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On a scale of 1-5 how bad are things in your area?

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?

  • 1. Not bad at all

  • 2. Things seem about the same or improving

  • 3. Not bad nor good

  • 4. Pretty bad

  • 5. Its bad and getting worse

Results are only viewable after voting.
Unemployment is high here in the south, but most of the people on it are just too lazy to even try anymore, it's sad really. I've been working my ass off at the same job for 3 years and each year we have a "raise freeze". I work for a municipality in which our city is the main distributor of water, so i know we have the money. Cost of living rises and we stay at the same pay year after year. I'm fine considering i was raised to make something out of nothing but i can't speak for anyone but myself. Overall i would rate south carolina a solid 3.5 if the scale is 1 being good and 5 being bad.
 
ProchargeMe said:
Unemployment is high here in the south, but most of the people on it are just too lazy to even try anymore, it's sad really. I've been working my ass off at the same job for 3 years and each year we have a "raise freeze". I work for a municipality in which our city is the main distributor of water, so i know we have the money. Cost of living rises and we stay at the same pay year after year. I'm fine considering i was raised to make something out of nothing but i can't speak for anyone but myself. Overall i would rate south carolina a solid 3.5 if the scale is 1 being good and 5 being bad.
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hah, cost of living. A exec for us recently said: "we don't pay cost of living, we pay cost of labor, labor costs are going down." My rebuttal? You get what you pay for.
 
MeowKat said:
Not everyone can run away from their problems or close their eyes to the things that go on to the people around them.
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That's true. It's not like you're shopping at Walmart and Dollar store out of choice. Being poor does limit your option.
 
ponyo said:
That's true. It's not like you're shopping at Walmart and Dollar store out of choice. Being poor does limit your option.
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Of course I am shopping at those places out of choice! Walmart has a large selection of well priced items and most stores are conveniently located. Its hard to beat that combination as most retailers have discovered.

As far as DG goes, I have sweet tooth that needs regular satisfaction and they have one of the best, low cost candy aisles around! Not to mention, you do find a lot of bargains there. About 10 years ago I would have never shopped in a dollar store but one day strolled in on a whim and was amazed. I have been a fan ever since! 🙂
 
Based on the commute traffic, the unemployment problems of ~2008 are gone, replaced with the problem of it taking me longer to get to work. 😡

Housing has been shooting up in price again.

Don't know anyone unemployed. Know lots of people that have recently jumped jobs for higher pay/more interesting work. See lots of want ads in my field.
 
We had no housing bubble therefore no housing collapse. Home ownership is very cheap here for a big city.

But the problem is (and I'm sure it's not unique to this area) the good-paying manufacturing jobs are dwindling. So there is a big hole in the middle of the labor market. Lots of high-paying jobs, lots of low-paying jobs. Not so many $20/hour jobs. We have lots of health-care and university employers which don't seem to be affected by the economy, quite a few startups and high tech firms (even a Google office). We have lost the manufacturers with 50 employees that paid well.

The manufacturing jobs that allowed one worker to support a family are disappearing. First the steel mills, now the machine shops and the like. The day will come when people realize buying cheap stuff from China isn't actually a good value but by then we will have lost the ability to do it ourselves.

On balance, this area is a 3.
 
Vdubchaos said:
CT didn't get hit too bad. Houses went down good 25-30% and 40-50% in some areas.

I voted 3.
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I disagree and voted 4 because of;

-The news from Connecticut's economy got a little gloomier Monday.
The state Department of Labor reported that the unemployment rate rose to 9 percent in October, up from 8.5 percent a year ago, and that a survey of employers showed a net gain of fewer than 1,500 jobs this year.

-Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s budget director confirmed on Tuesday that the budget deficit has swelled to $365 million. That’s six times the size of the deficit state Comptroller Kevin Lembo certified on Nov. 1 .

-Facing a bleak financial picture this year and for years to come, the Malloy administration announced $170 million in immediate budget cuts Wednesday afternoon, slashing spending across state government.

-Yet another 10 percent increase in the next year's budget for the region's electric grid.
 
Vdubchaos said:
CT didn't get hit too bad. Houses went down good 25-30% and 40-50% in some areas.

I voted 3.
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I'm in CT and voted 4. I happen to live in one of the areas that went down 40-50%, and there are NO decent technology jobs in my area. I'd probably need to drive to Hartford or Bridgeport to find a new IT job if I wanted one.
 
iRONic said:
I disagree and voted 4 because of;

-The news from Connecticut's economy got a little gloomier Monday.
The state Department of Labor reported that the unemployment rate rose to 9 percent in October, up from 8.5 percent a year ago, and that a survey of employers showed a net gain of fewer than 1,500 jobs this year.

-Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s budget director confirmed on Tuesday that the budget deficit has swelled to $365 million. That’s six times the size of the deficit state Comptroller Kevin Lembo certified on Nov. 1 .

-Facing a bleak financial picture this year and for years to come, the Malloy administration announced $170 million in immediate budget cuts Wednesday afternoon, slashing spending across state government.

-Yet another 10 percent increase in the next year's budget for the region's electric grid.
Click to expand...
lol "swelled to $365" nevermind it was $3.5B+ under Republican governors for the last 20 years... $365M is nothing these days.
 
I voted 4 because even though Chattanooga has better unemployment than the nation and our overall employment is back to 2007 numbers, I know lots of people who are on reduced hours/salary or who have lost benefits (oddly enough, none of these are government workers), and a lot whose kids have moved back home. For one neighbor all three twenty-something sons moved back home! Merchants are hurting. On the other hand, Publix, a high end grocery chain, and Kohl's and Belk have all either opened new stores or remodeled during this recession. We have however lost a bunch of grocery stores (aggravated by competition from Walmart, Sam's, Costco and Target) and a Books-A-Million, among others. I know a couple people who have literally become child ranchers, taking in foster children. (Isn't it a bit odd to give a foster child to an unemployed couple?) And there are certainly a lot more panhandlers.
 
The Florida economy was hit hard by the recession (4th largest GDP in the US). When the real estate bubble collapsed, the construction sector took massive losses. We also have major financial companies with regional headquarters here, and with the banking/financial sector having taken a hit worldwide, we've also experienced losses there too.

Things are slowly starting to improve, however. The housing market is starting to slowly recover, which drives additional construction jobs, as well as all the consumer products inside a house that are bought during the lifetime of ownership. It'll take a few more years.
 
Based on the houses that have been built/purchased in the last year and increased traffic heading towards Houston at 5:00am I will say things are not bad at all.
 
I live in an agricultural area thats been fighting with water problems for many years now. Unemployment is high, well above the national average.
 
Well, it also depends on your deception of "BAD"... Does owning your home, having a roof over your head, and food in the fridge and enough money in the bank to keep you going for the next three + years count as good?

In the past 2 years, I purchased a lot in Hawaii, I improved the lot, bought the material to build a home. Put in water meter / power and built a small 600Sqft home for me and my g/f. My G/F is going to University of Hawaii. I do have a small Toyota Echo that gets 44MPG, But we prefer to take the bus unless we are going to the beach/pool or shopping for food mostly farmers market. I registered for a few classes myself I'm not working but looking at working again soon hopefully doing something with technology.

So I choose #2 Just because I am relatively happy and it's 82 degrees here right now. 🙂 Time to head to the beach! Gotta go!
 
Depends who in my area you ask. Not very many good jobs, most jobs in my area are retail or restaurant, my god we have a lot of stores and restaurants for no bigger than it is. Like i'm talking a town of 60k people and we have 2 walmarts, 5 Pizza king's just to example...kinda silly. well that explains all the fat people I suppose
 
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