Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Texas the Best State to Start a Career, California the Worst
WalletHub recently did a study showing graduating college students the 10 best and 10 worst places to start a career. To create the lists, the financial site reviewed the number of entry-level jobs, median starting salary, and housing affordability, then tossed it to their roomful of abacus jockeys to add up the results.
First for the best cities: Unsurprisingly, four of the top 10 are located in Texas, and nine are west of the Mississippi. Salt Lake City took the top spot.
The worst cities were also obvious. Four of the bottom 10 are in the once-golden state of California, while five of the remainder are east of the Mississippi. The worst of the worst is Mobile, AL.
Other findings were also interesting. Houston and Austin have the highest starting salary and lowest unemployment, respectively. And showing the severe divide between rich and poor Californians, Irvine has the highest percentage of residents with at least a bachelor’s degree, while San Bernardino has the lowest.
Despite California’s outlier status, if you know a recent graduate, tell them to “Go west, young man/woman/undecided!”
Published in Culture
Interesting survey, but the information for Houston is stale. They are having a very rough time with the energy down turn.
This survey is completely worthless. It depends on your occupation at what the best cities are. For example Orlando is 37th but if you are in finance/accounting, or hospitality it is in the top 10. You really need to know what cities are good to start in for a given career to actually make any decisions.
Well it is from WalletHub, one of the bains of my existence.
I imagine if you’re a top graduate in computer science, San Francisco is a pretty good place to start your career.
Brent- Off-topic, but Texas’ current economic difficulties offer an argument against socialism. In socialist economies like Venezuela or Brazil, where gov’t controls resources like oil, the WSJ noted recently that the result is an economy whose ups and downs are dependent on the price of commodities like oil; whereas in the US private corporations own the oil and can use its profits to create new businesses and to thereby diversify the economy, making it less resource-dependent. And if lefties offer the counter-argument that they only favor socialism in the form of gov’t distributing goodies like free college, point out that the high taxes required result in severe cuts in investment that creates jobs, especially higher-paying ones, causing largely the same result as an actual gov’t takeover of resources and businesses.
Why I don’t know about them. What is so bad about them?
Usually usually just a bunch of random statistics put together without much thought, or consistency. Next time California will be the best place to do something or other.
I can vouch for Minneapolis as the Twin Cities are virtually at full employment right now. Wages are high and there is a good cross section of verticals including manufacturing, retail, medical and technology.
Unfortunately our state is run by socialists and taxes are high but if you can deal with that it’s not a bad place to live.
How is Mobile worse than Philly?
Yes, but if I were a college freshman, sophomore, or even a junior thinking of starting my career in Houston, I would not be too concerned. Oil prices are cyclical and are showing signs of recovery. They are likely to be back to healthy levels by year-end 2017.
Indeed.
Lefties are not imaginative enough to understand that the economic dynamism that comes from private exploitation of oil and gas benefits everyone, to a greater and healthier extent than direct “sharing” of the oil wealth. Such “sharing” in countries where the government controls the reserves tends to be inequitable, corrupting, and destructive.
Look at Venezuela. As Andrew Klavan noted on his podcast, medicine and basic goods are becoming more and more scarce. Meanwhile, Hugo Chavez’s daughter is the wealthiest woman in the country. Gee, I wonder how that happened!
Mexico has realized the error of its ways and is redefining its reserves and oil industry.
Surf?
I’m pretty sure that the surfing in CA is better than in TX. I’ve also been told that the average annual temperature in San Diego and Omaha are the same. But if you don’t consider the variance about the mean, you might get the wrong idea about how to dress in January.
California is certainly one of the worst states to start or run an established business in the sense of regulations and taxes.
Despite itself, CA attracts tourists from all the country and the globe like nothing I’ve seen since I lived in NYC. Don’t tell Jerry Brown, but we’ve been perfectly happy to operate there and live elsewhere!
You wouldn’t believe the web site destinations from visitors who have visited my brick and mortars- from New Zealand to the British Isles.