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You will certainly make more living in and around LA. You will also likely spend most of just to keep your chin above water. Factor in the stress of the traffic, lack of parking in most places, crime (wondering if your care will even be there when you return), over crowding, over development and people behaving poorly in general. I have a lot of friends who left for those reasons. None have returned.
Hence my mention of the quality of life. For some people, it will be worth the reduction in wages. But while Boise is cheaper in general, not everything will be cheap compared to L.A. or any other big city. I don't think the wages in Boise take into account that discrepancy. L.A. can be unforgiving, but a LOT of people live paycheck to paycheck in Boise too. There was a piece about that in the Statesman or maybe KTVB within the past year or so. Wish I could remember specifics but I remember my jaw dropping when I saw the percentage.
I posted this last week in another thread that has since been closed lol. It is fitting for this thread and has numbers of ins and outs for surrounding states:
... and a youth movement
But Californians 21 to 30 made up the largest block coming to Idaho, with 2,195 in 2014 and at least 1,734 in each of the past five years.
I have several younger professional friends who have moved to Boise with great career jobs already in tact and most are from California and they always mention how life is just so much easier here, even though they make less than they did in CA, but they make more than a living wage in Boise. Will they all stay as time marches on? Depends on where the journey of life takes them.
Kind of off topic, but I know from personal experience that the wages for jobs in Oregon and Utah are similar to what is offered in Boise based on my type of career. Many people move to Portland for the lifestyle but the situation is somewhat similar to Boise, both are vibrant and beautiful cities, but it can be difficult to land that perfect job unless you already have it secured before moving, or have the "in".
On that topic, a friend of mine moved from Boston to Portland,OR a few years ago with no job for the lifestyle etc. Ran through his savings in a year of looking for work and ended up taking a job in LA
It helps to study the Boise economy and what drives it.
For some professions, Boise is ripe; for others, it is void of opportunity. Other sectors, in particular real estate/development/construction, can go from blazing hot to thousands upon thousands being laid off / unemployed (see, 2008). The same thing with tech and IT (see the 20,000 layoffs from HP, Micron, MPC, et al, from 2007-2010).
If you're in health care, you'll probably find a great job here. IT seems to be hit and miss. Entrepreneurs find it easy to start up and roll in Boise. However, if you're in education, don't expect to find much in the way of work, and if you do, say hello to a $32,000 a year paycheck. Government and professional, very competitive and you need to know someone.
Otherwise, there's lots of service, retail, and call center jobs here!
That sort of question, you'd probably do best to actually reach out to some people in that market and ask them. My non-professional opinion, based on only some friends who kinda do that sort of work, is that they do it on the side while they have other more regular employment. Most never quite establish their business or have enough clients to do it full time.
For instance, our firm has gone through over 10 social marketing companies in the past 4-5 years, none of which still exist today. We don't have much work for them, maybe a refresher every year or so, and some of the smaller guys offer better rates (especially when we can exchange services). But none stick around long enough for a second job.
You can hope all you want. The more people that move here, and that continue to move and live on the peripheries, and you'll get the same congestion that EVERY other large city in the nation has. Only here it will likely be worse, because we don't even have the beginnings of a workable public transit system.
There's nothing, I repeat, NOTHING special about Boise and Idaho that will prevent the things that have happened (or is happening) in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Colorado, and the SLC metro area, from happening here in due time.
In the next 5-10 years, you'll see the cost of housing start to dramatically outpace the wages. It was happening in 2001-2008 before the recession, and you're starting to see it happen now.
Congestion will outpace construction.
Crime will follow growth.
I'm not saying anyone is a bad person because they're escaping these things and, as a result, bringing it to the places they're moving. It's a phenomenon far larger than any individual. But the attitude some have (not you) that it isn't going to happen here because.... __________? is simply insane.
I am curious, have you ever lived outside of ID? If so, where?
Likewise, most of my generation here in Boise subsequently moved from here to the coastal cities in search of decent careers and pay. None have returned.
Idaho loses a number of people each year that move to other states in search of better professional opportunities. You can't eat the scenery and quality of life.
In my experience, so far, a *large* portion of those relocating from CA (higher wages, and with that, higher cost of living) are retirees.
For most of those retirees, income stays the same, regardless of where they chose to live, but the CoL is MUCH lower here vs. there.
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