income area.
Our governor and legislature are incredibly blatant about trying to run everything in the state, gerrymandering districts and suppressing votes to stay in power and ignoring public opinion to make decisions. Yet they chafe at any federal "interference".
Another thing that causes some rural resentment is that rural NC is deep red and the large metro areas are mostly blue. Every election you can predict which way an area will go based on population density and you will be right more often than wrong.
Last edited by ReachTheBeach; 09-21-2016 at 08:41 AM..
I agree people may have to move, but it's sad that wide swathes of the country are drying up economically and are essentially economically nonviable for working people.
Take TN for instance. It's a beautiful state with low taxes, low cost of living, mild four seasons, seemingly great for seniors. Yet two of our local hospital systems are merging, and that's likely to lead closure of some rural medical facilities, and an increasing share of medical services being in Johnson City. Seniors over a fifty mile or so stretch of interstate may be left with little in the way of medical care within an hour, and that's a town of 15,000 or so, not tiny. We're also far more dense than places in the rural West, northern Maine, etc., so it's not like "no one is there" either.
Economically, if you're not in health care, education, or doing some sort of onsite service, and want to remain in the state, the only viable city to find work is Nashville, and even its economy is weak compared to Boston or a northern city.
These days, you have to chase jobs in seemingly ever fewer cities to make enough money to retire in the future
I don't know too many people who would want to leave world class prestigious cities like NYC to go live in TN. Upon retirement? That is possible. You have to make your money in a major metro and then you can retire to a cheaper area.
Many of the rural retirees we help live on far less than $30k/ yr, and we are in a relatively expensive locale. It seems amazing to me that they have beeh retired on so little since the 1970's. They are very happy and well adjusted; & active in the community.
I was born in 1978, and I don't remember a time when my grandparents weren't retired. I think they were retired when I was born, or at least very shortly thereafter. They moved to a retirement community in Florida in the mid-'80s and returned every summer to a little bungalow they owned in Upstate New York. They took a decent number of trips, including overseas trips. My grandmother liked to go to the casino and play the slots on occasion. Whenever I saw them, they always had a check for me, sometimes a fairly large one.
Here's what they did before retirement: My grandfather was a butcher who worked in a hot-dog factory for much of his career. My grandmother rarely worked, but when she did, it was as a cook.
My grandfather died in the early 2000s; my grandmother died about four years ago. She was giving me checks up until the end. All her grandchildren (five of us) inherited $10,000 from her. I never really understood how they were able to live so comfortably on a fixed income for decades. I know they owned a two-family house for a long time and collected rent from tenants, but that's the only thing I can think of and it doesn't seem like it would have accounted for everything.
Our governor and legislature are incredibly blatant about trying to run everything in the state, gerrymandering districts and suppressing votes to stay in power and ignoring public opinion to make decisions. Yet they chafe at any federal "interference".
Another thing that causes some rural resentment is that rural NC is deep red and the large metro areas are mostly blue. Every election you can predict which way an area will go based on population density and you will be right more often than wrong.
A lot of these small towns are really resentful to transplant retirees. I've seen plenty of retirees and older people from rich, coastal, wealthy states who moved to small towns in the South or flyover country then do nothing but criticize the place and its residents, act like they're a blessing to the place with money and wealth, etc.
I hear a-lot of mention about Tenn. Up here in the North we have alot of people saying they want to move to TN and how it's a much better place economically. Looking at the numbers Nashville is doing very well (job growth an net migration seem just as good as many bigger coastal cities) but the rest of the state has some issues. I think in some respects it's a grass is always greener issue.
The following link is from CNN Money and for me says it all and not just that the circumstances described are very familiar to me as my wife is from Clearfield County Pennsylvania. It just reinforces what I have said previously that we are blessed to have made the decisions we did years ago and one of the most critical ones was to move after college from where we grew up to areas just beginning to surge and develop.
The area did see a Fracking boom with workers coming to the community and hotels popping up for them to live in and then boom. The oil recession and fracking has gone leaving many older citizens as a tax base with many younger having moved away including some of their best educated.
All of this will come back to bite us as a society for generations to come. Folks not working or working in menial jobs are folks not earnings SS benefit credits or at best minimal dollar value credits.
I live in a county that was part of the fracking boom. We too have lots of new hotels pop up. People setting up man camps etc. Hotels aren't doing that great and the man camps are empty. Its not completely done but the trucks that used to pass in front of my house have finally dwindled to a handful.
What was crazy was how the people that worked in the oil field would have a cow in the social media pages if you dare say something about the price of gas. They had the attitude that their jobs were super special and we should bow down to their efforts.
You don't hear teachers, doctors or mechanics talking like that. It was nuts.
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