If you’re implying that worship of wealth and veneration of the wealthy is something new, I disagree. It’s been part of American culture for a long time.
Is it more common today to want a big expensive house and other symbols of material wealth? It might depend on where you look. I’ve seen several articles in recent years that suggest that younger generations (e.g. Milennials) are less interested in Stuff than their parents: they value experiences over material possessions.
I mean, the population of the US is large, so certainly you can find plenty of people who do so. But only small single-digit percentage points.
Sure, that’s definitely a big part of it. It’s true that income does not equal class. But people in those sorts of jobs could within a relatively short time save enough money to live the median American existence without ever working again. They could, in just a year or two, likely save enough money to live a life of luxury in a cheap country. That counts as determining their financial destiny to me. But they largely don’t.
California has exported its terrible land use regulations to the rest of the country. (I’m part of the problem, but in Oregon, not Idaho.)
But also, same answer as above. Significantly fewer than 1% of Californians have moved to Boise in the last decade. Largely, people who make “California money” continue to live in California.
Good for real estate, but if everyone else has a Lexus or Tesla or BMW in the driveway, there might be pressure to overspend to keep up with people in those expensive houses.
1% of californians is 22% of idahoans, so “fewer than 1%” isn’t exactly reassuring, nor is it counterevidence to the fact that they’ve destroyed the housing market with their able-and-willingness to put local incomes to shame.
I’m not really sure what that means. Generally speaking, young people tend to want to “do stuff” rather than have a big house they come home to every night after a long day at the office. But once you get married and have kids, you tend to need more space. No one stays 25 forever.
I’d be happy having enough money to live an upper middle class lifestyle for the rest of my life and die on the day I spend my last cent.
I’m not trying to provide counterevidence to that, which I don’t dispute at all.
I’m saying “why don’t more people with easily-transportable high incomes move out of California?” It is an interesting question. The answers are (I think) analogous to why most Americans don’t move to cheaper countries where they could live very well, and why people, when they have more money, largely do things like buy bigger houses and nicer cars and more exotic vacations than save it and control their own destiny.
Most people probably don’t move because their work* is there and their friends are there and their social life is there and their night life is there and maybe even their family’s there. I mean, that’s why I’m never going to leave america, despite the fact that this country is turning into a shithole with better plumbing. This is where my family is, and my job is, and all my stuff is here, and moving is a pain in the butt.
*- I know you said “easily-transportable” incomes, but the other factors still apply.
And I’m not sure I buy this “control their own destiny” business. If you don’t feel you can spend your money on stupid crap, then you’re not in control. You’re just constrained by something different than…however you think their destiny’s out of their control.
People were complaining about the Californians invading Idaho when we left the panhandle when I was a kid in 1980. I think it’s its own meme at this point.
No, we don’t, so that may make a difference. I think I may have misunderstood the point of your post anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.
Every few months they publish polls that say 40% of Californians want to move. Some do, but my impression is that they are the lower income ones with 3 hour commutes, not high income people living in San Francisco. There aren’t many jobs with transportable high incomes.
And more people move in then move out, thus the housing crisis and heavy traffic before the lockdown.
As for other countries, quite a few Indians in my office moved back to our center there, taking a 50% income cut which still put them in a better position. But they were going back, not moving to a new culture. That’s always happened - my great grandfather moved back to Russia in 1910 or so.
My daughter has lived and worked in several foreign countries which makes her quite marketable. But that is rare in the US, and so not many of us are going to try it.
I’ve seen articles that claim that, but I haven’t seen it in action. I don’t think more millennials are traveling, living in vans, or trying Minimalism; I think social media is giving the percentage that do a higher profile. Clark Street between Irving and Fullerton is as full of 20-somethings as always, last I checked.
The oldest Millennials are in their late 30s at this point. Many of them are entering management jobs and starting families.
Point of fact, my last manager was at least 10 years younger than me (I’m 47). Surprisingly, he was actually a pretty decent manager as there were many situations where he was more knowledgeable (having worked for our company for 6 years) and there was many situations where I was more knowledgeable (having worked longer). But it just sort of worked since it was a very collaborative relationship.
n/m Wandered a little off topic.
In the context of transportable incomes we have some recent news from those ever-innovative highly paid Silicon Valley folks.
As part of the response to COVID, Google, FaceBook, et al, have instituted much wider work-from-home programs with strong statements that management intends this to be a permanent feature of their corporate landscape.
Which immediately led to lots of talk amongst the employees that if this is permanent they’ll likely to move to cheaper Idaho, Nevada, etc., and live like royalty.
At which point some managements announced publicly that folks moving out of high cost areas will have their wages adjusted downwards to match their new locale’s cost of living. Cheaters will be fired when uncovered.
(MarketWatch article about FaceBook)[Facebook employees may face pay cut if they move to cheaper areas to work from home - MarketWatch]
(Damn if I understand why markdown for some urls works and some don’t)
The truly transportable income is the one based on investments and pensions. Unfortunately by the time most people have acquired those they’re old enough that concerns about medical care, elder support, etc. begin to loom large.
The fact that the pay will be reduced doesn’t necessarily that people won’t get the benefits of a transportable income - it will very much depend on how much it is reduced. After all, if a person earning the median $240K at Facebook takes a cut to $200K , they’ll still be living pretty well in Boise. As long as there aren’t so many people moving there that they drive housing prices up.
Take out the brackets surrounding the url:
(MarketWatch article about FaceBook)
@LSLGuy @begbert2 and likely others
Re: interstate migration, Census tracks this.
There were about 1.7M living in Idaho in 2018, and ~80k who had been living in a different state one year before (4.6%). But about 55k left the state. Still a net influx. Whereas CA has seen a net efflux.
I’m an idiot. I’ve done a few cites using the link-maker built into their editor. Once I thought I knew the syntax I did that one by hand.
Turns out the url gets the ( & ) parens, the title gets the [ & ] brackets; not vice versa :smack: