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Austin Has Highest Salaries For Tech Workers, After Factoring In Cost of Living
McGruber writes "Austin ranks number one in the nation when it comes to offering the largest tech salaries that have been adjusted for cost of living expenses, such as housing, groceries, utilities and other necessities. This is according to a study by TriNet, a company I had never heard off, that provides (buzzword alert!) cloud-based human resources services. The seven major tech hubs, ranked by cost of living adjusted average salaries: 1. Austin: $105,000; 2. Atlanta: $103,000; 3. Denver-Boulder: $98,000; 4. Boston: $79,000; 5. Silicon Valley: $78,000; 6. Los Angeles: $70,000; 7. New York: $56,000." It's true that Austin has cheaper real estate than Silicon Valley, or London, but what this kind of analysis can't capture well is the worth for an individual of living in a particular place. Some jobs are easier to do from Texas (or Timbuktu) than others, and opinions vary wildly about the importance of climate, culture, alternative job options, and other factors. New York living is expensive, Yes, but it comes with a free bonus if New York is where you want to be. Some people even like Los Angeles. Is there a place you'd rather be but forgo because of the cost of living, or a place you'd consider simply because it would amplify your salary?
this is not an add for Dice reps at SXSW
really
Wherever You Go, There You Are
These are bigger "tech hubs" than Seattle? Does not sound legit.
I'd love to live in a tropical paradise, but so would lots of other people. That drives up the cost of living and/or leads to overcrowding.
Salary amplification in... states with no income tax:
- Alaska
- Florida
- Nevada
- South Dakota
- Texas
- Washington
- Wyoming
If you have no dividend or interest income, add:
- Tennessee
- New Hampshire
What actually matters here is not where you want to live to work, but where you want to live eventually/retire to, and how long you are willing to work before you can safely retire, which is how much money you are effectively able to sock away each year.
Austin is still something of a deal, since compared to California, you get about 25% of your salary back through not paying income taxes, but the other places in the article are less of a deal, regardless of the cost of living, because what matters is not the cost of where you are, but the cost of where you end up when you and your money eventually move there. And that includes differential real estate pricing.
Washington is not so much of a deal, unless you live near the Oregon border; Washington makes up for its lack of income tax through sales tax, and Oregon makes up for its lack of sales tax with an income tax, so if you can get salaries in Washington, and buy your consumables, furniture, cars, and other items in Oregon, you can get a pretty good deal. A lot of Microsofties take this option, and have no problem with job transfers, which are more of a problem in Austin than Silicon Valley, but less of a problem than if you took a job at some data center in Iowa.
New York City does have the financial services industry, and a lot of big law firms, which tend to pay a lot of money.
If any business can afford to be located in New York City, they must have a lot of money, and if they need your skills, they can pay you a lot. They can even pay you enough to live there. Some national corporations used to have a 10% salary premium for employees in New York City.
If your goal is to save as much money as you can, you'd be better off in New York City. You can relocate later.
It takes a long time to get anywhere. :(
Are you sure you don't suffer from it? One symptom of Cedar Fever is the inability to spell words correctly.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Austin is *not* ready to be a big city. Its infrastructure wasn't designed for it. Its traffic jams are some of the worst in the country, its aquifers are in serious trouble owing both to desertification and fracking around the Colorado River's headwaters, and much of its distinctive nature is being destroyed by new development. This is why you see signs reading, "Welcome to Austin! Don't move here."
Big surprise, huh:
http://www.trinet.com/document... [trinet.com]
Quality of Life is not factored in, but is ranked separately. The rankings are almost inversely correlated With Adjusted Salary 1st place winner Austin in 2nd to last place, and 2nd place for Adjusted Salary Atlanta in dead last place for quality of life.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
How can a list of "the seven major tech hubs" not include Seattle, which is home to some of the biggest tech companies in the world, but include cities like Atlanta? That is a strangely biased list so I wonder what the criteria was for "tech hub".
making $100,000/year and having $60,000 or $70,000 of that amount after taxes going to rent
That's way too high of a rent estimate. Even in San Francisco, you can get a decent place for 1 person for $3000/month.
Generally speaking, if you put a premium on having a big house and lots of land, Silicon Valley is probably not for you as the difference in pay will not make up for the absurd cost of housing. If you're willing to compromise on housing, the higher pay is more than worth it in terms of the stuff and experiences you can afford. Compared to most places, housing is a lot more expensive, and restaurants/bars are moderately more expensive but groceries are cheaper (high-quality produce, in particular) and most non-perishable goods (cars, anything you can buy on Amazon) are the same price as everywhere else.
How about working in Canada, eh?
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That's way too high of a rent estimate. Even in San Francisco, you can get a decent place for 1 person for $3000/month.
To be fair, that's still an insane amount to somebody living in central/south Texas. You can buy a house suitable for a four-person family in a decent neighborhood for under $1000/month.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
Fighting increases to the minimum wage. A higher minimum wage would increase wages for both the people at the low end and those immediately above the low end. Republicans don't like that.
Fighting government stimulus which provide jobs. Fighting stimulus creates a surplus of workers. More workers means more people looking for work. Businesses don't need to offer good pay to find workers. Republicans like that.
Fighting unemployment payments, food stamps, medicare, medicaid, and housing assistance. All that money eventually enters and supports jobs in local economies. That increases the demand for workers. That also increases salaries. Republicans hate that.
Fighting against sick or vacation days. Keeping people at work means that employers don't need to hire as many workers as companies in other countries. That creates lower demand for workers. That keeps salaries down. Republicans like that.
Los Angeles is a great city. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. The weather alone is awesome, the other stuff is a bonus.
There are a lot of tech workers in the DC area, and a relatively high cost of living.
It is because of its COL that it is not listed. Baltimore would come over the DC area because of its lower COL, but it would still trail Denver and Atlanta. I'm very surprised that Baltimore is not over NY and that Houston and Dallas (which are as cheap to live as Austin) are not in the list.
I worked for Apple in the early 90's, when they were opening their first sites in Austin. Our group was eventually moved there (and I'm still there, in a suburb) from Campbell, CA. Anyway, at the time there was a lot of internal marketing around "why you would want to move to Austin."
With perfect timing, the local San Jose newspaper ran a political cartoon captioned "There Are Problems Everywhere" or something like that. It had a drawing of the entire United States, with descriptions of the local problems. California was titled with "Earthquakes" and a little arrow. Florida had "Hurricanes."
The state of Texas was decorated with the word "Texans" right in the center, with little arrows pointing all around.
This is still very true today. I wish I had saved that cartoon.
Several annual trips to NYC makes you a tourist, it's not nearly the same as living there.
Clearly. In some ways, if you've been following the conversation, it's better.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Seattle is pretty expensive, and while Portland is much cheaper, it is still more expensive than Austin. I would love to be in either of these places, the Austin heat is not for me, but I've never been able to get parity on CoL from job offers there and honestly that's all that matters to me right now.
Washington has no income tax, which like Texas is a big help, but you still can't beat Texas. Oregon has no sales tax, which is less valuable and likely offset by depending more heavily on income tax. I can see why these places may not have made the list.
However if you lose your job in Texas, you are basically shit out of luck. So it's NOT a great place to come to try out a start-up where cobra may not exist, and where the ACA is laughed at. It's only good for big, established companies.
Having moved to Austin from NYC, I'm struggling to figure out exactly what part of NYC is a luxury. Even when I was there I did my best to either live in NJ, or some burb with train access. NYC has a lot of great food of all types and mass transit, but I'm not sure I'm missing any of the rest of it.
The idea that more "cosmopolitan" city is going to have less of a commute is just nonsense. You will just be dealing with trains run on someone else's schedule versus driving yourself. Concentrating yourself into an overpriced sardine can is not necessarily going to positively impact the "time lost" aspect of the job.
Chances are that cutthroat competition from people that love to live in the office will wipe out any direct fiscal advantage of a car free commute.
It's not just about the balance sheet. It's also about the local culture and how well you personally fit into that.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
, you can get a decent place for 1 person for $3000/month
You can own a 4ksqft+ house for $2000/month in any close burb of Austin. If you want more land, Georgetown is in commute range and has some more ranch-style houses. All for cheaper than that rent.
Unfortunately, the COL premium for living in NYC is more like 300% (over the US average), I shit you not. Only 200% or so in the outer boroughs or nearer parts of NJ.
I just wish San Diego wasn't in California.
After coming back from the supermarket, I can believe it.
Actually, if you live in NYC, your major expense is rent, and that determines the major part of your cost of living. Rent is probably higher in NYC than anyplace else in the U.S.
A lot of people who have been living a long time in NYC have found cheap apartments, rent controlled and otherwise, and for them, the cost of living is reasonable.
There are also a lot of people who have bought their apartments at an insider's price, which was very generous, and now they're sitting on top of a fortune. The COL is high, but they can watch the price of their apartment grow, which is a pretty good investment.
It's too small a city to be widely diversified in terms of tech providers, so whenever a bubble or recession hits, the city takes a dive. There's nothing else within commuting distance with similar tech options (Dallas and Houston are too far, and San Antonio is mostly medical).
I grew up in Austin in the 80s and 90s and watched things first-hand: first there was the mid 80s (1985-86) semiconductor bust (component makers were out-competed by Japan). Fifteen years later there was the Dot Com crash (gutted Dell, as well as dozens of smaller web startups headquartered in the city). Every time the market bust, it was 2+ years before jobs reappeared, making it a dangerous place to call home.
If you want to live there, go on ahead - just make a nestegg your first priority (and take the cost of that into account when you are pricing out the city).
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
But the upside to Texas that you're missing is that you're not surrounded by all of the smug, self-righteous assholes that California is filled with.
I make less than half of what I could be making. But I'm also making four times what I need to pay the bills, which means early retirement, hello! And if I ever found myself unable to work in the tech industry, I could still pay the bills working in a grocery store.