California is facing a massive housing crisis (1 Viewer)

[EYLive]

Free market determines salaries.   

Except minimum wage earners making $15/hr.

 

[James Daulton]

Plenty of union ones that went straight into the trade out of high school.

I thought tradies had to apprentice for a few years before they come full fledged tradesmen who make decent money?

 

[Dedfin]

Free market determines salaries.   

 he said free market

 

[Punxsutawney Phil]

I suppose that their are plenty of things that go into what they are paid like location, whether they are in a union or not, overtime,etc.  I am in Chicago and have a few friends that went in right from high school.  Here is one of the plumber unions in Chicagos website that is looking for apprentices:

https://patch.com/illinois/beverly-mtgreenwood/plumbers-union-local-130-taking-apprenticeship-applications-0

So if you go in right after high school (17 or 18 years old) after your 5 year apprecticeship you become a journeyman and you are making $47.25 an hour.  This comes out to $98,280 per year if you work a 40 hour work week.  My friends who do this average at least 45 hours a week, so they are at $110,565 a year.  On top of that they have great health benefits and a pension.

I agree that trades hav

Davis Bacon rates in DC area for plumbers & electricians are $40-$45/hour with another $15-$20/hour in fringes, plus about a dozen paid holidays. $100-$120k/year is doable on just straight time around here if you're a boots-on-the-ground worker. And in places like NYC, Philly, & Chicago, the going mob, crooked, union scale rate is much higher. Granted, DB rates are usually applied to gov't and govt'-adjacent work (which drives the economy here), but that's the market I'm in. 

I'm a PM/District exec for a commercial foundation sub and we can not find enough workers. It is a real problem. Part of it stems from the whole "if you don't go to college, you're a failure" mentality that a good portion of our country has adopted. Related to that is the "if you don't send your kid to college, then YOU are a failure" guilt many parents feel. 

I agree with this, but there is the obvious footnote that manual labor can at times really suck.  I think the kids these days are very soft, and pretty far removed from blue collar work.  I'm 35, and my generation is very far removed, but most of our parents grew up around blue collar people. So, yeah these trade numbers seem nice, and may be an overlooked option for many, but sometimes this work can be much more difficult than climbing a few flights of stairs to sit a a cubicle all day.

 

[ditka...mike ditka]

I thought tradies had to apprentice for a few years before they come full fledged tradesmen who make decent money?

They do.  I posted about it 3 posts below the one you quoted.  If you go straight out of high school, like a lot do in my area, you are on full scale by 22-23.

 

[Uruk-Hai]

I agree with this, but there is the obvious footnote that manual labor can at times really suck.  I think the kids these days are very soft, and pretty far removed from blue collar work.  I'm 35, and my generation is very far removed, but most of our parents grew up around blue collar people. So, yeah these trade numbers seem nice, and may be an overlooked option for many, but sometimes this work can be much more difficult than climbing a few flights of stairs to sit a a cubicle all day.

Journeymen and masters do very little of the grunt work; apprentices and laborers do the bulk of it. The trick is to get above those two levels as fast as you can. 

 

[flapgreen]

39.5 million people seem to have figured it out.  Shockingly, we're not all millionaires. 

I wouldn't say that. Something like the top 10 thousand income earners in California pay 30-40 percent of the overall taxes.  40% of the population doesn't even pay state income taxes there.   Over 30% of the nation's welfare recipients are in California but it only makes up about 12% of the US population. None of that is good. 

 Housing market is ridiculous, as stated in this thread.  And I love visiting there.  My wife is from there and we go regularly, but it's not a place where most of middle class America could survive without struggling, outside of a few small areas or unless you bought a home a long time ago.  It's not a knock on the people there. It's just a state that's ran poorly with an insane cost of living with wages that aren't adjusted appropriately.  And it's not going to change. The leaders are seeing to that. 

 

[EYLive]

Yeah, it's horrible here. Everyone, please stay away.

 

[bagger]

I wouldn't say that. Something like the top 10 thousand income earners in California pay 30-40 percent of the overall taxes.  40% of the population doesn't even pay state income taxes there.   Over 30% of the nation's welfare recipients are in California but it only makes up about 12% of the US population. None of that is good. 

 Housing market is ridiculous, as stated in this thread.  And I love visiting there.  My wife is from there and we go regularly, but it's not a place where most of middle class America could survive without struggling, outside of a few small areas or unless you bought a home a long time ago.  It's not a knock on the people there. It's just a state that's ran poorly with an insane cost of living with wages that aren't adjusted appropriately.  And it's not going to change. The leaders are seeing to that. 

Big problem with real estate taxes in CA is that Prop 13 throttles down real estate taxes for people who have lived there a long time pushing the burden to new home buyers.

My parents have owned their house in Thousand Oaks for 40+ years and they pay less than $2k per year in property taxes on a million dollar home.  Actually makes it not worthwhile to move down into a smaller home now they are empty nesters allowing move up buyers a place to go which opens up entry level housing. Instead they stay put getting a free ride on property taxes.

 

[worrierking]

Interesting article in Reason today.

http://reason.com/blog/2018/04/02/californias-sb-827-is-a-progressive-back

Addresses the rental issue.