And this is why game companies get away with paying so little. I didn’t check, but if that job is in California. The pay is crazy low, and to be honest even where I live in Virginia that’s low. But from what I’ve read about Blizzard’s pay practices, $16 an hour makes sense for them. They are notorious for being low on the pay scale in the indrustry.
1 Like
People accept the pay, benefits, and package that they think they are worth.
That’s the first thing I thought about. There’s no way, at all, you’re getting an apartment in the Anaheim/Irvine/LA area (or many other places) at that price. $16/hr is not remotely close to a living wage for that area.
1 Like
the answer is not so simple . is this a part time job for some extra income , low stress working from home ? then why not . Is this for main income , you have to work 12 hours in California and full of stress ? then no
1 Like
That’s absurd. I live in a place with lower costs of living and McDonald’s and most places offer more than $16/hr let alone someplace Californian based with a much hight cost of living.
That’s an insulting wage. Entry level tech here starts at ~$25/hr
1 Like
Even outside the gaming industry QA isn’t a respected career by other technology careers. Not everywhere, but it’s a thing. I disagree with it.
$16 for QA is low even with that in mind.
Just wow. If you don’t take QA seriously, quality definitely suffers.
1 Like
I’m 34 so I’m not a boomer by definition, but I don’t disagree that I’m old school in my mentality. I simply don’t agree that inflation is what drives the issue, it ain’t because eggs or meat prices are expensive.
I joined the work force 14 years ago at a whopping $13.50 an hour and did fine. I make a lot more than I did then, but I made it work. When I moved to a bigger city I was bringing in less than $20 an hour for the first few years and still made it work. Of course eventually I got a roommate because it was tight.
I will say when we talk about jobs that have crazy job requirements and the pay is absolute butt that is insane. If you are making crap wages it should be because the work is basically not demanding and anyone can do it if they want to.
As far as whether $16 is livable or not it ultimately boils down to how many hours you can put into it. As I said earlier if you sign yourself up for a low bar job with bad pay and expect to be able to live comfortably off it with a good retirement plan, benefits, etc you are simply being naive about reality.
That article ypu reference says the average loan length is 67.57 months with an 11.35% interest rate. That’s over a 5 year loan meaning the cost of the car ran 36 grand. Having a car payment may not be avoidable if you’re broke and barely making ends meet, but you don’t have any business signing up for something like this.
Laughable that you try to argue I’m channeling boomer energy when you try to throw this crap at me. If anyone making $16 an hour signs up for this kind of crap they are financially illiterate, plain and simple. Which is what I said earlier; some people have car loans higher than their salaries and “can’t sell it because the car is worth less than the loan”
Oh and by the way this is almost assuredly wrong for someone making $16 an hour because their tax bracket is very low, basically just below 12%.
Assuming losing 25-30% from taxes and then other benefits to get you down to 2/3rds is good napkin math for most people, but not when you are making $16 an hour. I’d have to read up, but when my wife and I were dating she started at like $11 before working up to $16 and now makes mid 20s. I want to say she was seeing just under 80%, like 75-77%.
all for classic
You get paid more to flip burgers at In-N-Out.
no, they accept what they can get. that whole “needing food and a place to live” thing makes it a bit more urgent than just holding out indefinitely until you find a job that pays you exactly what you think you deserve.
Oh wow. That sounds like hell
If they feel they would do better elsewhere and live a better life then it might be time to buy some moving boxes.
that’s true. i do always forget that moving is free and it’s easy to find a job in a place you don’t live yet and there’s no value in having friends or family near you.
4 Likes
But not in the specific example this thread is about. $16/hr in Southern California is not livable under any circumstances. Last I saw, the average wage to be “comfortable” in that area was $54/hr. ($112k/yr).
That’s just comfortable, mind you. Not living in luxury.
As long as you don’t need quality healthcare or a safety net for retirement, that $16 is considered middle class in many republican run states where the minimum wage is $7.25 an hour for nearly two decades.
What states, specifically?
Ask chatGPT to list you the minimum wage for every state and find out. Not gonna list them all here…
Or use Microsoft co-pilot for same results.
It’s a fair argument, I did a quick google, but yeah no one should be buying a car worth more than their salary.
Let’s find something more reasonable.
Maybe this. It’s a honda, reliable, very used. https://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/dfb4b8a4-956d-4b0f-9b94-9cafe6bb54ee/
They’re showing $266/month with a very generous 7% interest rate for anyone making that amount of money with limited credit history. Cause we’re being cautious, right.
Federal Income Tax: 12%
Social Security Tax: 6.2% (Doubles if self employed or 1090 employee instead of W-2)
Medicare: 1.45%
State Income Tax (Ohio): 2.75%
Columbus City Tax: 2.5%
Before benefits you’re paying 24.9% in taxes if you live in Columbus. Again, a very generic, boring city.
So let’s go through benefits. Let’s assume an individual.
- Medical
- Dental
- Vision
- Life
- 401K
401K let’s go with 4%, so that’s now 28.9%. or 23,662 after taxes/401k right. Benefit’s we can pretend they work in healthcare and say $80/month in the medical/dental/vision/life which is $960/year leaving you at $22,702. My napkin math 2/3 was only $400 off.
So let’s make a budget for this person. I even looked up 1 bedroom apartments in Columbus and I am going to work on the assumption they don’t want shanked outside their apartment.
Monthly Net: $1891
Rent for a 1 bedroom, 700 Aq Ft Apt: $900 (but more likely to be closer to $1100)
Rental Insurance: $12
Utilities: $200
Car Payment: $266
Car Insurance: $100
Food: $275 (according to USA Today) - That is $9/day which is conservative.
Cell Phone: $15/month (apparently on Mint)
Internet: $40
Remainder before car gas and other expenses: $173
Super, what a great life that is. Hope they like ramen noodles and well, doing nothing.
doubtful microsoft/activision had a return to office push
Why do you need a car payment and insurance? Nowadays you can get far on a good electric mountain bike that costs about $700
If you need to travel far (beyond 20 miles), just rent a car. Maybe once a month or every other month if you have some strange doctor you need to visit that isn’t local.