Employement in Sacramento Area (Davis, Chico: wood floors, apartment complex, foreclosures)

[Majin]

Originally Posted by Elias38

Hi!
I live in Ireland and plan to move to Roseville and i am wondering if a minimum wage is enough there to pay bills, car/health insurance, rent!?

Not even close.

[vegaspilgrim]

Originally Posted by Majin

It depends, if it's a low end service job, yes it's going in the trash, if it's a real job then every large coporation gets applications from all over the country/world so they consider everyone and expect them to move here if they get hired.

It's been my experience, job hunting in the last year, that non-local resumes instantly end up in the trash even for "real jobs" with large corporations, unless if you have very specialized skills or you are applying for upper level management positions.

Living in the Denver area (~3m people), I was able to get a few interviews in Colorado Springs (~600k), which is about 70 miles away. People in both cities generally consider themselves part of the same region, one employment market. A lot of people even commute back and forth between the two. Sacramento is the closest "big city" to Reno. Reno (~400k) to Sacramento (~2m) though, about twice that distance, a harried drive over the Sierras susceptible to chain controls and closures, and in a whole different state... not sure if the same regional reciprocity exists. Bummer.

Related question-- I see some CA state government jobs being advertised on the internet job boards. Are they actually hiring to fill positions or is this just solicitation of resumes? Do you know of any non-California residents who have recently (say, within the last few years) obtained state jobs in Sacramento?

[Elias38]

So, how people live there if minimum wage is not enough?

[ehbrah]

Originally Posted by Elias38

So, how people live there if minimum wage is not enough?

It may be possible if you rent a room or find a roommate to split rent and utilities with.

[ElectroPlumber]

Originally Posted by ehbrah

It may be possible if you rent a room or find a roommate to split rent and utilities with.

I disagree. I don't think it's possible unless your parents or rich uncle is subsidizing most of your living expenses.

[ElectroPlumber]

Originally Posted by Elias38

So, how people live there if minimum wage is not enough?

Minimum wage is not sufficient to live on in CA unless you are earning other income "under the table" or you are getting some of your expenses subsidized by relatives. "Minimum" doesn't mean that someone calculated what salary it takes for a person to pay their basic living expenses. Rather, it is the legal minimum that an employer has to pay a worker.

[wburg]

It is of course possible to survive on minimum wage, but there is a difference between survival and living. Minimum wage in California is about $8 an hour, which adds up to $1440 a month before taxes or about $1200 a month after taxes. It is possible to find a cheap studio apartment in a not-so-hot neighborhood for around $500. Utilities for that don't cost very much so figure around $600 total. Add to that cell phone service for about $20-50 a month, about $150-200 a month for food, another $100 for clothes and incidentals, that's $900. Assume about $150 for transportation--that's a monthly bus pass and a bike, or a couple tanks of gas and insurance for a cheap, older car. Generally, unless you get one of the few minimum-wage jobs that provide health insurance, you won't have health insurance. Public programs like Medi-Cal are primarily intended for those who don't work at all, so there has been a traditionally huge gap between the people who get public healthcare (which is horribly underfunded) and those who can pay for private healthcare (which is horribly overpriced.)

Having a roommate/spouse/significant other to share living expenses with can make this a bit less uncomfortable. Living in an expensive part of the state makes roommates more necessary, but the expensive parts of the state often have better public transportation, which can reduce transportation expenses.

The state of California is still hiring people. They aren't creating new jobs, but people who work for the state retire, die, or move to the private sector. Some jobs have been eliminated due to agency belt-tightening, and often the process for just getting permission to hire someone requires a lot of red tape (you have to justify the need and get permission to hire for a position that currently exists but someone else just left the job) but yes, they are hiring. Often, the people they are hiring are skilled workers--scientists, researchers, accountants, technicians--but there are also general office, maintenance and groundskeeping type jobs. You have to take a test to get on the list (when the test is offered.)

[edwardius]

Originally Posted by Elias38

So, how people live there if minimum wage is not enough?

First a lot of people being paid minimum wage aren't relying on work as there sole source of income, like high school students living at home with there parents who are working part time at minimum wage for gas money or maybe the mostly stay at home mom who works a few hours as an aid at her child's school who is willing to accept low wages and no benefits for the scheduling flexibility that means she is working only in the hours her kids are at school.

Second you have people who are getting assistance from the government to help with expenses. In the US if you your income isn't great enough, your kids can get free/subsidized lunches at school. There are housing assistance programs that again are means tested and depending on how many people are living with you and your family income, you may or may not qualify. There are subsidized health care programs for the working poor (often referred to as medically indigent adults). Depending on your income and family size, you may also qualify for food stamps, a government program that pays for some of your food.

Lastly, most of these programs have residence requirements that as a non-US national you might have trouble qualifying for some of these benefits.

Incomes are much lower in Mexico than in the US, so if you Mexican you still might be better off making minimum wage in the US than trying to survive off what you could make in Mexico. But I am not sure it makes sense to move from Ireland to the US if you are only qualified to do minimum wage work here. I doubt the wage differential between the two places probably is strong enough to justify making the move.

If you do decide to move to the US, you might want to look at moving to somewhere in the US with a stronger local economy. Compare the unemployment rates in Sacramento vs other parts of the country below.

Table 1. Civilian labor force and unemployment by state and metropolitan area

[wburg]

Maybe things have changed since I worked minimum-wage jobs (early nineties) but back then I sure as hell didn't get any government assistance or help from my parents! I worked in a video store for $4.50 an hour, shared a two-bedroom apartment for two other people, and didn't drive a car. Then for a year I worked part-time for $6 an hour, actually making less than I did working minimum wage, but lived in a 6-bedroom house with 7 other people, each paying $125 a month rent and a few bucks for utilities, and got by as cheaply as I could.

"Medically indigent" programs like CMISP barely count as "subsidized health care programs" in the way that Europeans might understand--if you're lucky, you get to wait for hours to see someone who gives you some motrin for your abcessed tooth. I'll agree that getting by on minimum wage is fairly miserable and difficult in this country, but not necessarily the idea that everyone who does it is on a public dole or making money under the table--although for those that are, I can certainly understand it!

[edwardius]

I think there is a mis-perception that the US doesn't have a social net. It does and a lot of people rely on it.

But more importantly, I think if you are coming from abroad and trying to succeed her with less access to it, you are going to face more obstacles than the people who have access to these programs. More importantly these programs are more generous then you are describing. The service is provide by doctors or nurse practitioners, it covers required prescriptions. But you have to meet the income eligibility requirements to qualify and for non-emergency services, you may have to wait for extended periods to get be seen.