re: Is Gen Z etc totally out of touch about salaries?

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2003 Tacoma, 20/22 mpg., 180k miles, 2007 Honda 250cc, 60/80 mpg., 30k miles.

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So then you’re already off. Your tank can take 18.5 gallons. Look at your next gas station. Mine is well over $4 a gallon. So to fill up just once, you are $75. So you budgeted to fill up once. Even at $100, your saying you only drive each day 25 miles to and from work? So everyone is expected to live that close and be okay with it?

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You're missing the whole point of the thread. It's not about a wage to live your whole life on, it's about a starting wage to get through the first year and get a raise.

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Actually you are. It was about gen Z not being happy to be a warehouse puller in Houston metro for $15. That’s not liveable in Houston.

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I'm talking about Baton Rouge. $1,000/mo. rent for a 2-bed place is what a friend is paying right now in a good neighborhood.

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Again, not trying to call you a liar here, but does your friend have some super sweet deal for that? I was living at the apartments off I-12 at Millerville in 2015. Not ghetto but not a good neighborhood. Two beds, one bath on the 3rd floor was $1,250 then. I can’t imagine what it is now.

I think a lot of people on this board are either from rural areas or small cities like BR, or much older and out of touch with todays cost and the fact that poorer people don’t have family to lean on for furniture to start or a beater car to get going. But the OP was about $15 in Houston. Your not talking just a single roommate to make it liveable, your are talking 3 roommates. And sure, maybe someone starting out can find the perfect roommates to make that work. But raises are still just 3-5% with many people. OP won’t ever keep good people starting our $15 in Houston when they can make much more and less intensive work at target or Costco.

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So yeah I guess if you have a free car that lasts forever with zero maintenance and gets great mileage and your free clothes and free furniture never wear out and you have zero friends or entertainment and you don't go anywhere or do anything other than work and cook and nothing out of the ordinary ever happens to you, you might be able to survive on $15/hr.

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We're talking about getting started, a year or so, not an entire life at $15/hr.

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As it happens, though, most of us have to pay for things, and of that $470 you thought you had $150 pays the note on your beater of a car, oil changes work out to $20/month, misc other maintenance easily another $20, maybe you can eke by on $10 thrift store clothing and donated furniture. Hope parking is free at home and at work. Then I guess you can tuck the remaining $9/day into the bank for a rainy day. You're going to need to save up for an umbrella.

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Here's a surprise, someone just starting out in life may not have everything that someone who's been in the working world for >10 years might have.

I think that's kind of the point of this thread, Gen Z seems to want everything up front.

Also all the overtime you want. This is fortune 500 company and not an Amazon fulfillment center.

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We're talking about getting started, a year or so, not an entire life at $15/hr.

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Year 1 3% raise - $15.45
Year 2 3% raise - $15.91
Year 3 3% raise - $16.39
Year 4 3% raise - 16.88
Year 5 3% raise - $17.39

So in year 2027, of the OP gave a minimum 3% raise (lots of hourly people lucky to get that), they will make just over $17. With Biden economics, that’s probably going to be enough for a head of lettuce every hour.

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Here's a surprise, someone just starting out in life may not have everything that someone who's been in the working world for >10 years might have.

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That does seem like the surprise, because your budgets never account for starting up your life. Only if your family was wealthy enough to get you started so you could afford to have a $15 hour wage (because you don’t have to count for starting up just to live cost).

I have a great position and a great salary now. But I know what I made starting out in 2015 would not get me nearly now what I got then. And that has all happened post pandemic. And like this thread is about, definitely wouldn’t be enough for Houston with just 1 roommate and the shite car I started out with.

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We're talking about getting started, a year or so, not an entire life at $15/hr.

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So maybe 1 year out of your 40 year working life should be at that wage, meaning 97+% of employed people should be making more than $15/hr? We might be on the same page here.

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Here's a surprise, someone just starting out in life may not have everything that someone who's been in the working world for >10 years might have.

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I know, that's why I added the car note that you left off.

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I think that's kind of the point of this thread, Gen Z seems to want everything up front.

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No, they kinda just want to be able to work full time and support themselves.

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No, I only drive 8 miles round trip per day to commute

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So your just further proving your budget was shite. The average person doesn’t live 4 miles from their work. Especially in a metro. 9 out of 10 times, that sketchy ghetto in an actual city.

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Try find an affordable place close to where you work.

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You must have been really fortunate and given lots of help to be able to find a job and then a place to live right near it. Most of us couldn’t afford to wait around to find a place to live like that. Your parents must have been very helpful.

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Well, duh. My point was simply that I could make it work at $15/hr.

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Which you still haven’t made since this thread is about Houston metro.

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No. She was living in a 2-bed on Olive for $900, and felt University Gardens was a better neighborhood (it is), and found a 2-bed place for $1,000. The point is that she actually had to TRY to find it. That is to say she actually had to put some time into it and try.

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So she could try and find the cheapest place possible, but can’t afford actual decent places? Sounds like a real lazy piece of shite trying hard on finding cheap shite and not moving up in career/salary.

2007

I get both sides of the argument. Keep seeing alot of talking points thrown around, and no one wanting to concede on anything. Yes, I understand that in 07' cost of living was cheaper compared to now. I believe that if I had to do it in today's inflationary economy we are going through I would figure it out. At this point Kork, what is your main contention?

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2007

I get both sides of the argument. Keep seeing alot of talking points thrown around, and no one wanting to concede on anything. Yes, I understand that in 07' cost of living was cheaper compared to now. I believe that if I had to do it in today's inflationary economy we are going through I would figure it out. At this point Kork, what is your main contention?

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The point is that your 35k which you admittedly struggled to live on in 2007 would be about $49k today. And that sounds like about what an employer would have to offer if they are serious about filling a position. And if you offer only 60% of what it takes for someone to live on frugally, you've got no room to bitch about it and call them "retarded" for not jumping at the offer.

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. The average person doesn’t live 4 miles from their work.

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So you're the type of person that just lets things happen to them, while I'm the type of person that tries to make things work. I would actually try to find a place close to where I work, and not way out in the burbs or surrounding towns. I don't care how far the average person commutes, the average person is a moron.

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You must have been really fortunate and given lots of help to be able to find a job and then a place to live right near it.

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Not really. Before I started college, I lived Uptown in New Orleans, and worked in various places around the neighborhood. I left home at 16, and worked after high school to save up money to go to LSU.

I worked at the World's Fair in 84, had to ride my bike 7.5 miles all the way from the River Bend to Canal St. I took the streetcar when it rained. After that I worked at Whole Food, various restaurants, the Prytania Theater, and the Intercontinental Hotel downtown. I didn't have a car the entire time. I did have a lot of friends and we all helped each other get jobs and apartments.

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Which you still haven’t made since this thread is about Houston metro.

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I already said I could make it work in Baton Rouge or other non-high cost areas.

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So she could try and find the cheapest place possible, but can’t afford actual decent places? Sounds like a real lazy piece of shite trying hard on finding cheap shite and not moving up in career/salary.

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And you sound like an idiot. I'm talking about how I would get started on $15/hour in Baton Rouge. With some adjustments, I'm sure I could make it work in Houston. maybe get an additional roommate, maybe not have a car at first and just use public transportation.

All of this in an effort to get started on my way to "moving up in career/salary".