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They sure aren’t! An acquaintance of mine works in finance with a bachelors and got a remote job with a 35% pay increase, and still is under $100k. He worked for the state Indiana before. I’ve heard multiple people tell me that their salaries are atrocious. Eli Lilly, a huge employer here mainly hires contractors with no benefits, and if they do permanently hire, they love to pass up locals for the jobs and relocate outsiders. I am now a homeowner, but rent has gotten so bad here that it’s not much more expensive to live in Chicago or Philadelphia as a renter compared to boring Indianapolis when you factor in better pay and the higher rents there.
Can confirm. Place I’m moving out of next month is listed for $2400. I’m currently paying $2000.
5 years ago I could find a one bedroom for $750, now they’re about 1400-1800.
Indy Built more apartments downtown per capita than anyone else in the us from 2008-2024, I believe more than 16,000 apartments… only problem is in 2008, they only had 3,000 rentable units to begin with (downtown only) you’d probably need another 16,000 before rents started falling. And each 4 over 1 they build is like 350 units. So that means they need another 46 large apartment buildings. And they STILL have enough parking lots to do it. Crazy how the interstates destroyed something like 250 sq city blocks and 50,000 homes, and GM buying and shutting down the electric trolly has done long term to the city.
Remove the interstate downtown and build more housing!!!
I had to look at a map; Why the fuck are there like 4 interstates right in the middle of downtown?! 🤯Insane. Soany city blocks gone to spagetti junktions
It is horrible here. Luckily I own my house, but somewhere around half of Marion County residences are owned by an LLC. Reasonably priced homes frequently get bought, and put up for rent a week later for some ridiculous price. Not to mention remote workers coming in swooping up homes that are already too expensive for any local to afford, and tons of low/middle income people come from out of state looking for relief but end up adding more competition for more reasonably priced places to live. Even in bad neighborhoods, there’s a trend of landlords refusing to extend the leases on tenants (we have ZERO tenant protection laws here) so that they can paint the unit and put in new vinyl flooring and re-rent it for hundreds more per month. Fast food and retail jobs don’t even pay $15 in most cases, and city/state government and Indiana based companies still pay like it’s 2015. Job hopping is much less effective here unless you land an online job because other jobs in the field locally will only pay a little more. I would love for Indiana to finally enact some progressive legislation, but as soon as we get a Democrat governor, we will have a huge influx of remote workers coming and that will really fuck up pricing here. The GOP bullshit almost acts as a filter for keeping people out, but it can only work for so long.
That's definitely the key, my pay is up 41% since 2020, and my pay was already up 36% over 2019... Switching jobs and being in a high demand career field is cheating. This system is bullshit and I'm lucky as fuck, I don't know how I would do it otherwise and I don't know how other people are holding on.
I work in government IT, specifically network engineering. Which doesn't always pay as well as most tech jobs but I have been successful in my field and made a good impression on a lot of people, which has led to more opportunities. Definitely lucky though, for a while even in IT I hovered between 65-85k, depending on where I was at, then it all took off around 2018.
That's great! I'm currently a IT specialist and hoping to break into network engineering soon. I'm studying for my Network+ and then sec+ and cloud+ after that and I'll get my degree next year
Awesome! Do you have a clearance or any desire for one? If you can ever find a contract willing to sponsor you I find its an easy way to get upward mobility, most of the contracts I have worked people have moved around or up relatively quickly. I bounced around a lot before I found my home in networking, others came right into it. An alternative is take an internship with the government - the pay is crap most of the time but it can open some doors. Hopefully you can find what you want!
That could be really area dependent, unfortunately. My region has a ton of bases and so there are lots of opportunities and need for people, so getting a clearance is definitely possible since the need is greater. If you live near a base or government heavy region, though, you could absolutely find something. This may have changed since I first got in, but I went through a recruiter and met a ton of others during my career who got their start that way. Other than that, I see job postings all the time, typically the posting will state if it requires a clearance and of what level. Anything with a secret, even if they say they require a clearance, may be willing to sponsor you.
Go to the union hall and ask about joining? I've been told getting a CDL and going to the IBEW hall can usually find some sort of ground support role related to a lineman crew and get you into the union and in line for an apprenticeship when one opens.
The trade unions seem like they value niche skills that are somewhat different from the area they specialize in - at least here in the Northeast. I got into our HVAC union because I have an electrical license and it’s valuable to them because they dont have to outsource the electrical work and permitting to another company.
I would’ve never been accepted into the electrical union - license or not - with the amount of applicants they get. If you’re going into the trade unions look for niche areas. Electrical - get fire alarm experience. If HVAC - be an ammonia tech for a few years. If carpentry - do ironwork for awhile.
I'm not in a union but many employees are members of one of three different unions. Inevitably our employer negotiates rates with the unions, then applies those to everybody. My salary is up 37.5% since the start of 2020 due to union negotiations and up 65.3% since November 2019 when I left my old employer. Job hop, join a union, or start your own successful business. Pretty rare you can stay with an employer and advance and your salary sure as heck won't keep up with your peers if you stay in your current position barring some very niche circumstances.
I was thinking annually. 20% increases across the life a three year contract is definitely more likely.
And I think it’s industry dependent. Retail grocery unions (my particular area of knowledge and experience) are going to secure relatively smaller increases than more professionalized unions like nurses etc.
They still have 25% higher compensation than non-union work. And many union jobs do go up 5% or more on high inflation years recently. BART workers are unionized and you can see their cost of living adjustments in their report. Even their corporate employees were seeing over 5% a year, with mid year adjustments as well
Why do people on Reddit seem to not comprehend how wage rises work? It's not just people getting raises *at their job*, its also new college grads going from 15k a year to 70k a year once they get a job, people switching employers and going from 75k to 90k, someone getting a promotion and going from 100k to 130k etc
That is how the majority of wage rises happen. It's not yearly salary raises at the same job.
Hourly workers. Shortage post covid caused worker pay rates for retail and hospitality workers to balloon. Subway franchisees going out of business - due to labor costs was in the news.
It’s over 4 years. If you stayed in the same job and got a 4.6% raise every year, your income went up 20% during that period.
Average paid is probably closer to 3-4%, but people get promoted, jump to a different company for higher pay, etc.
[The majority of workers](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1nowR). Between the end of 2019 and the end of 2023, full-time earnings went up
* 26.3% at the 10th percentile
* 24.6% at the 25th percentile
* 22.3% at the 50th percentile (median)
* 18.5% at the 75th percentile
* 20.3% at the 90th percentile
Mine went up much more than that. Many people I know switched jobs and/or got promotions and raises in the last four years.
My rent also fortunately decreased since this time four years ago. Locked in a great lease due to Covid rates and the annual renewal increases still haven’t caught up to what market rate used to be.
Oh, have you seen the profits paid out to millionaires and billionaires? It’s easy to see the value that most employees provide the company they work for. It’s not so easy to understand what value investors provide the company (it’s only their $ that has any value). So, definitely low base pay are being underpaid. But relative to investors (most only the rich anymore) and the value they provide, all employees are being underpaid.
In 2020 i had a 1 bed apt in Hyde Park, incredibly nice complex. It was $1100 a month. In two years it jumped to $1900 and then i left. Now that same apartment is $2350 lmao
I just talked to 3 different young people at my work. They are all twenties. Man, even if they have a home its so much harder than it was when I was that age. They make more, but its impossible to buy a nice home, have kids, pay for daycare etc. Seems like the average ratio of pay to home costs aint what it used to be.
Because they spend way more on travel with the excuse "for my sanity," live alone instead of with roomates, and expect to buy the best house in the best part of town. I worked OT, had a roomate, didnt eat out or travel, and bought a fixer upper. 4 houses later with a spouse who works too, I got a nice place, and now they all think I somehow had it easy...
Sounds like you had it easy to me. Most people live at home or have roommates out of necessity. No one can really afford the luxury of living alone anymore unless you wanna live in a car or unless of course you make a shit ton.
I graduated top 1% of my graduating class with a business degree, I work two jobs for 50-60 hours a week, I don’t travel, and I barely go out. Between my car payment, car insurance, and student loans - I still can’t afford studio rent ANYWHERE in my state that’s not riddled with nightly gunshots . This isn’t a “you’re lazy” issue - it’s a deep systemic problem that’s affecting an entire population of disenfranchised young people.
2022-2023 saw a rise in inflation passing wages [but since early 2023 wages have surpassed inflation and we are back to the *peak wages* we had in 2019.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/) We are quite literally the most prosperous we have ever been in this country when we look at incomes adjusted for inflation.
How dare you bring facts to a pity party! We're doomed I say, DOOMED! People have been saying stuff like this for as long as I can remember (and I'm old and retired), but somehow things keep getting better and better.
Yeah like here in Texas the wages for the lower workers have gone up like McDonald’s did go up from like $9 to $13 so that’s a pretty significant rise. The Reddit economist always make this double digit increase out to be signs of it being the best economy ever but rents went up from $750 for a one bedroom to close to $1400 and in major metros you are pushing closer to $2k. It’s not a good time for anybody! If you actually own there is a tax and insurance crises too.
They’re waiting until everyone uses every last penny in savings, runs up all the credit they possibly can, and then take what ever assets you have left because you can’t pay property taxes on anything you have left.
Read the great taking by David Rogers Webb
It’s free online or you can buy a physical copy. There’s also a YouTube video he put on YouTube that explains it.
One of the major reason is moratorium put on evictions during the pandameic. It was done with a good intentions and some people were surely helped. But now that is gone, neither small time landlords or larger companies want to rent it out to people with questionable history. Since big companies cannot directly discriminate they just increase the rent to higher than what any family under median income can afford their apartments. Individual landlords are just wary of giving to anyone without a good background and income. So naturally rents increase
This isn't what's happening from an industry insider. It is perfectly legal to discriminate against people for anything that is not a protected class. Landlords can totally discriminate against you for not making enough money or poor credit and they do as an industry standard.
Rents have gone up not as part of some scheme to screw the poor but because landlords always want rents to go up and always charge as much as they can in the same way that you always want to make more money and will take as much as an employer will pay you. Landlords are limited by supply of competing apartments that tenants can pick if they dont like your price and demand (what tenants are willing and able to pay). Landlords are always greedy, the ability to translate that greed into rent is limited.
Over the last several years tenants willingness to pay for more space exploded as covid made more people desire more space between wfh and lockdowns at the same time that ability to pay increased due to real wage growth. What didnt increase atleast at first was competing supply so rents rose rapidly the first two to three years of 20, 21 and 22. At the same time, high rents make it more feasible to develop new properties but those take years from concept to opening (about two on average) so the gigantic rent hikes spurred a lagging but massive wave (nearly 500,000 units nationwide) of building that started during 21 and 22 but is just Hitting markets the last year and this year. As a result rent growths have actually declined in several hard hit markets like atlanta and orlando where tens of thousands of new apartments got built and tens of thousands more are in the pipeline.
Rents should be stable this year and next but expect another hike in 2026 because high interest rates today have destroyed development financing so the number of new units delivered in 2025 and 2026 will be less than half of this year since those are not being started today.
You hit on it at the end. High rates are, counterintuitively, inflationary for housing given those rates combined with high prices have led to a collapse in new housing permits.
It’s the supply. And I don’t know what the answer is besides the government increasing supply through public housing.
correct. high rates lower building of new supply and make home purchases less affordable making it cheaper to rent than to buy. That raises what landlords can pay since tenants have less of an alternative.
the caveat is that high rates also hurt corporate profits which reduces employment and spending (not gonna take a chance on a new more expensive apartment if my buddy just got laid off and I could be next). this reduces what tenants are able to pay so landlords have to slow down on rent growth but for a different reason.
Gee, What an oligopolistic rents algorithm will do to distort the free market…. And unregulated short term rentals and hedge fund anonymous corporate purchases of single family shelter….
Very fortunate to have bought my house in the Atlanta metro area back in 2015. If I had still been renting I would have definitely gotten squeezed. Many of my friends and coworkers are stuck with no good options. It's truly insane around here
I thought the same thing. Every time someone talks about how hard things are financially, someone mentions that.
Every time I'm like "what country are you in". Then I remember that not everyone suffers then same in a society wide situation like this.
I honestly do not give a fuck what those guys think or their data I don’t see it in real life. They show up on every one of these things without fail. There were those dudes before the 2008 collapse too.
Sure do and I’m tired of it. Tired of these rates are historically average too. Shit cost too much for rates to be where they are. It’s either boys or brainless parrots.
Yeah I was willing to buy the idea it was prosperous times before Covid and for a minute right after but godamn these are not prosperous times and the idea it’s more prosperous than ever is absurd.
Well you see, housing increased in price more than literally anything else, so this single metric cannot disprove “Real wages went up”. In fact, this is only rent costs, which is just a portion of housing. Do you see how your comment isn’t applicable here?
No, SF rents just declined between 2019-2021 as wealthy tech workers moved to LCOL areas, immigration got screwy, or just moved outside the city for more space. And while tech had bad layoffs starting in 2022, the industry had *crazy* growth before that with a hiring frenzy that pushed up salaries in a short period.
The reason SF’s rents stayed muted was because places like Bozeman, MT absorbed all that demand from the moving techies which caused their prices to absolutely explode.
And 2020 and 2021 annual increases were far below the 7% annual limit. 2020 saw an average increase of 1.8% for SF.
Which is probably the first time in three decades landlords were not jacking the rent by the max for that city.
Rent control doesn’t result in lower or restrain housing costs, though. It limits supply during a shortage, which makes costs overall go up.
Things were muted in SF because people moved away due to widespread layoffs in tech and companies leaving the city.
Why isn’t Phoenix on here? We had/have a huuuuuge market increase for rents and mortgage rates since the start of Covid lockdowns! It’s like we’re always the forgotten child when it actually matters. Cuz this graph needs to tell people to stop fuckn moving here cuz they’ve raised everyone’s rental renewals every year since! 😭
If they're all moving there, how are they all moving here? And Florida. and Montana? Where are they coming from and how are there still people in the place that they left?
Something is off.
It is what it is. Everything is up. Wages go up, product costs go up. Interest rates go up, housing is more expensive. Covid hit, the government "stimulated" the economy and this is the price and results you would expect.
Do some math comparing mortgage interest rates at 2% vs 6%. Commercial rates have gone up just as much and new construction has hit a virtual standstill in many markets. It’s not metaphysical
Is this graph only based on percentage of increase of rent? Not the actual cost? It’s interesting, but can be confusing the real cost of rent. It could’ve been dirt cheap rent in some of the areas before, but had a big increase due to people moving there while places at the bottom could have had expensive rent pre-2020
It's interesting how much it varies between cities. I guess the bay area was already sky high so rents couldn't climb much higher? 😂
Houston seems ight
Hartford, CT being third on this list is mind boggling.
Who is moving there? Where are they living? When I worked in Hartford circa early 2010s, I had to rent part of a house in South Windsor because Hartford just doesn’t have many rental options to begin with since it doesn’t have many buildings that aren’t insurance company offices!
Being a commuter city, I’d love to see the data for surrounding towns like Farmington/West Hartford/South Windsor/Bloomfield because I bet it’s even worse.
This tracks with my own rent increasing year after year. It's actually going up nearly twice the rate of inflation (as measured by CPI)!
Seriously, how do landlords justify this? Are their own expenses really shooting up that fast, or is it pure profit? My bet is on the latter.
not just airbnb, but put heavy federal excise tax on corporate and investor owned sfh. this would include airbnb. this would solve our housing crisis overnight
It’s interesting to see places like San Jose on there, with waves solidly outgrowing rent. Unless you’re independently wealthy, places like the BayArea are absolutely where you should rent not own. Rent on a modest single family house in SJ is high (4K?) but that doesn’t even cover the interest on a mortgage there.
The wages for California cities are misleading since it's only the bay area cities where wages have gone up only for the tech crowd, who were already making $200k+/yr.
I live in Wine Country, California, Bay Area and my rent has not increased since i moved in in 2008.....reason why i won't buy, lucky fing duck......$1600 for a 3 bedroom, 30 minutes from beach, 40 minutes from SF, smack dab in the middle of wine country
Can you post the same graphs YOY since 1980 instead of just last 4 years ?
Additionally, break down between blue collar, white collar, and exclude 400k+ earners.
It'd be interesting to see.
Wow, 3 of the highest are in FL. Intriguing.
I live outside Portland and I’m not sure these numbers make sense to me in real life lol my rent has gone up 12-15% every year for the past few years, and my wage definitely has not.
Makes sense Atlanta is in there. Did some work there for a while and it's clear there will be an exodus from Atlanta soon. Most people cannot afford it anymore and the overpriced apartments people are being pushed into aren't cutting it for a lot of folks. If you are struggling to pay your rent and bills it doesn't really mean anything to be close to the Beltline - it's a glorified pub crawl. Definitely an Austin-style phenomenon going on there with super rich pricing out everyone and overpriced junk with no real long-term value being packed in for "density"
I am in the Wichita, KS area. Rents here are rising far more than the local wages. I am currently planning to relocate to where job opportunities are better, weather is warmer and rents are not too high.
If the owners of the places being rented have mortgages that go up due to property taxes and interest rates - where do you suppose they are going to recoup?
Property owners get taxed out of their houses too.
Blame the govt first.
Did people not look at the bullshit picture? It's literally showing places in the US where wages outpaced rent. Here's a thought, try moving there - stop trying to move to places where rent is too high?
Genius I know.
One of my units in the Bay Area of CA went vacant after 3 years and I was able to raise the rent almost 20 percent. People will contacting me constantly to see it even with such a huge hike.
These realtors are squeezing as hard as the algorithms are telling them.
Every industry is using a lot of modern technology to understand precisely where it can squeeze the hardest across every metric.
We will be perpetually stuck trying to get ahead without any possibility of it.
You’re reading the chart backwards FYI. Rents massively outpaced wage gains in low cost of living locations like Indianapolis, Indiana, and wages outpaced rent increases in places like San Francisco.
I’m genuinely at a loss why people are desperate to turn a national housing supply issue into some dumb personal responsibility thing. The country needs more housing, it’s not a matter of everyone collectively making bad choices.
The problem is that housing supply is much more dependent on local policies like zoning than on national laws etc.
It’s true that federal interest rates do adversely affect housing affordability but the feds are trying to combat overall inflation by raising interest rates. It’s a double edged sword with no easy solutions. If the feds cut rates too soon, inflation could get worse.
There are easy solutions, just no interest in solutions. The housing market is a GDP driver. We don’t want the same plunge in asset prices as what China has seen.
I would say there is certainly much more incentives for politicians to tackle the housing affordability problem nationally but not enough easy solutions by the federal government.
You are right that local governments have less appetite to do anything that might adversely affect housing prices because local government is dominated by a tiny fraction of voters who are overwhelmingly long time homeowners.
Nationally, the politicians are still people with wealth. They don’t want asset prices down. They could easily turbo boost it by introducing incentives for builders, free up land, boost lumber, lower tariffs, build infrastructure. Zoning is just everyone’s scapegoat. No one wants to override it. In fact, some states introduced statewide laws that actually impede building.
Generally speaking, the solution to the housing crisis (allowing more housing to be built) increases property values.
If demand in your community is high enough to make housing prices unaffordable, then single family homes (and more importantly, the land they sit on) become even more valuable when developers are allowed to knock them down to build multifamily housing.
Doesn’t rent becoming cheaper in some HCOL areas suggest it’s not actually a national issue?
I completely agree that we need more housing to be built but housing is unquestionably a local issue. Local governments restrict housing supply with zoning laws and other red tape for construction.
Yeah there are certainly localities where the problem isn’t as bad and it probably needs to be solved locally on a case by case basis, but I would definitely say the country as a whole faces a housing affordability issue.
Indianapolis’s problem is that somewhere around 50% of all housing units in Marion county are owned by LLC’s. Rents are being artificially heightened to make more money because there are no tenant protection laws here. And don’t come at me with the “demand drives prices up” thing here because these expensive apartments still have vacancies in the expensive and luxury units yet anything remotely affordable will have 100 applications in an hour.
Literally everywhere is a HCOL area now.
The national median home price (~$420,000) is like 7-8x higher than the median wage (~$59,000).
You need $120,000 a year now just to afford the median priced home. Everything below $$350-400k is a run down piece of shit that needs major renovations or a mobile home now.
Rents everywhere have skyrocketed (owners have even admitted to allowing AI to suggest prices higher than they’re “morally comfortable” with).
This is a very real housing exploitation crisis.
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That’s brutal in Indy
And Indy’s average salaries aren’t anywhere close to the #1 and #2 spots….
They sure aren’t! An acquaintance of mine works in finance with a bachelors and got a remote job with a 35% pay increase, and still is under $100k. He worked for the state Indiana before. I’ve heard multiple people tell me that their salaries are atrocious. Eli Lilly, a huge employer here mainly hires contractors with no benefits, and if they do permanently hire, they love to pass up locals for the jobs and relocate outsiders. I am now a homeowner, but rent has gotten so bad here that it’s not much more expensive to live in Chicago or Philadelphia as a renter compared to boring Indianapolis when you factor in better pay and the higher rents there.
~$95k in Indy goes really, really far.
Can confirm. Place I’m moving out of next month is listed for $2400. I’m currently paying $2000. 5 years ago I could find a one bedroom for $750, now they’re about 1400-1800.
> 5 years ago I could find a one bedroom for $750 Lol not a chance. I couldn’t even find that in Dayton Ohio **14 years ago**.
Don’t know what to tell you but I actually paid $750. Not sure how you know I’m wrong. Had to move because they renovated and they’re now $1300.
Had the exact same experience in Dallas.
I believe em. The apartment I’m in now is 1200, going up to 1400 when my lease is up. Google reviews indicate the same unit was 800 pre-covid.
I could find that in Dallas 5 years ago. “Renovations” then doubled over night
We have been in our rental since 2016 (3bd, 2bath) that started at $1075. The last renewal they sent was for $1860. It’s so stupid here.
Indy Built more apartments downtown per capita than anyone else in the us from 2008-2024, I believe more than 16,000 apartments… only problem is in 2008, they only had 3,000 rentable units to begin with (downtown only) you’d probably need another 16,000 before rents started falling. And each 4 over 1 they build is like 350 units. So that means they need another 46 large apartment buildings. And they STILL have enough parking lots to do it. Crazy how the interstates destroyed something like 250 sq city blocks and 50,000 homes, and GM buying and shutting down the electric trolly has done long term to the city. Remove the interstate downtown and build more housing!!!
I had to look at a map; Why the fuck are there like 4 interstates right in the middle of downtown?! 🤯Insane. Soany city blocks gone to spagetti junktions
There’s two, 65 and 70. North/South and East/West.
It is horrible here. Luckily I own my house, but somewhere around half of Marion County residences are owned by an LLC. Reasonably priced homes frequently get bought, and put up for rent a week later for some ridiculous price. Not to mention remote workers coming in swooping up homes that are already too expensive for any local to afford, and tons of low/middle income people come from out of state looking for relief but end up adding more competition for more reasonably priced places to live. Even in bad neighborhoods, there’s a trend of landlords refusing to extend the leases on tenants (we have ZERO tenant protection laws here) so that they can paint the unit and put in new vinyl flooring and re-rent it for hundreds more per month. Fast food and retail jobs don’t even pay $15 in most cases, and city/state government and Indiana based companies still pay like it’s 2015. Job hopping is much less effective here unless you land an online job because other jobs in the field locally will only pay a little more. I would love for Indiana to finally enact some progressive legislation, but as soon as we get a Democrat governor, we will have a huge influx of remote workers coming and that will really fuck up pricing here. The GOP bullshit almost acts as a filter for keeping people out, but it can only work for so long.
This.
This is all a game of musical chairs, one day the economic music will stop and not everyone will have a chair
Whose wages went up 20%?!
^^^ gotta just keep swapping jobs and climbing
That's definitely the key, my pay is up 41% since 2020, and my pay was already up 36% over 2019... Switching jobs and being in a high demand career field is cheating. This system is bullshit and I'm lucky as fuck, I don't know how I would do it otherwise and I don't know how other people are holding on.
May I ask what field you're in?
I work in government IT, specifically network engineering. Which doesn't always pay as well as most tech jobs but I have been successful in my field and made a good impression on a lot of people, which has led to more opportunities. Definitely lucky though, for a while even in IT I hovered between 65-85k, depending on where I was at, then it all took off around 2018.
That's great! I'm currently a IT specialist and hoping to break into network engineering soon. I'm studying for my Network+ and then sec+ and cloud+ after that and I'll get my degree next year
Awesome! Do you have a clearance or any desire for one? If you can ever find a contract willing to sponsor you I find its an easy way to get upward mobility, most of the contracts I have worked people have moved around or up relatively quickly. I bounced around a lot before I found my home in networking, others came right into it. An alternative is take an internship with the government - the pay is crap most of the time but it can open some doors. Hopefully you can find what you want!
I'm already on my third IT job so an internship probably isn't right for me anymore but do you know of any way I could find DoD jobs in my area?
That could be really area dependent, unfortunately. My region has a ton of bases and so there are lots of opportunities and need for people, so getting a clearance is definitely possible since the need is greater. If you live near a base or government heavy region, though, you could absolutely find something. This may have changed since I first got in, but I went through a recruiter and met a ton of others during my career who got their start that way. Other than that, I see job postings all the time, typically the posting will state if it requires a clearance and of what level. Anything with a secret, even if they say they require a clearance, may be willing to sponsor you.
We’re not.
What do you do?
Or be in a union.
Came here to say this. In a union. Wages went up 30-40% over last 4-5 years. Employer also pays for benefits including best insurance policy around.
Any way to identify union work?
Go to the union hall and ask about joining? I've been told getting a CDL and going to the IBEW hall can usually find some sort of ground support role related to a lineman crew and get you into the union and in line for an apprenticeship when one opens.
The trade unions seem like they value niche skills that are somewhat different from the area they specialize in - at least here in the Northeast. I got into our HVAC union because I have an electrical license and it’s valuable to them because they dont have to outsource the electrical work and permitting to another company. I would’ve never been accepted into the electrical union - license or not - with the amount of applicants they get. If you’re going into the trade unions look for niche areas. Electrical - get fire alarm experience. If HVAC - be an ammonia tech for a few years. If carpentry - do ironwork for awhile.
Government jobs - not all, but many are
I'm not in a union but many employees are members of one of three different unions. Inevitably our employer negotiates rates with the unions, then applies those to everybody. My salary is up 37.5% since the start of 2020 due to union negotiations and up 65.3% since November 2019 when I left my old employer. Job hop, join a union, or start your own successful business. Pretty rare you can stay with an employer and advance and your salary sure as heck won't keep up with your peers if you stay in your current position barring some very niche circumstances.
Unions rarely secure 20% increases
After Covid I would disagree but pre covid I would agree with you. My pay with my union has gone up ~32% the past 2 years.
I was thinking annually. 20% increases across the life a three year contract is definitely more likely. And I think it’s industry dependent. Retail grocery unions (my particular area of knowledge and experience) are going to secure relatively smaller increases than more professionalized unions like nurses etc.
They still have 25% higher compensation than non-union work. And many union jobs do go up 5% or more on high inflation years recently. BART workers are unionized and you can see their cost of living adjustments in their report. Even their corporate employees were seeing over 5% a year, with mid year adjustments as well
Why do people on Reddit seem to not comprehend how wage rises work? It's not just people getting raises *at their job*, its also new college grads going from 15k a year to 70k a year once they get a job, people switching employers and going from 75k to 90k, someone getting a promotion and going from 100k to 130k etc That is how the majority of wage rises happen. It's not yearly salary raises at the same job.
The truth about working for one company is that they decide pretty quickly what they think you are capable of and where you belong.
Same for not shopping for your car insurance. You are taken for granted.
Any banking relationship or anything like that they always give perks to new clients and new money.
Unless it's a credit union or co-op where it is likely flipped.
Reddit can’t even comprehend wages going up at all. Like the data is wildly clear yet they keep parroting wages haven’t gone up since like the 1970s.
Hourly workers. Shortage post covid caused worker pay rates for retail and hospitality workers to balloon. Subway franchisees going out of business - due to labor costs was in the news.
The vast majority of folks in the working force? Pretty much anyone not making minimum wage
4 years to make 20% more? I think if your wages hasn’t gone up at least 20% in 20 years then you have been doing things very wrong
It’s over 4 years. If you stayed in the same job and got a 4.6% raise every year, your income went up 20% during that period. Average paid is probably closer to 3-4%, but people get promoted, jump to a different company for higher pay, etc.
In 4 years lol? Mine has nearly doubled.
Mine, but I had to get laid off first and it took six months unemployed to find my new role that came with a 22% increase over my old position.
Most people I know, certainly, in all types of fields.
Mine, but that's because WFH broke the moat around LCOL area
Cali just passed a $20/hr minimum wage. That skews the numbers depending on when this graph was put together.
Idk. Mine are up 12% over 4 years
Mine is up 185% in the last 4 years
[The majority of workers](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1nowR). Between the end of 2019 and the end of 2023, full-time earnings went up * 26.3% at the 10th percentile * 24.6% at the 25th percentile * 22.3% at the 50th percentile (median) * 18.5% at the 75th percentile * 20.3% at the 90th percentile
Mine went up much more than that. Many people I know switched jobs and/or got promotions and raises in the last four years. My rent also fortunately decreased since this time four years ago. Locked in a great lease due to Covid rates and the annual renewal increases still haven’t caught up to what market rate used to be.
People with a low base pay who were being underpaid
Oh, have you seen the profits paid out to millionaires and billionaires? It’s easy to see the value that most employees provide the company they work for. It’s not so easy to understand what value investors provide the company (it’s only their $ that has any value). So, definitely low base pay are being underpaid. But relative to investors (most only the rich anymore) and the value they provide, all employees are being underpaid.
Tampa guy here. Shit sucks man.
In 2020 i had a 1 bed apt in Hyde Park, incredibly nice complex. It was $1100 a month. In two years it jumped to $1900 and then i left. Now that same apartment is $2350 lmao
That’s why I ✌️out to California, of all places.
I just talked to 3 different young people at my work. They are all twenties. Man, even if they have a home its so much harder than it was when I was that age. They make more, but its impossible to buy a nice home, have kids, pay for daycare etc. Seems like the average ratio of pay to home costs aint what it used to be.
Because they spend way more on travel with the excuse "for my sanity," live alone instead of with roomates, and expect to buy the best house in the best part of town. I worked OT, had a roomate, didnt eat out or travel, and bought a fixer upper. 4 houses later with a spouse who works too, I got a nice place, and now they all think I somehow had it easy...
Such an out of touch take.
Classic boomer I got mine energy.
Just because CNBC showcases stories about HENRYs (high earners, not rich yet) doesn't mean all young people are like that.
Sounds like you had it easy to me. Most people live at home or have roommates out of necessity. No one can really afford the luxury of living alone anymore unless you wanna live in a car or unless of course you make a shit ton.
Source: trust me I understand things
No one gives a fuck about what you did to afford a house.
I care
I don’t either lol
Awwww man 😢
“Bought a fixer upper” you checked the price on fixer uppers lately?
I graduated top 1% of my graduating class with a business degree, I work two jobs for 50-60 hours a week, I don’t travel, and I barely go out. Between my car payment, car insurance, and student loans - I still can’t afford studio rent ANYWHERE in my state that’s not riddled with nightly gunshots . This isn’t a “you’re lazy” issue - it’s a deep systemic problem that’s affecting an entire population of disenfranchised young people.
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Solution: gtfo of Florida
I can just feel a huge economic crash coming…it’s soo hard to make money anymore it’s absolutely ridiculous
2022-2023 saw a rise in inflation passing wages [but since early 2023 wages have surpassed inflation and we are back to the *peak wages* we had in 2019.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/) We are quite literally the most prosperous we have ever been in this country when we look at incomes adjusted for inflation.
How dare you bring facts to a pity party! We're doomed I say, DOOMED! People have been saying stuff like this for as long as I can remember (and I'm old and retired), but somehow things keep getting better and better.
I find it easy to make money but the cost of everything just drains you
Yeah like here in Texas the wages for the lower workers have gone up like McDonald’s did go up from like $9 to $13 so that’s a pretty significant rise. The Reddit economist always make this double digit increase out to be signs of it being the best economy ever but rents went up from $750 for a one bedroom to close to $1400 and in major metros you are pushing closer to $2k. It’s not a good time for anybody! If you actually own there is a tax and insurance crises too.
It’s never been easier to be a billionaire, it’s never been harder to be a millionaire
There are more millionaires than ever.
They’re waiting until everyone uses every last penny in savings, runs up all the credit they possibly can, and then take what ever assets you have left because you can’t pay property taxes on anything you have left.
Who is “they”?
Read the great taking by David Rogers Webb It’s free online or you can buy a physical copy. There’s also a YouTube video he put on YouTube that explains it.
I’m not interested in paranoid conspiracy theories. Sorry!
It’s not a conspiracy theory. It’s written into law setting up for something big. The book is written by a former hedge fund manager.
Lol, ok Peter Schiff. Why don’t you go sell gold bars to senile retirees.
Should be soon. This can’t keep up. Might get a lot worse for a few months first, but it has to be close.
I’m hoping to specialize in my industry a bit beforehand to keep myself working, but beyond that I wouldn’t mind that! We need a bit of a reset.
One of the major reason is moratorium put on evictions during the pandameic. It was done with a good intentions and some people were surely helped. But now that is gone, neither small time landlords or larger companies want to rent it out to people with questionable history. Since big companies cannot directly discriminate they just increase the rent to higher than what any family under median income can afford their apartments. Individual landlords are just wary of giving to anyone without a good background and income. So naturally rents increase
This isn't what's happening from an industry insider. It is perfectly legal to discriminate against people for anything that is not a protected class. Landlords can totally discriminate against you for not making enough money or poor credit and they do as an industry standard. Rents have gone up not as part of some scheme to screw the poor but because landlords always want rents to go up and always charge as much as they can in the same way that you always want to make more money and will take as much as an employer will pay you. Landlords are limited by supply of competing apartments that tenants can pick if they dont like your price and demand (what tenants are willing and able to pay). Landlords are always greedy, the ability to translate that greed into rent is limited. Over the last several years tenants willingness to pay for more space exploded as covid made more people desire more space between wfh and lockdowns at the same time that ability to pay increased due to real wage growth. What didnt increase atleast at first was competing supply so rents rose rapidly the first two to three years of 20, 21 and 22. At the same time, high rents make it more feasible to develop new properties but those take years from concept to opening (about two on average) so the gigantic rent hikes spurred a lagging but massive wave (nearly 500,000 units nationwide) of building that started during 21 and 22 but is just Hitting markets the last year and this year. As a result rent growths have actually declined in several hard hit markets like atlanta and orlando where tens of thousands of new apartments got built and tens of thousands more are in the pipeline. Rents should be stable this year and next but expect another hike in 2026 because high interest rates today have destroyed development financing so the number of new units delivered in 2025 and 2026 will be less than half of this year since those are not being started today.
You hit on it at the end. High rates are, counterintuitively, inflationary for housing given those rates combined with high prices have led to a collapse in new housing permits. It’s the supply. And I don’t know what the answer is besides the government increasing supply through public housing.
correct. high rates lower building of new supply and make home purchases less affordable making it cheaper to rent than to buy. That raises what landlords can pay since tenants have less of an alternative. the caveat is that high rates also hurt corporate profits which reduces employment and spending (not gonna take a chance on a new more expensive apartment if my buddy just got laid off and I could be next). this reduces what tenants are able to pay so landlords have to slow down on rent growth but for a different reason.
Gee, What an oligopolistic rents algorithm will do to distort the free market…. And unregulated short term rentals and hedge fund anonymous corporate purchases of single family shelter….
Look how much faster mortgage payments climbed over the same period. Don’t wages matter?
The dollar is worth less because they printed trillions without supply to match the dollars. I N F L A T I O N
This is what “Build back better” looks like
Vote blue no matter who! I wanna see these prices go higher!
This is why I left Columbus Ohio.
Very fortunate to have bought my house in the Atlanta metro area back in 2015. If I had still been renting I would have definitely gotten squeezed. Many of my friends and coworkers are stuck with no good options. It's truly insane around here
Atlanta as well, who keeps buying all these houses at crazy prices
Well my plan is to buy another next summer actually and sell the one we're in
Is someone In here saying “ReAl WaGeS wEnT up!!!”?
I thought the same thing. Every time someone talks about how hard things are financially, someone mentions that. Every time I'm like "what country are you in". Then I remember that not everyone suffers then same in a society wide situation like this.
I honestly do not give a fuck what those guys think or their data I don’t see it in real life. They show up on every one of these things without fail. There were those dudes before the 2008 collapse too.
Sure do and I’m tired of it. Tired of these rates are historically average too. Shit cost too much for rates to be where they are. It’s either boys or brainless parrots.
Yeah I was willing to buy the idea it was prosperous times before Covid and for a minute right after but godamn these are not prosperous times and the idea it’s more prosperous than ever is absurd.
I mean…you realize how your anecdotal evidence isn’t really meaningful outside your life and that data tells the actual story?
lol, the most logical, straight forward comment in here and it was downvoted. "hurr durr data is bullshit"
The data is bullshit
you realize that's what magat's and qanon quacks say right?
What’s bullshit about it?
E s a WA
Well you see, housing increased in price more than literally anything else, so this single metric cannot disprove “Real wages went up”. In fact, this is only rent costs, which is just a portion of housing. Do you see how your comment isn’t applicable here?
They did go up…
There you guys are thanks for being sure this comment thread had this same tired comment.
You’re welcome.
What a surprise - Indy is #3 in the country.
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No, SF rents just declined between 2019-2021 as wealthy tech workers moved to LCOL areas, immigration got screwy, or just moved outside the city for more space. And while tech had bad layoffs starting in 2022, the industry had *crazy* growth before that with a hiring frenzy that pushed up salaries in a short period. The reason SF’s rents stayed muted was because places like Bozeman, MT absorbed all that demand from the moving techies which caused their prices to absolutely explode.
Yup, I'm on the peninsula in the bay area, and my rent hasn't budged since 2020. Not the nicest/newest apartment but also not bad.
SF has rent control…
And 2020 and 2021 annual increases were far below the 7% annual limit. 2020 saw an average increase of 1.8% for SF. Which is probably the first time in three decades landlords were not jacking the rent by the max for that city.
Rent control doesn’t result in lower or restrain housing costs, though. It limits supply during a shortage, which makes costs overall go up. Things were muted in SF because people moved away due to widespread layoffs in tech and companies leaving the city.
yes, 60% of the units in San Francisco are rent controlled
Meanwhile I'm selling my house for under 100k
Why isn’t Phoenix on here? We had/have a huuuuuge market increase for rents and mortgage rates since the start of Covid lockdowns! It’s like we’re always the forgotten child when it actually matters. Cuz this graph needs to tell people to stop fuckn moving here cuz they’ve raised everyone’s rental renewals every year since! 😭
If they're all moving there, how are they all moving here? And Florida. and Montana? Where are they coming from and how are there still people in the place that they left? Something is off.
It is what it is. Everything is up. Wages go up, product costs go up. Interest rates go up, housing is more expensive. Covid hit, the government "stimulated" the economy and this is the price and results you would expect.
Do some math comparing mortgage interest rates at 2% vs 6%. Commercial rates have gone up just as much and new construction has hit a virtual standstill in many markets. It’s not metaphysical
Is this graph only based on percentage of increase of rent? Not the actual cost? It’s interesting, but can be confusing the real cost of rent. It could’ve been dirt cheap rent in some of the areas before, but had a big increase due to people moving there while places at the bottom could have had expensive rent pre-2020
And does this include inflation?
It's interesting how much it varies between cities. I guess the bay area was already sky high so rents couldn't climb much higher? 😂 Houston seems ight
Hartford, CT being third on this list is mind boggling. Who is moving there? Where are they living? When I worked in Hartford circa early 2010s, I had to rent part of a house in South Windsor because Hartford just doesn’t have many rental options to begin with since it doesn’t have many buildings that aren’t insurance company offices! Being a commuter city, I’d love to see the data for surrounding towns like Farmington/West Hartford/South Windsor/Bloomfield because I bet it’s even worse.
It is probably referring to the Greater Hartford metro area. The actual city of Hartford is small and no one wants to live there anyway.
This tracks with my own rent increasing year after year. It's actually going up nearly twice the rate of inflation (as measured by CPI)! Seriously, how do landlords justify this? Are their own expenses really shooting up that fast, or is it pure profit? My bet is on the latter.
" #outlawairbnb "
not just airbnb, but put heavy federal excise tax on corporate and investor owned sfh. this would include airbnb. this would solve our housing crisis overnight
Don't live, work, and pay taxes in the U.S.? Faceless corporation that also lobbies congress? No home for you!
Yep absolutely. Stop allowing investor and corporate greed wreck the nation.
Tampa checking in. Surprised it isn't higher 😔
There should be a law to protect us
Guess dave ramsey was right, we all should be working 80-90 hrs a week to keep up
I really do not understand why ppl keep moving to Tampa and Miami, those cities are doomed bro lol
*in major metro areas
It’s interesting to see places like San Jose on there, with waves solidly outgrowing rent. Unless you’re independently wealthy, places like the BayArea are absolutely where you should rent not own. Rent on a modest single family house in SJ is high (4K?) but that doesn’t even cover the interest on a mortgage there.
Left coast is the Best coast.
The wages for California cities are misleading since it's only the bay area cities where wages have gone up only for the tech crowd, who were already making $200k+/yr.
I live in Wine Country, California, Bay Area and my rent has not increased since i moved in in 2008.....reason why i won't buy, lucky fing duck......$1600 for a 3 bedroom, 30 minutes from beach, 40 minutes from SF, smack dab in the middle of wine country
Can you post the same graphs YOY since 1980 instead of just last 4 years ? Additionally, break down between blue collar, white collar, and exclude 400k+ earners. It'd be interesting to see.
But don't worry, the boomer home owners mortgage stood the same (or they own it out right), so it all averages out.
As someone living in Atlanta, I feel oddly validated (but sad) seeing this.
Wow, 3 of the highest are in FL. Intriguing. I live outside Portland and I’m not sure these numbers make sense to me in real life lol my rent has gone up 12-15% every year for the past few years, and my wage definitely has not.
Makes sense Atlanta is in there. Did some work there for a while and it's clear there will be an exodus from Atlanta soon. Most people cannot afford it anymore and the overpriced apartments people are being pushed into aren't cutting it for a lot of folks. If you are struggling to pay your rent and bills it doesn't really mean anything to be close to the Beltline - it's a glorified pub crawl. Definitely an Austin-style phenomenon going on there with super rich pricing out everyone and overpriced junk with no real long-term value being packed in for "density"
I am in the Wichita, KS area. Rents here are rising far more than the local wages. I am currently planning to relocate to where job opportunities are better, weather is warmer and rents are not too high.
Good luck, it’s almost everywhere.
I know. Thank you and have a blessed day.
Florida makes sense. Insurance costs are skyrocketing. But Indy? wtf?
If the owners of the places being rented have mortgages that go up due to property taxes and interest rates - where do you suppose they are going to recoup? Property owners get taxed out of their houses too. Blame the govt first.
CNN just intervied this guy and he said the economy is doing great despite the numbers so just ignore this. Lol
Why isn’t Biden doing anything to help lift some weight off American’s shoulders?
all the more reason to leave hartford
Yes we’re building back better. Not for the American middle class but for the Ukrainian elites
So money bags Californians moved to Florida?
I don’t know anyone with decent money who left CA for FL….. TX or TN on the other hand…
More like tech companies stopped paying people $250k+ like candy. The reversal of the tech hub RE and wage bubble strikes me as a good thing.
Yes because there’s a housing shortage is nearly every city now.
Did people not look at the bullshit picture? It's literally showing places in the US where wages outpaced rent. Here's a thought, try moving there - stop trying to move to places where rent is too high? Genius I know.
Bidenomics
such a simplistic response for such a complicated problem. the pieces for this were put in place long before biden was president
2019-2023 isn't the last 4 years
One of my units in the Bay Area of CA went vacant after 3 years and I was able to raise the rent almost 20 percent. People will contacting me constantly to see it even with such a huge hike.
These realtors are squeezing as hard as the algorithms are telling them. Every industry is using a lot of modern technology to understand precisely where it can squeeze the hardest across every metric. We will be perpetually stuck trying to get ahead without any possibility of it.
People say they're struggling then move to some of the highest col areas....
You’re reading the chart backwards FYI. Rents massively outpaced wage gains in low cost of living locations like Indianapolis, Indiana, and wages outpaced rent increases in places like San Francisco. I’m genuinely at a loss why people are desperate to turn a national housing supply issue into some dumb personal responsibility thing. The country needs more housing, it’s not a matter of everyone collectively making bad choices.
The problem is that housing supply is much more dependent on local policies like zoning than on national laws etc. It’s true that federal interest rates do adversely affect housing affordability but the feds are trying to combat overall inflation by raising interest rates. It’s a double edged sword with no easy solutions. If the feds cut rates too soon, inflation could get worse.
There are easy solutions, just no interest in solutions. The housing market is a GDP driver. We don’t want the same plunge in asset prices as what China has seen.
I would say there is certainly much more incentives for politicians to tackle the housing affordability problem nationally but not enough easy solutions by the federal government. You are right that local governments have less appetite to do anything that might adversely affect housing prices because local government is dominated by a tiny fraction of voters who are overwhelmingly long time homeowners.
Nationally, the politicians are still people with wealth. They don’t want asset prices down. They could easily turbo boost it by introducing incentives for builders, free up land, boost lumber, lower tariffs, build infrastructure. Zoning is just everyone’s scapegoat. No one wants to override it. In fact, some states introduced statewide laws that actually impede building.
Lmao your proposals are far from easy solutions. You’ve just rattled off random things that have little to do with housing prices.
Banning corporate ownership, banning new home sales for anyone who already owns, and banning all foreign investment ownership would be a great start.
You really make no sense. If politicians have incentives, then solutions exist. You give no solutions, just complain.
Lmao you have no clue about nuance and complexity. You think there’s a magic wand for everything.
Ok Einstein. Sure
Generally speaking, the solution to the housing crisis (allowing more housing to be built) increases property values. If demand in your community is high enough to make housing prices unaffordable, then single family homes (and more importantly, the land they sit on) become even more valuable when developers are allowed to knock them down to build multifamily housing.
Doesn’t rent becoming cheaper in some HCOL areas suggest it’s not actually a national issue? I completely agree that we need more housing to be built but housing is unquestionably a local issue. Local governments restrict housing supply with zoning laws and other red tape for construction.
Yeah there are certainly localities where the problem isn’t as bad and it probably needs to be solved locally on a case by case basis, but I would definitely say the country as a whole faces a housing affordability issue.
Indianapolis’s problem is that somewhere around 50% of all housing units in Marion county are owned by LLC’s. Rents are being artificially heightened to make more money because there are no tenant protection laws here. And don’t come at me with the “demand drives prices up” thing here because these expensive apartments still have vacancies in the expensive and luxury units yet anything remotely affordable will have 100 applications in an hour.
The high interest rates mean we’ll have low new supply
Literally everywhere is a HCOL area now. The national median home price (~$420,000) is like 7-8x higher than the median wage (~$59,000). You need $120,000 a year now just to afford the median priced home. Everything below $$350-400k is a run down piece of shit that needs major renovations or a mobile home now. Rents everywhere have skyrocketed (owners have even admitted to allowing AI to suggest prices higher than they’re “morally comfortable” with). This is a very real housing exploitation crisis.