Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

Re:Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area? by harterrt on Wednesday December 14, 2016 @02:39PM (#13178997)

Thanks for adding the note on the tax difference! That doesn't address my point though.

If the salary difference of $33k is the difference between gross salary, that $33k is going to be taxed at the marginal tax rate. My guess at a marginal tax rate would be ~40%. Accordingly, that $33k becomes closer to $20k after tax.

Edit: to clarify, consider a Seattle salary of $100k and a Bay Area salary of $133k. The take-home salary for each location would be:

  Seattle : $100k*(1-0.4) = $60k 
  Bay Area: $130k*(1-0.4) = $78k

Leaving $19.8k in additional income to cover the median rent increase of $18k annually.

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Re:Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area? by brotherjerky on Wednesday December 14, 2016 @03:40PM (#13179453)

Washington state has no state income tax, which in California is a little under 10%: https://www.tax-brackets.org/californiataxtable

Works out to $9k according to this for a single filer: https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#8TRRj... -- so your additional income is more like $11k, or just under $1k / mo. In my experience, the difference in housing is far more than $1k/mo, so you come out ahead in Seattle.

EDIT: Looks like I forgot about California's other taxes on payroll, so it's actually even more in Seattle's favor.

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Re:Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area? by serge2k on Wednesday December 14, 2016 @03:22PM (#13179321)

> My guess at a marginal tax rate would be ~40%.

Sounds high for Seattle.

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Re:Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area? by baccheion on Thursday December 15, 2016 @04:55AM (#13183529)

There are take-home salary calculators online (know about the variations by state) if you want to get that "into it."

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