Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Quota system would dilute school's quality

There are a ton of low cost states out there in less urban areas.

For instance, it costs even less to live in South-Central PA, where I used to live.

If I was there, I could probably save 60% to 70% of my gross income, as opposed to the more moderate 50% that I save where I am currently located.

But of course, people can't just pack up and move. They have family ties, etc. That said, we intentionally choose to live in an area with a low cost of living because we also have chosen careers that are not highly remunerative. We wanted to own a house and be financially comfortable, and there's no way we could do that in a lot of areas of the country and also do the work we choose to do.

"Working-class" does not equal "low-income." When I use the term, I'm generally referring to the second and third quintiles.

Housing is a demand-based commodity. Urban areas are where the jobs are. Employers are backing away from telecommuting. Hence, people live where their jobs are, or commute long hours, or both, incurring costs either way.

I'm not sure it's true that employers are backing away from telecommuting--do you have a cite on that? AFAIK, it continues to increase.

It's not scientific or anything, but I'm basing that statement on a number of recent news articles I've seen, like this: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-06-25/what-people-really-do-when-theyre-working-from-home

The attitudes of my own employer are also a factor.

I really think that parental involvement in the home with school is critical to children moving ahead (or falling behind) in the classroom.
We live in an upper income area but 30% of the kids are on the free/reduced lunch program. My husband and I volunteered once a week in my son's third grade class last year, at a public school. IMHO, 1/3 of his class was below the third grade level. It correlated highly with income- the teacher accidentally sent an email out to all of the parents about a field trip and inadvertently revealed who was on the free lunch program (it was just about all of the kids who were below grade level).
The teacher would always give me a few of those kids to work with on my volunteer days. I never thought they had a learning disability, etc. I felt like, gee, you need someone to buy Handwriting Without Tears and just have you work on your handwriting at home. Or spelling. Or have you read out loud to me for 30 minutes a night.
I'm not a teacher, so this is just my "I"m a mom" insight. That isn't to say, obviously, that poor nutrition or learning disabilities or whatever doesn't also play a huge role in the achievement gap.

You generally have a choice about where you want to look for work.

For example, back in 2000, I knew that living in the NYC or DC area was probably a bad idea. Yes, I would start at $125K and go up to $200K fairly quickly, but there were better places to work with shorter commutes and less stress.

Those places would have been much more fun to live, but with respect to raising children, you can find plenty of cheaper places in the U.S. to live.

You just generally have to take a pay cut if you want to change locations to a less economically congested area.

Last pay cut I took several years ago (for the purpose of avoiding billable hours) was 40% and I moved to an area with a higher cost of living. Now I did reduce my commute from 30 minutes. My commute is now at 7 to 10 minutes depending if it's a school day or not.

I'm just pointing out that you can generally find extra $$$ for kids if you are willing to adjust your life or lifestyle for that purpose if you want to accomplish that.

And my point is that most people do not have those same options. You do, sure... but you're not working-class. As a lawyer, you'd be in the professional class, and likely in the 4th quintile for your local area. Unless I'm very much mistaken, schoolteachers and HVAC repairmen aren't making $125k to start in DC. It's a lot easier to justify relocation costs for a lawyer's salary than a schoolteacher's.

I did exactly as you advise 5 years ago, but then again, I'm also solidly in the 4th quintile, and qualify for jobs offering low-six figures to start in DC. I relocated for a 25% pay cut and an area with significantly lower costs of living. I incurred no relocation costs, as they were employer-paid.

And then I found out that the figures I'd seen for insurance costs were grossly understated, and all the perceived savings in cost of living were offset entirely by those. So the grass is not always greener.

Many of the white collar workers I know, working in finance, technology, and pharmaceutical companies (I'm in MA) do a substantial amount of their work at home. Doctors have done so for a long time when they are "on call", and nowadays they use online programs to access patient records, make notes, and order prescriptions.

The correlation between high salaries and high costs of living discussed upthread does exist, but there is a trend in finance for some midlevel jobs to move to lower-cost areas, not just to foreign countries but to cheaper areas in the U.S.:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/02/business/finance-jobs-leave-wall-street-as-firms-cut-costs.html
Financial Giants Are Moving Jobs Off Wall Street
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ
New York Times
July 1, 2012