casa_mugrienta said:
And pensions? On the East Coast, from what I understand, are even crazier. NYC bus drivers retire and develop small real estate empires, etc.
My Dad worked for the NYC Transit Authority for 35 years, and then did some commercial driving, principally cement mixers, for 13 years in Florida.
His pension from the cement mixer more or less pays the taxes on his NYCTA pension + Social Security. I am under the impression the combo of all of that is around $50k
I don't buy this develop small real estate empires thing, per se, at least not anymore. My Dad knew lots of people who had a grandparent somewhere in the 5 boroughs, and that's where they claimed city residency, but they actually lived in Rockland County, aka BFE relative to NYC.
So I flatly reject they were doing this in the Tri State area.
But Florida, 20-30+ years ago?
I could see it. Real Estate is still pretty cheap and when we moved in the 1980s, it was basically free. My mom had a good job working in a large pharma's auditing department after going to Deloitte out of college. My Dad dropped out in the 8th grade so he was at ground zero. We lived in a shitbox house in far Northwest Passaic County, New Jersey, and when we had the house under radon testing before we moved out, we had all the doors and windows open, at elevation, in North Jersey, after Christmas.
But with Dad cleaning pools and mom with an accounting job, plus NJ housing vs FL (30 years ago) housing, we could afford a house on the barrier island, and while that's easy in North Florida, it's not anymore on that income where this was.
Currently, 32963,median household income is 117, average household income is 175, per capita 90, median home 658, average home, 944.
So I would say that while NYC bus drivers could do that in Florida 30+ years ago, that had more to do with anyone who had a pot to **** in and a window to throw it out of in the Tri State area immediately became Florida-rich when they sold a pile of burnt bricks in Mott Haven and drove on down, than it did with earning riches driving NYC buses.