<p>Yea, but many, many jobs (even most secretarial & clerical) require college degrees. There are very few opportunities for folks with no college degree or certification–food service and retail with little to no chance for advancement and even worse pay and hours.</p>
<p>But again–living there is a choice. </p>
<p>Are there community colleges in Hawaii? Remember, even on the mainland not everyone gets to start out (or ever attend) a state flagship or private school.</p>
<p>My kids are in the job hunting/first jobs phase of life. They really aren’t getting much choice where they live, if they want to be employed. And sometimes the only jobs available are in high cost of living areas. Are other parents’ kids having a different experience? Getting to choose the area of the country in which they live? That is sort of the dream for mine at this point in time.</p>
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<p>In Hawai<code>i (state), there are community colleges on O</code>ahu, Kaua<code>i, and Hawai</code>i (island/county), and four year state universities on O<code>ahu, Hawai</code>i (island/county), and Maui. There are also private four year schools on O`ahu.</p>
<p>Some of the best places to live for young professionals are very affordable–Des Moines, Omaha, Des Moines, Salt Lake City, Provo…</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.forbes.com/pictures/emeg45lfld/introduction-14/”>http://www.forbes.com/pictures/emeg45lfld/introduction-14/</a></p>
<p>This thread was talking about why people don’t feel rich–I was explaining why HI folks don’t feel rich. Yes, I understand that there are options, but all the NYC folks who claim poverty when they are making what most of us consider rather high of $200,000. For what it’s worth, $200,000 doesn’t go very far in HI with its very high costs of living either. NYC have a LOT of options, in addition to CCs, there are a number of excellent state funded Us.</p>
<p>In HI, many folks put their kids in private schools as well, since our public schools have been very problematic. This also increases the cost of living for these families. Sure, these are choices people make, but this is to explain why many here in HI don’t feel “rich” either, no matter what their income due to the high costs of living. Why is this hard to understand? Yes, HI does have a nice climate, but it is horribly expensive to live here and wages just do not match up to these high costs.</p>
<p>I think the biggest reason people don’t feel rich is simply that they act completely unaware of the masses of people who live on a heck of a lot less. They forget where they or their parents came from. “Oh heavens, how will we ever live on $200K” betrays ignorance that people can and do live on a lot less. They just don’t want to think of that kind of lifestyle.</p>
<h1>424 - Those look like lovely places to live. My kids applied for jobs all over. Their only offers were opposite coast, HCOL areas. Did someone else’s kids get to choose? All my kids’ friends seem to also be happy to just get a job offer and go wherever it happens to be… and basically in HCOL areas.</h1>
<p>This is where the board gets interesting to me. My experiences are not the same as yours. Maybe completely the opposite.</p>
<p>adding: in my world you have to be pretty rich to pick where you want to live. </p>
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I don’t know about that. I think that might be a bit of a stretch.
We live on over $200,000 in NYC and don’t feel poor, but we are certainly not rich. What we are is grateful.
$200,000 in NYC is right around the range of two uniformed workers married to each other or two teachers or two paralegal-types or some combination thereof. We (they) can do nice things and take good care of our kids, but this isn’t the salary range of rich in NYC. This is still the range of working the night shift on holidays and praying for snow and overtime. The salary range of people who, if they get laid off or injured in the line of duty, know they are in trouble and that knowledge is never too far from the front of their consciousness. In the outer boroughs (the horror!), one can have a very nice home, send the kids to private school, provide a perfectly good college education and maybe take the occasional vacation on that money. Not so much in Manhattan. I wouldn’t call that demographic rich in this area at all, but certainly fortunate.</p>
<p>So $200K is an annual salary that lets you struggle with money issues in a desirable location. </p>
<p>"@dstark, the other side of that is that typically the people in HCOL areas make more, so they get less aid."</p>
<p>I am happy with that.</p>
<p>“When I become dictator, taxes, capital gains, aid, and many other things will be indexed”</p>
<p>You just lost my support. ;)</p>
<p>Let’s see… I live in NYC or Salt Lake City. Where am I more likely to have large capital gains? Where am I more likely going to be able to take advantage of the $250000- $500000 cap gains when selling a house? </p>
<p>People are not living in NYC for altruistic reasons. There are already plenty of reasons why people pay more to live in NYC. We don’t have to give people more reasons. :)</p>
<p>If the state schools in NY want to give higher subsidues to their residents because of the cost of living, I am ok with that. </p>
<p>Giving parents who make $200,000 a year subsidies so their kids can go to private schools…</p>
<p>I think there are better ways to spend taxpayer dollars. </p>
<p>@MomofJandL , you get the award for succinct summation. Bonus!</p>
<p>alh - my D chose where she wanted to live (Chicago), which is where many Midwest kids choose to live. In fact, she chose her college partially because of its location (in the city) and its alumni network in her chosen field. </p>
<p>yeah, it’s more expensive to live there than it would be to live in Des Moines or Omaha, but D makes plenty of money and wanted to be in Chicago. BTW, she’s an accountant, which definitely helped in the job hunt.</p>
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The uniformed services workers and some other city workers are required to live here. There are pluses and minuses, like everything. </p>
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Some of the better state schools don’t even want to accept in-state kids because of the money, never mind subsidies.</p>
<p>@dstark, I was mostly kidding about geographical indexing, but I do think that capital gains should be indexed to inflation. Obviously, if I bought $10,000 of a stock that went up in value (including reinvested dividends) at exactly the rate of inflation, what was my gain? Why should I pay taxes on it?</p>
<p>Income levels to determine tax rates are indexed, IxnayBob. </p>
<p>And you can also say the same thing about wages and all other income.</p>
<p>Long term capital gains are also already taxed at lower rates. You can also avoid capital gains taxes by dying. :)</p>
<p>scout: that’s great. Chicago seems much less expensive, to me, than San Francisco or NYC, and is such a wonderful city. </p>
<p>Who gets to choose where they get to live is a really interesting subject to me. Husband and I spent more than 20 years trying to figure out how to get back down south. Which is a relatively low COLA. It was easier to look to Europe.</p>
<p>adding: I feel very rich cause I get to live where I want now. However, that has nothing to do with cost of living. Although we have definitely chosen to take advantage of that perk.</p>
<p>Living where you want is not a choice in many cases. My kids are in the business…film industry. They can’t do that in Des Moines. Mr. Ellebud is an attorney. Could he have chosen to practice in Des Moines? Yes, 35 years ago he might of taken the bar there…but he didn’t…take the bar. Engineers (I imagine) can move anywhere. You work for a large company…you move where they send you.</p>
<p>I love where we live. Urban without 24/7 car horns. Walkable streets. I will stay in this neighborhood the rest of my life. Many years ago we went to New York city where my husband had a client. Client mentioned that he was slowly going broke…in 1980 he made $750,000 a year. And he was…going broke.</p>