SN Member McGruber points us a study by TriNet that provides (buzzword alert!) 'cloud-based human resources services.' The study concludes that Austin is the place to go.
From the article:
"Austin ranks Number 1 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.
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"
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Austin has highest "Salaries for Tech Workers"
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by tynin on Friday March 07 2014, @08:34PM
Seems crazy that they'd be one of the lower ones considering the cost of living there.
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Friday March 07 2014, @08:41PM
Umm... the relevant part in TFS, with my emphasis:
I assume the adjustment is meant to translate into something of: "How does it feel like considering what you pay for the cost of living". Clearer now?
(Score: 1) by tynin on Friday March 07 2014, @08:55PM
Yeah, I suppose since Austin has ~800 thousand people, and New York has ~8.8 million, that does seem to make more sense. Thanks.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Friday March 07 2014, @11:00PM
Yeah, but that $100+K Texas salary also includes the 1-time payment for your soul.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday March 08 2014, @12:26AM
I suppose, if your pleasure in life is to see your savings (or investment) account numbers ever going up, probably Austin is for you. If your lifestyle is more of the "city that never sleeps", probably Big Apple has a lot more to say to you. (if you want both, probably there's something wrong with your decision of a career as a tech worker).
(Score: 1) by Aighearach on Saturday March 08 2014, @02:49AM
You have that upside-down. Adjusting for cost-of-living means that if you have a higher spending lifestyle, the adjusted number accurately reflects your relative income. However, the portion of your money that you save or invest doesn't cost more (or less). The more of your income you save, the less accurate the adjustment is. A person who saves a higher percent of their income than average makes more in NY, because the NY jobs pay more in real dollars. A person who save a lot in Austin isn't getting as much advantage from the lower cost of "living" (local spending) they're just getting less real pay to save.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday March 09 2014, @06:59PM
(after being about to impulsively post a snarky remark...) what do you know, you may be right!
We are missing the info about how exactly the adjustment was inrepreted: if it is "how many additional costs of living you can afford from your disposable income" then you are absolutely right.
Thanks for pointing it out.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday March 07 2014, @08:53PM
New York is traditionally Finance and specific sectors of Entertainment rather than the tech industry.
But more to the point, nobody move to California. Stay out of California, go to Austin instead. California is a wasteland, Texas has everything and land is dirt-cheap. And, man, Big Oil is out there, providing plenty of high-paying work for disciplined professionals not living in Austin. Texas also has rivers and beaches, and you can go to Mexico there too!
The dirty little secret is that California is hemorrhaging businesses and inhabitants because California is one of the most hostile states to not only God-given rights, but business and its taxes. Don't even think about starting up or even operating any small business here, because you will be taxed grossly disproportionately to pay for undocumenteds' hospital bills.
California's population has a reputation for being one of the most ignorant and obnoxious in the entire world, and it won't change anytime soon with large numbers of first-generation immigrants who subscribe to a Mediterranean value-system -- Extended social welfare through the family, which is exactly why a certain "minority" which is actually a majority *cough* holds conservative beliefs but always votes liberal. And since I am part-that-minority, I can say that without being modded down. Mixed children do, after all, have it harder than those who are not mixed.
(Score: 2, Funny) by captain normal on Friday March 07 2014, @10:01PM
You must live in California. I assume you are trying to scare anyone else from moving there. Sometimes I feel that way too. It often seems it's getting very crowded out here. Maybe a good idea if more people moved to Austin and Atlanta.
(Score: 1) by Taco Cowboy on Friday March 07 2014, @10:44PM
The survey is about "Tech Salaries", and that includes code monkeys all the way up to Senior Engineers in one of the several multi-billion-dollar fabs.
The cost of living factor isn't as important as the percentage of code monkeys (among the lowest pay jobs in the tech sector) to those earning much higher income, and Austin having one of the smallest tech work force amongst the 7 listed cities, happen to have the lowest percentage of code monkeys in its tech work force as well.
That is why, by comparison, the average pay for tech job for Austin can get so high while other cities such as New York, where code monkeys can be had for dime a dozen, have their average tech salaries pull way down because of that.
(Score: 1) by Dale on Friday March 07 2014, @08:42PM
The cost of living in Austin continues to go up. However, it is still cheaper than living in southern CA. It doesn't surprise me that Austin is near the top of the list. I am a tad surprised that it is the top though.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday March 07 2014, @08:53PM
I wonder how Minneapolis rates.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 08 2014, @10:51AM
Adjusted for temperature, it rates at the bottom.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by poutine on Friday March 07 2014, @09:00PM
So they adjusted salaries to account for cost of living? Wonderful, what were the salaries _before_ you adjusted them? What was the modifier for each city? This is a terrible article that has no scientific or factual basis, it just exists as spam for trinet.com. SoylentNews editors, I expected more of you.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 07 2014, @09:19PM
poutine--
(Score: 2) by wjwlsn on Friday March 07 2014, @09:24PM
The disclaimer probably should have been attached...
I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Couuard on Friday March 07 2014, @10:01PM
I was left asking the same question. So I went searching and found this:e at0214.pdf [trinet.com]
http://www.trinet.com/documents/smbeat/trinet_smb
Which then made me go hunting for a cost of living calculator, because Seattle wasn't in the report./ [cnn.com]
http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/cost-of-living
Dang! If Austin wasn't in Texas, it would be tempting.
(Score: 1) by captain normal on Friday March 07 2014, @10:19PM
I agree, if I had mod points now I'd mod you up. What were the parameters of the study? What city was the starting basis? I couldn't find anything in the TriNet site that even refered to the study. This looks like another of those PR press releases picked up by the hometown paper cause it makes the area look good. Source= Atlanta Journal-Constitution
(Score: 2, Informative) by McGruber on Saturday March 08 2014, @11:13AM
poutine, I agree with you that this is a terrible article, so let me explain why I submitted it.
The subject (salaries after cost of living) is a topic that I figured would be of interest to SN's community. I think that having an interesting topic is far more important than having a high quality article -- many awesome /. discussions started from really bad articles.
I read SN and /. for the comments posted by the community. Most of what I've submitted to /. over the years were topics I wanted to see the community discuss, digest and breakdown. I feel that my understanding of a topic is improved whenever I get to see the entire community parse that topic.
Finally, while the article was devoid of any detail, the lsited ranking did seem reasonable to me -- I've been to all the places in the article and Austin and Atlanta were certainly cheaper to stay in than either San Jose or NYC! Had the article appeared to me to be blatantly biased (for example, had the article been written by the Austin Chamber of Commerce) I would have not submitted it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 07 2014, @09:17PM
Austin used to be okay. Now more and more people have come here, and the infrastructure is being overwhelmed. Many businesses and government agencies are already thinking about or actually planning to move out of the downtown area, as the overcrowding is getting worse, parking is unavailable, and driving during rush hour gets worse every single year.
Unlike bigger cities, that are designed to handle that bigness, Austin is not designed for this influx. Plus, North Korea had Austin on its list of cities to nuke. Best if none of you risk your lives -- stay out of Austin!
(Score: 1) by bryan on Saturday March 08 2014, @12:08PM
And don't forget to Keep Austin Wierd [wikipedia.org]!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 07 2014, @10:41PM
That's bad!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 07 2014, @10:47PM
Sure those are the offered salaries, but the Human Resources industry is in the business of posting fake job listings to keep itself in business. Your chance of getting one of these jobs is the number ZERO.
(Score: 3, Informative) by EQ on Saturday March 08 2014, @02:35AM
Figure no state income tax, lower cost of energy and gasoline than many place. Booming economy (1 out of 5 new jobs created in the US was created in Texas in Feb), and state gov doesn't get in the way often. Lower cost of living outside of the core cities. Economically speaking, what's not to like?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by tftp on Saturday March 08 2014, @02:50AM
States that do not have income tax get their money through the property tax. In CA property tax is controlled (1% rise per year.) What is the situation in TX?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Dale on Saturday March 08 2014, @11:18AM
2.5-3.5% is probably typical. I'm just over 3% in an Austin suburb. Yes Austin is in Texas and all the political baggage that comes with that. However, Austin is also extremely liberal compared to the rest of the state. While that doesn't change the state-wide political items it does impact the local political landscape a ton.
(Score: 1) by EQ on Tuesday March 11 2014, @01:36AM
My property tax is about 2-3 times more than what it was in Colorado,but I have a much better house thats tax-apparaised at a LOT lower than my worse house was in Boulder. So it sort-of evens out.
(Score: 1) by docwiz on Saturday March 08 2014, @02:31PM
Living in Texas?
(Score: 1) by EQ on Tuesday March 11 2014, @02:03AM
Yes, go relocated from Colorado (lived almost rural, worked in Boulder). Texas is nice, people are good, more friendly than in Colorado to be sure. Government a lot less intrusive (sort of like what it was in Colorado more than a decade ago before the DemoPublicans expanded government). But so far, (having been thru 2 summers now), its too damn hot - and too damn flat. I miss my Rockies (baseball team and mountains), and my spring and fall (both here seem to be about 3 weeks long)