Silicon Valley Losing Middle-Wage Jobs | Hacker News Reader

Silicon Valley Losing Middle-Wage Jobs

nytimes.com

13 pointsdskhatri14 comments

The article is trying to give the impression of a vanishing middle class, but the data really don't seem to back it up. It defines "middle-wage jobs" as people earning between $30K and $80K, and notes that the proportion of these has dropped from 52% to 46% in the last few years. But with the exception of students, there's virtually nobody in Silicon Valley earning less than $30K anyway, so I suspect what this really means is that more and more people are earning over $80K, while the number of full-time workers earning less than $30K has remained close to zero.

Good news spun as bad?

I think the numbers encompass all jobs within the region-- not just tech ones, as you seem to be implying. If you include all employment sectors, then there are plenty of fulltime workers earning less than $30k: 27 percent, according to the article.

Hey, you're right. I totally missed that paragraph when I read it the first time -- I thought they were only reporting numbers for the "middle income" folks.

I'm actually amazed that the number is that high -- I figured that even the "menial" jobs would have to pay more than that in that region. It's hard for me to imagine anyone surviving in Silicon Valley on less than $30K, but I suppose that's just a failure of my own imagination.

Because when real estate is in the millions, it's extremely unattractive to live there unless you qualify for government help or you're rich.

"Confucius says, 'Of course, you want to be rich and famous,'" Leonard said. "'It's natural. Wealth and fame are what every man desires.'" But Confucius understood there is a moral decision too, and sooner or later an accounting begins.

"'The question,' Confucius said, 'is what are you willing to trade for it?'"

(From a great NG article about Silicon Valley during the DotCom boom that captures the energy and excitement of SV - http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/data/2001/12/01/html/f...)

Their data seem to support my vague impressions:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=116415

I'm currently saving for my flight trip to come from France to the US and now that I read this kind of thing I wonder if my objective of moving to the SV is not just plain foolish.

I was born in L.A but I was raised in France, I learned my english mainly from video games and the internet. Now I'm 26 and I want to come back to my home country, hit the reset button and start a new game.

For some reason I have a strong appeal to the west coast, but since I'm the kind of person that has to save for a flight trip, maybe SV is not for me. I'll be coming in about 3 months, should I land in L.A rather than S.F ? My initial objective was to meet interesting people around the start-up world and try to infiltrate the place this way. Maybe it's the wrong approach.

Maybe the question should be : where is the best place to struggle at first ?

SV has a lot going for it, and isn't a bad place to go at all. Go for it!

My main objection is that it's a place for people like you to go, try, see how they do, and then most likely move on. Most people move on because if you're not rich, it's a bad place to try and raise a family and be part of a community with some permanence to it. And even if you're rich, stuck in traffic on 101 is stuck on traffic on 101, no matter how many millions you have in the bank.

If settling down and raising a family isn't in your immediate future, then, absolutely, go there and have a great time! You'll learn a lot and probably have a great time.

"Even if you're rich, stuck in traffic on 101 is stuck on traffic on 101, no matter how many millions you have in the bank."

Wise words.

If you're rich enough, you negotiate landing rights at Moffett, right next to your office.

Zing!

You have a point there.

I always have wanted to get my pilot's license. I'll get on that.

More realistically, you could have a helipad. Still though, my idea of perfection would be someplace where I can live most of my life on foot. I think that that's something a lot of US towns get wrong, especially on the west coast.

I agree with you. That's why YC is in Cambridge half the year. It's the most walkable town in the US.

I think many of those mid-tier IT jobs are now outsourced to India and elsewhere. CSRs, some system administration, and a lot of workaday programming -- the attitude is, get Bangalore to do it, whenever possible.

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