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The Cost of Playing
9 years ago
General
I like to carp a lot about wages and salaries because I believe I'm being underpaid. Granted, we're probably all underpaid, but it's hard to argue the IT pro knocking back six figures is being underpaid compared to the rest of us.
Invariably in the course of my griping, someone will say, "Oh I'm making far more than you, but the cost of living here is outrageous!" And that's usually true... have you seen the rent in San Francisco lately? It makes Los Angeles look sane. So the idea is that the higher wage is justified because the cost of simply existing in the area is so high.
But let's take a closer look.
Let's imagine we have an IT worker in Los Angeles bringing home $60,0000 a year. And let's say the cost of living (rent, utilities, car insurance... stuff like that) comes to $40,000 a year, about two-thirds of their salary. That leaves them with $20,000 a year to spread around on fun things. Not bad, not bad.
Our theoretical IT worker gets disillusioned by the big city and decides to change location, moving to a smaller community. They land a job making $30,000 a year, but it's all good because the cost of living is half what it was back in LA. So after giving up $20,000 a year to live, they're left with $10,000 to buy some nice things and amuse themselves. Makes sense... everything is proportionally halved.
Here's the kicker: the price of living expense is halved, but the price of those recreational expenditures remains the same. Disneyland will set you back $100 a day regardless if you drove 10 miles or 1000 miles to get there. You can't walk into a Best Buy and get an XBox One for $150 with a "small town" discount. A gee-whiz brushed steel refrigerator is north of $1000 all across the country. And that brand new Golf R is always gonna set you back $39,000 at every dealership everywhere. That's twice the leftover income in LA, but four times that in the small town.
So the next time you wanna give the cost-of-living argument to justify your salary, by all means go right ahead. It's certainly not untrue that places with a higher cost of living tend to pay higher wages. Just remember that it tends to leave one with more leftover income to play with. And the cost of playing never changes, no matter where you live.
Invariably in the course of my griping, someone will say, "Oh I'm making far more than you, but the cost of living here is outrageous!" And that's usually true... have you seen the rent in San Francisco lately? It makes Los Angeles look sane. So the idea is that the higher wage is justified because the cost of simply existing in the area is so high.
But let's take a closer look.
Let's imagine we have an IT worker in Los Angeles bringing home $60,0000 a year. And let's say the cost of living (rent, utilities, car insurance... stuff like that) comes to $40,000 a year, about two-thirds of their salary. That leaves them with $20,000 a year to spread around on fun things. Not bad, not bad.
Our theoretical IT worker gets disillusioned by the big city and decides to change location, moving to a smaller community. They land a job making $30,000 a year, but it's all good because the cost of living is half what it was back in LA. So after giving up $20,000 a year to live, they're left with $10,000 to buy some nice things and amuse themselves. Makes sense... everything is proportionally halved.
Here's the kicker: the price of living expense is halved, but the price of those recreational expenditures remains the same. Disneyland will set you back $100 a day regardless if you drove 10 miles or 1000 miles to get there. You can't walk into a Best Buy and get an XBox One for $150 with a "small town" discount. A gee-whiz brushed steel refrigerator is north of $1000 all across the country. And that brand new Golf R is always gonna set you back $39,000 at every dealership everywhere. That's twice the leftover income in LA, but four times that in the small town.
So the next time you wanna give the cost-of-living argument to justify your salary, by all means go right ahead. It's certainly not untrue that places with a higher cost of living tend to pay higher wages. Just remember that it tends to leave one with more leftover income to play with. And the cost of playing never changes, no matter where you live.
duofoxtail
~duofoxtail
*sends hugs and snugs and french toast to the long missed draggy*
cetas
∞cetas
*sends hugs as well, hoping to see more of you come October*
StarTyger
~startyger
(pounce!)
NecrosVanshoon
~necrosvanshoon
I knew someone living over in California at one point in an efficiency apartment that was paying $800 or so a month for it...which may sound find to some people, but at the time I was in the exact same type of apartment and I was paying $300 or so. :p
Kerosel
~kerosel
OP
If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that it will always cost you more to "do the right thing". Organic foods, energy efficient appliances, hybrid cars, locally grown groceries, recycling CRTs... it's cheaper to just destroy the environment and yourself.
NecrosVanshoon
~necrosvanshoon
Ugh, don't remind me. I still love when there is talk about trying to cut back or stop some of the things we are doing to the environment and people argue that it will cost money/jobs. Or the REALLY bizarre, circular argument that electric cars don't save anything because there are coal power plants and we can't get rid of those because of jobs. :p
