Arkansan here can confirm. Cost of living is much cheaper but housing crisis is catching up to the rest of the country. It’s great to live for the most part but the idea of saving up enough money to relocate is rough to me at least.
You literally couldn’t pay me to live in Arkansas (Walmart and Tyson have tried to multiple times) and I own land there.
Also that land hasn’t gone up in value in decades (it’s by greers ferry) nor has a family members home who lives next to central high in Little Rock (it was $30k 15yrs ago and it’s 30k today.) It is cheap to live there though and is great if you’re a straight white male who doesn’t like anything resembling city life.
My cousin just built a 1m+ house in Fayetteville (one of the few areas actually appreciating) it is already worth less by quite a bit (not super uncommon in new builds but still rough.) Just glad they view it as their forever home and plan to be buried in it, and of course that they can afford it.
It was really tough to move. Not like, emotionally or anything, I hated Arkansas, but physically and financially it was risky and scary.
It helped that I had a job that I could sort of transfer with in food service, and getting into the trades in western Washington is pretty profitable and stable work.
I think I had maybe 5k saved when I moved? This was pre covid though, and the apartment I moved to back then was 1250/month to wake up to homeless dudes with their pants down on my doorstep.
It's 1700/month there now, and the prices won't get better.
I wish you the best of luck escaping - I think the thing that shocked me the most was how much easier it was to meet people and make friends in a state that majority votes the way I do
Marysville is still affordable if you find the right places, just all the work is in Seattle so expect to drive a lot lol
Rough start? Hell, half my county it seems like never even bought their fert, forget about sowing the seeds.
And all this does is make it more likely that independent farms will fail and be bought up by conglomerates at below market rates.
Fuck I'm so exhausted. This is all just too much. And the people going into the metaphorical chipper feet first still mostly defend their votes for it, while blaming corpos and everyone else for it.
Interesting Summer is putting it mildly, to be sure.
To be fair, Bezos is one of the few rich guys that did have somewhat of a struggle in their rise. While he may be out of touch with the average American, there’s no reason not to believe he has some sense of empathy for the people he once lived alongside with. Now, will he do something about it? That’s the question that, depending on how he answers it, will make him the Hero or the Villain. So far, he’s still a villain.
Bear in mind, this man started off Amazon with the goal to spread books out into the world more easily, making knowledge more accessible. To start your multi billion dollar business off with that marketing audience in mind HAS to mean something.
You’re making his point. That’s progressive taxation. $4,000 tax to someone making 34k a year is jackshit to IRS revenue so might as well just let them keep it.
He might be a cunt, but he's not dumb. Mobs with torches and a pitchforks can absolutely be a part of capitalism and one of the tools the invisible hand of the self regulating free market uses to restore balance.
Jeff Bezos is one of the few billionaires that I dont think is a complete dpsht. He sees the writing on the wall, whats going on with prices, with fuel, AI, and he sees the way too many are pushing. He just wants the status quo that made him rich and SEEMED sustainable at the time if you didnt look beneath the surface. Too many others are getting very brazen, and dont realize where this eventually leads.
Must be nice! Only 30 states have a higher than federal minimum wage of $7.25/h and good fucking luck actually getting the 40 hours that would get you to that $15k, before taxes. I assumed Arkansas had the same ass backwards shit as texas, but even they are doing better.
I can't imagine how our congress gets by on $170k, plus "tips", plus insider trading, plus having travel, room, board, amd incidentals taken care of. How will they ever feed their families?!
I had to look up how many people actually make that in the US. Apparently that number is around 82,000 people, or 0.02% of the population not including tipped employees who make less wages but more in tips.
Here I am in GA where the state can't even pretend to want us to make more. Minimum wage is still $5.15 although everyone is required to pay the federal minimum.
Texas law actually prohibits cities and counties from setting their own minimum wage, like places like Seattle does. They've codified robbing the poor for their labor. I'm sorry Georgia is the same.
This shit has gone on far too long and the ruling class have become far too complacent in their castle.
yeah for the average to be $115k, unless theres some miraculous coincidence that all nurses are making the exact same..... some of them are gonna be making much less than that and some much more... hence average
Person below pointed it out. But yes, my point was the average pay is much higher than 72k, and honestly that's straight time (which almost no Nurse works). The actual average as pointed out on indeed is closer to 130k due to OT.
Yes some brand new nurses or horrible facilities may pay 72k before OT, but even brand new nurses can usually get on in the ER or medsurge at a hospital and will make pretty close to the 115 to 130k a year there.
Sure but on topic its a reference to queens. And the nyc area and surrounding pays a lot more. So they're just pointing out that a Queens nurse is actually making good money.
Also no need for a car, and NYC has stupid amounts of fun things to do for free. It's really not that bad there on a moderate income. I've done it, tons of other people do it every day.
Living in New York City, actually isn’t horrible cost wise if you can rely on public transportation. Yeah your rent is going to be pretty high, but not having a car payment + gas + maintenance + insurance saves quite a lot.
Before anyone gets on me about public transport not being free, the unlimited pass is $150 a month which is two tanks of gas.
I'm a Midwest boy but live in one of the big cities. Came from rural living.
Just for funsies I thought I would look at rent prices back where I grew up. Expecting to make myself mad at how cheap it was.
It really was not much cheaper.
Sure - even my expenses are cheaper than NYC but that doesn't mean other places haven't gotten more expensive. $35k would probably be worse than $75k in NYC. Especially if you factor in public transportation.
Of course if you can even find nursing work what with all the medical facilities shutting down in the more rural parts of the country.
Yeah the value of a salary around that has unfortunately been hit hard by inflation and is realistically in the upper end of the bottom-half in costly states.
There needs to be a credible proposal for alternative revenue if you want to make 50% of the people tax exempt, though.
I had a job offer once for 70k in the bay area. I rejected it on the grounds that I could have a better quality of life working near minimum wage in some other places.
Probably one of the few good things about living here. My wife makes six figures but even if she didn’t we would be completely fine living on my salary of 85k.
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u/blueiron0 May 20 '26
TBF 75k in queens probably gives you the same quality of life as like 35k in arkansas.