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Comment by CSMastermind | Hacker News Reader

I think we're in for a bloodbath for white collar work the rest of this year. Trends I've been seeing:

1. The end of startup runway.

It's been about a year since VC money pulled back and there were a lot of startups that only had 12 to 18 months or runway left. I'm starting to see them go out of business in waves.

2. Late followers starting layoffs.

People I know at big corporate giants like insurance companies, retail chains, etc. are starting to get laid off. This took much longer than the big tech layoffs but seem to be starting in earnest.

3. Severance packages and savings running out.

This hasn't really happened yet for most people I know but will in the next 6 months.

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Agreed. I also have to wonder if this is the beginning of the end of inflated tech salaries. I guess the two cases are

1. Paying $200-600k a year is fine, as long as you're hiring the best

2. Why pay $200-600k a year when the recently laid-off person will do it for <$200?

Are companies still confident that they're doing #1 accurately?

TC deflation from 600k to 200k would be a disaster. Personally it would break my family.

Honest question, why couldn’t your family survive on 200k? High mortgage? “Break my family” seems pretty hefty and 200k is a decent chunk of change.

Kids are expensive and housing is intractable where the mid-level jobs are. In some housing markets, a family with 2 boys and 2 girls earning $150K/yr will qualify for government subsidized housing. It's not 1995 anymore and not everywhere is the suburban midwest.

*In some housing markets, a family with 2 boys and 2 girls earning $150K/yr will qualify for government subsidized housing

Going to need some support for that...Because that's definitely not true in one of the most expensive housing markets in the U.S., Los Angeles.

Boston's income-restricted housing program is available up to 150% AMI, and 100% AMI is a pretty common cutoff. A 6 person household with $150K is 90% AMI. In fact, even $200K at 120% AMI still qualifies for some units.

There's a calculator you can use that will estimate AMI and generate lists of subsidized units available: https://www.boston.gov/metrolist/ami-estimator/

The limits in LA are lower, but a six person family still qualifies for public assistance at $117K: https://housing.lacity.org/housing/helping-low-income-first-...

Poverty line for a single person in San Fran is $80k/year.

In pretty much any flyover state 80k a year is decent, and somewhere like Rural Kentucky, will put you into a fairly nice house. I know folks who took a big pay cut to work remotely so they could leave NoVA and head to KY. They could get a sizable house for ~$290k (and they're from KY / have fam around, a big selling point) and basically as much land as they're comfortable with.

And to the parent poster's point, kids definitely change the equation. Not even talking things like private schools or fancy sports, just simple stuff like diapers, or replacing a torn backpack cuz Jr. decided he likes swinging it around as he walks home. And braces, jeez.

The difference between 80K and 600K works out to be a whole heck of a lot of diapers and backpacks

Very high cost of living. Mortgage, 3 children, no grand parents.

As of 2021, the state with the highest median household income was Maryland with 90K. [1] Being even double the median household income should never be family breaking.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

It would break my family. It would mean living in a small cramped place near the highway(s) with bad public schools.

You can argue from your data all you want, but it would 100% lead to divorce.

Yes, but that much of a decrease would be broad and that housing cost would collapse.

Welcome to the real world. Move somewhere more affordable.

Who is to say what is real? I grew up in a 3rd world country in what most Americans would call poverty. Was that more real than living a middle class life in Montana?

I’m just giving my personal perspective: I have assumed substantial responsibilities with long term duration and liability. A precipitous drop in income would be cataclysmic.

Move somewhere else indeed! How is that not destroying the life we’ve built so far?

For richer, for poorer*

* but not less than $200k, this is a marriage not a charity.

Grow up.

Man, I get that there are locations where getting a high paying job also means that 100-200k can mean a surprisingly sparse lifestyle for what most people would expect, but there is nowhere in the US there is no where in the US where you are earning 600k that dropping down to 200k should break your family.

We’re you not putting away any sort of money for emergencies? Do you need to stay at the now theoretical 200k job even if cost of living in the area remains the same, or could you move to somewhere lower cost of living?

I see in your other comments that you would end up in a divorce if you had to lower your lifestyle, and then you described what is still above the average persons lot in life in the US by even owning a home (cramped and by the highway or not).

You and your spouse should get some therapy on why your’re so materialistic, or just accept that you are and then deal with living in a system that will drop you the second it can.

> You and your spouse should get some therapy on why your’re so materialistic

This seems pretty uncalled for. You don't know their story, don't make assumptions you do and that you are qualified to give smug advice.

I know as much story as he gave and 3 kids + spouse(who is either working and bringing in income or is stay at home and they don’t have daycare costs) doesn’t fit anywhere in the US as being leveraged to the hilt unless you are living in the lap of luxury or bad with money.

I’m assuming they work in tech and so can handle the math behind finances which really only leaves living way beyond their means. I think that’s backed up him disparaging needing to live in houses near a highway as part of why he would get divorced.

I thought we were discussing a permanent market shift? Emergency fund won’t cut it if it’s the new normal.

In my opinion it’s not your place to tell others to “get some therapy”. My opinion: no amount of therapy can address your children going to a 4/10 school breathing leaded AV gas fumes.

If it’s a permanent market shift why would the costs in your area stay the same?

And again you’re trying to bring up that living like the vast majority of your countrymen is unacceptable. How gated is your compound that you don’t have any leaded gas fumes in the air? If you’re in a HCOL area then you’re either on a super luxury property or by a city with airports and airplanes have leaded fuel last I checked(2010-2012)

Agreed, tracking my LinkedIn search notifications I’ve seen the open positions for tech start to plummet, to where last week my specific job description (cyber engineer) has now had 0% new positions.

This is all public information. Why hasn't the market reacted?

EDIT: I was convinced what you said (or similar) was true and missed the better part of last year's gain. Going forward I will be very careful when people confidently claim that "things will be much worse". What I learned is that it is always the unpredictable stuff that tanks the market. So I might as well put money into the index and not wait or worry about it.

+ student loan repayments returning, which i expect to lower consumer spending elsewhere in the economy.

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