Google, Meta, Amazon hiring low-paid H1B workers after US layoffs

Re:Google, Meta, Amazon hiring low-paid H1B workers after US... by matheusmoreira on Saturday September 09, 2023 @10:02AM (#37445552)

I think I'm out of touch then. I thought US had high cost of living everywhere and that people would struggle financially unless they made about $100k per year. At least that's the impression I got while reading salary discussions here.

Is this only true in big cities? Is this true at all?

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Re:Google, Meta, Amazon hiring low-paid H1B workers after US... by argiopetech on Saturday September 09, 2023 @10:37AM (#37445953)

I live in Florida. Miami, Tampa, Orlando, and Jacksonville are our largest cities, with Jacksonville being the most populous (though it's only #20 nationally.)

Median household income in Florida is $62k/yr. This includes the 13% of our population of 22 million who are in poverty and the about 7% on government food assistance (SNAP). I have personally lived on less than $20k/year as a younger, single man with low cost housing.

Florida is in the bottom third of states by median household income. DC, Maryland, and some of the northeastern states have median household income in the high-80s to just over $90k, but no state in the US is at $100k median. California is at $85k/yr.

To answer your question, HN has a higher than average population of young, childless, city-dwelling people with good education, well-paying careers, and relatively expensive tastes ($8+ cups of coffee, etc.) If they suddenly made the median salary for their state, they would likely struggle financially for a bit.

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