Re:Labor shortage or terrible jobs?
by maxerickson on Friday April 30, 2021 @05:58PM
(#26999914)
Are people doing office work for $7.25 in Houston?
I agree that prices vary widely, I'm not sure it makes sense to take expensive places as typical.
Those office workers rely on a huge infrastructure of other services -- food preparation, cleaning, maintenance workers, parking lot attendants, etc. etc.
The people who work those jobs should have the same access to their worksites as anyone else. Our willingness to tell people who make less money they should just "live farther away" and have longer commutes is awful. No, we should fix our cities so that we support a range of incomes and workers in one place.
> Are people doing office work for $7.25 in Houston?
In that it's in an office building, yes. But it's not office work like sitting at a desk.
It may not be office work, but I bet it's location dependent (restaurant, janitor, grocery store).
Re:Labor shortage or terrible jobs?
by maxerickson on Friday April 30, 2021 @08:02PM
(#27001279)
Office jobs are less interchangeable than service jobs though. I'd expect someone with a job in a grocery store or restaurant to always be looking for a position closer to where they wanted to live compared to an office worker looking for suitable, better positions in locations that that would have a shorter commute.
(the service workers would be looking for better positions too, but the pay differences between similar positions are smaller there)
Cost of living across the US varies wildly. The numbers are pulled from my most recent billing cycle for Houston and partly extrapolated to minimum wage (which I am most definitely not, but have friends who are).
My rent is $1500/mo for 920sqft inside the 610 loop. The leasing office wanted $2000/mo for new contracts in October last year.
It's really hard to find places for $800 within a 30 minute drive of any office in Houston. All of my friends have the same problem. I'm looking to buy a home for a similar reason.
Living far enough out to have rent reduced to $800 is offset by increased amount of time driving and therefore increased costs in fuel. So I bought gas twice a month before the pandemic with a 5 minute drive to the office. When I lived 30 minutes out, I bought gas twice a week.
Car insurance depends a lot on vehicle, driver age, etc. $300/mo was quoted to some younger family last summer -- they were outraged because it was half-again their car payment. I pay $600/6-mo.