FTA: "Because labor markets in science and engineering differ greatly across fields, industries, and time periods, it is easy to cherry-pick specific specialties that really are in short supply, at least in specific years and locations. But generalizing from these cases to the whole of U.S. science and engineering is perilous."
But, surprise surprise, still higher unemployment than the guild-protected professions.
FTA: "unemployment among scientists and engineers is higher than in other professions such as physicians, dentists, lawyers, and registered nurses"
On a related note, a good read about guilds: http://nplusonemag.com/death-by-degrees
Which is counter-intuitive to me, considering how heavily regulated those other professions are (and their numbers restricted).
There are 13,605 taxi medallions in new york city. What do you think the employment rate among taxi drivers in NYC is?
"It is true that high-skilled professional occupations almost always experience unemployment rates far lower than those for the rest of the U.S. workforce, but unemployment among scientists and engineers is higher than in other professions such as physicians, dentists, lawyers, and registered nurses, and surprisingly high unemployment rates prevail for recent graduates even in fields with alleged serious “shortages” such as engineering (7.0 percent), computer science (7.8 percent) and information systems (11.7 percent)."
I'm in a second tier city with more limited options. I know folks who successfully start CS grads in the $50-60k range, mostly from state schools. Someone with a good track record is anywhere from $80-105. Sounds awful, but a 2000 ft^2 house can be found around $200k in a nice area. McMansions are $400-500k.
I ended up moving back here from NYC, taking a big salary haircut in the process. My overall standard of living got a little better right off the bat, mostly due to reduced housing and commuting expenses.
People just don't seem to understand how little money $150K is relative to what a skilled and competent worker could get out of a remotely comparable sum 50 years ago. OK, you make $150K, can your four or five kids walk down the street to a quite good school? Is it essentially optional whether your wife works or not?
No. This is a gross exaggeration and extremely out of touch with economic reality.
I would wager the couple making $300k in SF are not living like that. Hell, I used to live a lifestyle much better than my grandparents did back when I lived in the Bay Area, on a lot less than a six-figure salary. I didn't have kids, but I also didn't even make $50k, and yet I still ate out multiple times per week, not per year.
I know nobody making over $80k in the SF Bay Area who I would not be comfortable calling at least upper-middle-class. The people who think otherwise mostly live in an insane bubble in which they only know people in the top 10% of the income distribution, and have absolutely no idea what a middle-class American lives like.
> sq-ft
Well this sort of thing is the crux of the matter. If you give a shit about restaurants and ipads, well yes now is better. If the idea of having a handful of grandkids appeals to you, well now is worse.
The result is a society in which people find it quite easy to obtain what their parents would have called frivolous luxuries (sushi), but quite difficult to obtain what their parents would have called basics (an affordable house in a good neighborhood).
How about Silicon Valley? Cupertino is safe and has good schools. And it's <1 hr drive to Santa Cruz or Half Moon Bay if you want beaches. Or you could do the other direction, and live in SC and commute to Cupertino (or wherever). Google even runs shuttles if that's your thing. I lived in Santa Cruz for years on a 5-figure salary, and felt quite comfortably well off. Actually I sort of wish it were further from Silicon Valley, because the only bad thing about living in SC was that the rich techies with 6-figure salaries were driving up prices...
The husband was a carpenter and the wife was a bookkeeper.
They had a boat probably worth $10,000 in 1969 dollars and a further $5,000 in cash saved up. I looked that up in the inflation calculator and found out that $5,000 in 1969 dollars is about $30,000 today.
Can you imagine a carpenter and a bookkeeper building up assets of $90k dollars in LA today through a few years fastidiousness and hard work?
Another important distinction to make is that there are almost no science (i.e. research) jobs any more. Most technology jobs are just run of the mill programming, not actually investing in research.
Not everyone has the same experience as you. Furthermore, this article is talking about the entire STEM domain.
If you're reading hacker news, you're already probably doing better on that front than I was during my entire undergrad. I'd highly recommend getting an internship and building a personal project before you graduate too, as I believe my failure to do both of those things (in addition to a sub-3.0 GPA) were the factors that have prevented me from getting a job thus far.
So it will be at least five years before you start to break even. Minus the housing and living costs over that five years.
You spent over $150k and four years ($600k) worth of your time training for this job.
Also remember the market is hot. In 2000/2001 air went out of the bubble. Also in 2008/2009. Right now is the peak of a go-go time like 1998/1999 was. It is not the norm.