Woah, woah, woah! That's more than most people in the world, the US or even California earn in a year, before taxes. (Median per capita income in California is $39k).
Why is a remote worker going to be spending roughly double the average Californian?
Its long been a a realtively true thing: take any salary in California, and cut it in half - and thats the same level of salary-Quality-of-Life you would have in any other state...
So making 100K in CA is the same as making $50K in Wyoming.
However, we are seeing a HUGE squeeze on cost of living in California.
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As an example, my brother bought a house in June 2020 for $327,000.
The house now Zillows for between 488K and 517K (depending on if yu believe their site, or the emails they send you.
This house was built in 1959.
My grandparents bought their house in Saratoga in 1959 for $29,000.
Sold it in ~2000 for $2,500,000.
Its now zillowing for $3,650,000.
Its almost the exact same layout as my brothers. Same build year. The only difference is that it is a 4BR and my brothers is a 3BR.
(and location...)
THe california real-estate market is literally crazy.
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But realors are an abomination. They are part of the reason (a major part) that cost of living is nuts.
Reality shows about realtors should be illegal - its market manipulation.
Look at companies like HouseCanary -- they attempted to build a ML/AI platform to inform hedgefund realtors on buying everything they could...
There should be a "protected" class of real-estate, one that cannot be purchased by hedgfunds or any individual that does NOT live in the residence. THese housing developments should be partially helped by local muni ords etc..
Budget accountability should be a thing ; SF is proposing to PAY for people from outside SF and California to COME to SF and get an abortion, such that they will pay for travel, accomodation AND procedure.
SF can't even take care of its OWN homeless folks, yet want to pay for out-of-state-abortion-medical-tourists???
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A few years ago I went thrugh the CDPH budget and read it, and looked at the salaries and employees divided by the number of homeless it claimed to be "helping"
I found that the city of SF was paying out ~$25,000 per year, per homeless person in "services"
Why not just pay those homeless people the $25,000 a year to have a city job that requires them to clean the city?
The salaries of the people that work in CDPH on the homless prblem shows the root cause
These are just anecdotes on how california is fn broken.
That's a lengthy post with a lot of anecdotes and so many line breaks that it takes up a full page in my browser. It doesn't answer my question, though.
Why does this poster's hypothetical example of a remote worker spend double what the median Californian could? Even if they were in California, it doesn't seem unreasonable to spend what the median Californian does.
Why would someone motivated by financial concerns move to California to at all, if they can work remotely from anywhere?
Your experience with the UI/UX too my text has nothing to do with my message, nor how you consume your information.
I dont write online posts as if they are Hemmingway passages, and in 9pt font.
I write in such a way which hopefully allows for easy skimming in speed reading fashion (at least it does for my eyes... I can easily filter out fluff words.. but thats only because my ADHD dopamine-pump requires it...
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However, point taken - just that I wont type out my thoughts different to the way I also think.
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>>>Why does this poster's hypothetical example of a remote worker spend double what the median Californian could? Even if they were in California, it doesn't seem unreasonable to spend what the median Californian does.
>>>Why would someone motivated by financial concerns move to California to at all, if they can work remotely from anywhere <--- THIS
THIS is exactly the reason why this argument / tpoic is so deep.
I don't know where you live, but if you have ever lived in California, with even a modicum of success, yu would immediately understand why California is a great place (so long as yu can make a living)
Snow, Sun, Beach, City, Moutains, Wine, entertainment, blah blah blah -- litereally every single thing your may want is within a 4 hour drive.
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The sacrifice is that many would take your place. You are not PAYING to live here... you are paying to *LIVE* here.
Yet, at the same time, the ratchet of life clamps down.
While you have all these amenities, your upkeep of all aspects of your personal life go up. So you pay more for every single service and luxury -- plus you have whata-boutism culture all over the place...
The one absolute GREAT thing I can say about Silicon Valley (from a CULTURAL perspective*) is that Hollywood celebrity-ism-worship has not really been a thing TOO THE DEGREE of LA/SoCal...
There is a long quasi-competition between Science (norcal) and the Arts (socal) -- even though its "fake" -- it still has truth.
Norcal: Glamour through creation.
Socal: Glamour through looks (empowered by creation)
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They are essentially the same, just different muscle groups.
Woah, woah, woah! That's more than most people in the world, the US or even California earn in a year, before taxes. (Median per capita income in California is $39k).
Why is a remote worker going to be spending roughly double the average Californian?