New Census Interpretation

[Les]

Besides the weather people move to Florida because we have no state income tax, and never will.

 

[Johnny O]

My family is actually from western PA and my parents moved to Atlanta in the 80s because there weren't jobs there.

That's why my siggy is what it is. There are still jobs here, and many that pay well, but require advanced schooling, training, or whatever. But it's not like it was 40 years ago when anyone could have a decent-paying middle-class lifestyle job.



At the moment we've survived the downturn better than a lot of places but mainly because our economy was never up much in the first place. Been in a recession here since 1980. Actually our cost of living is pretty low compared with many places and the last time I looked for a job in Florida (20 years ago) I found they paid less there than I made here and housing cost a lot more. The fact that there are less people here every year and not more tends to keep a lid on housing prices.



My daughter is a senior in high school and will attend a nearby college. Somewhere between five and ten years out I plan on moving to Florida and not looking back. I just really don't like being cold any more. Florida's economy is worse than ours right now but it'll bounce back sooner too.

 

[Tom Schindler]

Besides the weather people move to Florida because we have no state income tax, and never will.

Never say never.





Tom

 

[Johnny O]

Back in September I had a day-long visit from my new Company HQ Support Person (I own two franchises of a nationally known company). I get the usual drill about how when he ran company branch offices how well things ran and the big numbers he put up, blah, blah, blah. I pull up a website with demographic information that I keep handy to illustrate the LOSS in population and jobs we've had in my county over the last 30 years, over 25%, and he was utterly dumbfounded and the look on his face was priceless. Dude has spent his career with the company managing branch offices in the Baltimore and D.C. area where biz is fantastic thanks to the growth of the Federal govt. Now he's in charge of a region that includes western PA, OH, and MI. Welcome to the Rust Belt, mother******. You thought that promotion that was going to make you look good, our numbers suck because we're lazy, and you were going to whip us into shape, huh? Suckerrrr....