Apple's Austin campus gains approval with new salary requirements - Page 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by zoetmb 

In the early to mid-80's, I was a mid-level exec at a major media company.   The lowest I could get away paying anyone except for an administrative assistant was $31K.  $31K in 1985 is $65,000 in 2012 dollars.   $35K today for anyone but a student or perhaps one's very first job out of school while still living with your parents is NOTHING.

I should have commented on this earlier. 

You're WAY out of touch with reality.  Let's take a few jobs and look at national average incomes (keeping in mind that Austin has a lower cost of living than most of the country's population, so the figures in Austin could be even lower):

I'm not going to do the math for you but the following are all average monthly incomes by occupation. The numbers are a couple of years out of date, but raises across the board have been very slim for the past few years. But if you want, add 10% to all of the following numbers. For comparison, your $35 K is just under $3,000 per month:

Salesperson - $1876

Baker - $1461

Hotel receptionist - $1469
Bus Driver - $1594

Office clerk - $1921

Auxiliary Nurse - $2268

Average for all manufacturing workers - $2372

Average for all construction workers - $2584

All sectors - median income $2313

Your claim that $35 K is adequate only for a student or first job out of school is therefore total nonsense.

http://www.worldsalaries.org/usa.shtml

Quote:

Originally Posted by jragosta 

 

Nice straw man argument. The issue isn't whether minimum wage is livable. Someone claimed that $35 K per year wasn't livable in Austin - and they were just plain wrong. That's certainly not going to make you wealthy, but it's a decent livable wage in Austin - and a large part of the country.

I've read your posts in this thread and the others. I'm wondering about something. Is your concern that the county is negotiating on terms of the deal, the points of negotiation (in this case salaries), or both in some manner? 

Quote:

Originally Posted by hmm 

I've read your posts in this thread and the others. I'm wondering about something. Is your concern that the county is negotiating on terms of the deal, the points of negotiation (in this case salaries), or both in some manner? 

I just don't believe that the government should be telling people how much to pay their employees. I can (barely) understand a basic minimum wage that no company can go under, but telling Apple how much to pay employees in the $30 K range is an unreasonable interference in the free market negotiations between an employer and its employees.  And, as I've pointed out, the law of unintended consequences is likely to apply so it may not be benefiting the employees, anyway.

Quote:

Originally Posted by melgross 


Perhaps these numbers are more relevant:
http://www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu/counties/48015
Going by this, we can see how it averages. As I said earlier, minimum wage is a bare minimum for one person. But if we're talking about a family of three people, two adults with one child, and one wage earner, which is likely in these difficult job hunting times, the requirement is much higher. According to the numbers from the Austin Texas area, that would be $36.525 per year, ABOVE what Apple is being asked to provide.

Sorry, that's simply one group's opinion of what a livable wage is.

The facts are pretty clear. Many, many occupations work for far less than the $35 K that you are claiming is not a livable wage. More importantly, someone claimed that no one works for $35 K except students and people in their first job right out of school - and my references proved that to be wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by melgross 


Ah, I see. If an argument is a good one, and overrides your own, it's a straw man. Good to know for the future.
What someone else says isn't relevant to my post. Respond to that alone, and then, maybe your argument may have some validity.

Look up 'straw man argument'.

Someone claimed that $35 K was not a living wage.

I claimed it was.

Then someone claimed that minimum wage was not a living wage.

I pointed out that the discussion was not about minimum wage, but was rather about $35 K - which makes it a straw man argument.

You then chimed in with your comments that prove that you don't even understand what a straw man argument is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by melgross 


Don't try to find excuses for everything. I know what a straw man argument is, and mine wasn't it, especially since you were bringing in a third poster into your assumptions of my argument.
The living expenses from that site I quoted, whether you like it or not, is based upon living costs. It's certainly much more useful than your numbers. Salaries don't always reflect livability. It's a much more complex issue than that, which you choose to ignore here. It's been the truth that for quite some time that families require two working people for a livable income for a family. So if you think that both parents are working, the salaries can be lower, as the site shows. But if only one person is working, as is more likely today than before the recession, that that income must be much higher.
Of course, if you want to assume, as you appear to do, that it's one salary per person, then the lower number will work. But that's just useful for a smaller part of the population, and often, families can't live easily on that income.

You're really confused.

We were discussing whether $35 K was a living wage in Austin. Someone threw out a statement that minimum wage is not a living wage - that's clearly a non-sequitor.

As for the rest, in a free market, Apple would have to pay salaries based on competitive salaries in that region. They are not obligated to provide anyone with a fixed standard of living - much less a standard of living that's nothing more than a guess provided by someone. Since many, many, many jobs (as shown above) pay under $35K, obviously the statement that all jobs (except students or entry level jobs) pay more than $35 K is wrong. It has nothing to do with cost of living. It has to do with someone making an inane statement and me showing that the statement is wrong.

The numbers you are quoting are so ridiculous, that I'm wondering why I'm bothering to respond. A "Salesperson" could mean anything from a kid selling magazine subscriptions to a high powered software salesman whose minimum deal is $100,000.   A "bus driver" is generally a unionized public employee making anywhere from $40,000 to $70,000 a year. The only way these numbers make any sense at all is part timers are factored in and their hourly wage isn't being annualized.

At any rate, this comment is wide of the point.  We are talking about one of the most successful corporations in America that will presumably be hiring the best and the brightest, not a mom and pop grocery store. I  would further assume that all of their non-contracted hires will be college graduates or people with specialized skills. It is unlikely the the prevailing salary for even an entry level person in a low cost area is under $27,000.  Its not too much to expect $35,000 in a moderate to high cost of living area.  I'm not saying that all entry level college graduates make this kind of money. many college graduates work in jobs that don't require college graduates or work in industries such as fashion and entertainment where one expects a sub standard wage in exchange for possible fame and fortune.  In the tech industry, $30.000 + is pretty standard.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jragosta 

 

 More importantly, someone claimed that no one works for $35 K except students and people in their first job right out of school - and my references proved that to be wrong.

 

 

 

I did not say that no one works for $35K except students and people in their first job out of school....that's obviously not the case since there are probably millions of workers earning minimum wage and in most states, minimum wage works out to under $16,000 a year.   What I said was that it's impossible to live decently on a salary lower than that.

According to data I found on the web, the median sale home price in Austin in 2010 was $195,000.    Let's say you manage to put down 15%, although I don't know how anyone making only $35K can save anything.

This assumes that Apple pays 100% of all benefits and there are no employee contributions.

House $195,000 - $29,250 down = $165,750.   30 year mortgage at 5% = $14,424 a year ($1202 a month).  I'm assuming that there are no closing costs.

Federal Taxes: $2501  (Assumes taxable income of $19,576). 

All costs annual (and I think these are all conservative, except for the property taxes, which are calculated at 2.7% of $170,000:

House Maintenance: $1200

Food: $5475.

Car: $4800 (including insurance, tolls, gas)

Property Taxes: $4590

Electric Bill: $720

Cable TV, Modem: $600

Phone: $500

That leaves $190 a year for clothes, furniture, house insurance, medical co-pays, laundry, entertainment, public transportation, media, etc.   This assumes you have no dependents to pay for.

But you'll probably say that that's way too much to spend for a house.  So let's assume you can rent a place for $600 a month.  That halves the housing cost and gets rid of property taxes, but you lose the mortgage deduction so your fed taxes jump to $4665.   That leaves you with $189 a week for clothes, furniture, house insurance, medical co-pays, laundry, entertainment, public transportation, media, etc.    Not impossible, but close.

So you can get by if you share a house with someone, but alone?  Can't do it.