Hacker News Reader

Comment by pixl97 | Hacker News Reader

Unemployment is historically low, but costs are historically high. In 2008 we saw that the state change from good to bad can happen rapidly and contagiously between industries.

> They can also downsize and/or move to an area with lower cost of living.

No, not really. There are simply no housing units available in the US to do that. All new housing is huge 2000sq/ft +. In addition housing prices are just off the charts for small houses. Your low cost of living places (I have family that lives in places like that) still want $250,000+ for a house that was around or under $100,000 less than a decade ago.

View on HN

I did not claim that being laid off for those Citi employees would go unnoticed. Their standard of living would drop, but they would not have to live in a tent. There are many towns with low cost of housing. If those are too expensive to buy, one can rent (and probably should anyway, just to figure out the new area). The ratio of median house price to median household income today is a little higher than, say, the average over the last 50 years, but it is not 5 times higher.

There is indeed plenty of housing scattered around the flyover counties. For sure, it is less pleasant than in a rich suburban town. Those small towns do not have walkable downtowns or many cafes and eating out means a basic diner (they do not have good restaurants and entertainment precisely because affluent families moved to metros). You are very unlikely to resell it later for a massive profit. But the basics (water, sewer, electricity, groceries) are there and one can certainly live there if laid off and not envisioning good prospects for the next few years. My 2c.

Come on, stop making up nonsense. Just to pick one example there are numerous single family homes near Cleveland on the market for under $100K.

Cool, but Ohio just made it illegal for me to live there; so that doesn't do me a lot of good.

I don't think 390 results is going to solve the US housing crisis.

In addition if pressure demands that lower priced houses are in demand those costs will go up.

Lastly, hopefully you can remote work, or surviving on that $28 and hour in OH is going to be fun.

As I wrote, Cleveland is just one example. There are literally thousands of other cities around the country where housing is affordable and home ownership rates are very high. Broaden your horizons.

How many thousands?

You realize that nearly 4 million homes are sold per month in the US, right?

Right so you have plenty of options to pick from in every price range.

Any place where jobs are, house prices went up 50-100% or more since pre COVID.

Ah yes, a city famous for its myriad job opportunities, Cleveland.

[Cleveland, at least we're not Detroit!]

Detroit has better food, music, and people, but is also half-abandoned and fairly dangerous.

He/she/they/it is referencing a certain "hastily made tourism video" on YouTube

That's right, there are many job opportunities in Cleveland. The current unemployment rate there is only 3.7%. Anyone who actually wants to work can find a job.

The current unemployment rate in San Francisco is 3.5%, so this is not the clever demonstration of your point you believe it to be.

You really missed the point. Some commenters have falsely claimed that there are no jobs available in lower cost of living areas, which we can see is obviously wrong based on the unemployment rate. The fact that San Francisco has a slightly lower unemployment rate doesn't invalidate that point. Compared to SF, Cleveland has much better housing affordability as measured by absolute price, median price to income ratio, home ownership rate, or any other reasonable metric. And there's nothing special about Cleveland; many other cities have similar or better affordability.

I didn’t miss any point because you’re the one who is creating false equivalencies between all US cities on the basis of unemployment rates.

That there are jobs doesn’t mean that there are jobs that align with everyone’s work experiences, familial ties, or various other obligations. If I get laid off in the bay as an ML engineer and have an elderly parent who lives there that I need to take care of, that there are jobs at Sherman Williams in Cleveland isn’t very useful to me. Similarly, if I’m mid-career and pursue work in LCOL area that cuts my pay in half relative to a larger city, that could derail my lifetime earnings and ability to retire.

Reality is more complicated than the simplistic narratives people use to victim blame or reinforce their just-world fantasies.

Not any good ones. I'm astonished at how prices have increased.

People don't need to speculate, or engage in some kind of weighing of Cleveland as a place someone might want to live. Just bring up Cleveland in realtor.com and look at the very few, very low quality house options under 100k. And then consider that most people are going to be living in a suburb that's a lot more expensive anyway.

Can't tell if you're trying to be sarcastic.

100% serious

Reply on news.ycombinator.com