It’s hard to believe you used to be able to get a normal job at a local company in your hometown and afford a house, car and children working 40 hours a week.
We also have a huge green energy sector due to the natural geography. Our local community college even has a full program you can go through and come out making $35-40/hr.
I'm guessing industrial jobs pay just as poorly compared to those in the cities.
> A: No, overtime is optional and comes with risks to CEO Mental Health.
Though most professional people need to drive to Pittsburgh or similar big city to get a decent job.
It's a failure of the government that they allowed the old, senile landed gentry in parts of our country, especially California, to effectively be able to veto all new building while paying no property tax to fund our public services.
When people do investigative reporting on the SF housing market, they find a bunch of people who have been spent 8 years trying to convert dilapidated buildings into an apartment complex, but have been getting blocked by environmental reports on what shadows the building will cast, or other bureaucratic nonsense.
This is a famous video demonstrating that point; where even if you're rightfully zoned to do something, it can take years and years of fighting bureaucratic nonsense if you haven't bribed the right people https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExgxwKnH8y4
If you don't believe me. Just find some seniors in the bay and ask them. They are majority opposed to "changing" the area and taking away its "character" without realizing that the character is something they do not pay to maintain at all, and instead almost all young people (except the landed gentry) have to fund and don't agree to fund anymore.
As it stands, Prop 13 was sold as that, but also essentially used a sledgehammer on a thumbtack, because it applies to any property regardless of the age of the property owner, and also to commercial and industrial property. Not to mention, old people who want to downsize (say, into a home without stairs to fall down) can't afford to because of the massive jump in property taxes that would entail.
Often, anything that is not a starter office or retail, the renter pays the taxes. This is usually called triple net but lots of time it’s true even when not NNN.
So you raise the costs on the renter.
Take a 60yr old retail center owned by the same family and the rents are likely lower than market due to the buildings age (not necessarily true everywhere).
Positives:
lower costs across the board. Some businesses that just don’t seem like they can make enough do just fine.
No forced gentrification. If you raise taxes above rents, well no use having that building even exist. Tearing it down would be cheaper than open and charging rent. Or tear down and rebuild. Often with national tenants. No mom and pop in new construction last few decades.
Apartments rent on old building will go up… unless rent controlled. In which case, maybe no longer be a landlord. Remove those units.
Negatives:
long term owners benefit vs short term flippers.
General feeling of unfairness. I find this stronger in residential than commercial though.
Some commercial should be torn down. Very much an opinion though. Some call stuff blight and others character.
ADA and lots of stuff is grandfathered in so lots of stuff with character is not ADA compliant. There are reasons why stuff built today all looks the same and somewhat soulless.
BTW: new buildings, etc, get imitate hike to todays taxes even if the land does not.
The way to reduce it is to build enough to relieve demand, at which point there would be less pressure forcing valuations sky high.
Taxes don't go up 600% year over year. And if Prop 13 didn't disincentivize new construction, taxes wouldn't skyrocket in the first place.
A city 15 minutes outside one of the richest cities in the entire world is closing down schools. Know why? The old people who live there and their landed gentry children who inherit their title (I mean ability to legally contribute no tax) from their elders don't pay any property tax, so the schools have no money, and anyone who moves in has to foot the entire bill. Only people who can do that put their kids in private schools. And on and on.
So, so many of the QoL issues people suffer in California are because of this prop, and people defend it with this senior folks exemption. I'm sorry. If you become a multimillionaire sitting on your bum, the government should not offload your tax burden onto other people's because you're old. It's too destructive to society to do that.