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Subject:Re: I'm taking my marbles and going home... From:<cheek1 -at- sbcglobal -dot- net> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 13 Aug 2002 11:31:44 -0700
I wanted to echo John Gilger's comments:
$20/hr brings in about $2700/month after taxes and cheapest insurance. I
have worked in Silicon Valley for eleven years. I have a $2000/month
mortgage for a smallish house with a 60 mile commute (this is normal for
this area). Since gas and electricity are furnished by PG&E, these run in
the neighborhood of $200/month. Gas for my commute costs at least
$100/month, etc. If you own a house in most regions of California where
there is work, $20/hr will not allow you to keep that house. Sadly, $20 to
$40/hr is now the going rate for most Tech Writing contracts here. The
solution, of course, is to be a dual-income family with roughly $1500/month
in childcare expenses.
I used to comment that it was the dot-com millionaires who were ruining
everything for the rest of us. Now most of them are broke as well, and I
have to look for another handy candidate to blame. How about Enron? Anybody
wanna blame Enron for all our problems?
> It depends where you live. I've lived in some areas where
> $40K would buy a nice home and feed a family with money
> left over. However, if you are talking Silicon Valley or
> Seattle (and Diane was, IIRC) $40K is less than a pittance.
> You can't live on it, let alone support a family.
> John Gilger
> Senior Technical Writer
> Acres Gaming, Inc.
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