For the San Antonio area, 46% of households — more than 240,000 households — can't afford the essentials such as housing, child care, food, transportation, health care and a basic smartphone plan.
This data from ALICE, which stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. It's a stubborn number that hasn't budged in over a decade. About half the city really struggles to make ends meet.
If you go by the federal poverty rate, the rate is 14%, which is about average for the US.
I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard raising a family on $68K here. I think it would be challenging, especially factoring in childcare, but the ALICE budget gives you $819/month for transportation. This seems excessive given you can get a $10k used car for about $228/month (I think). The pickings aren't amazing at that level, but I regularly drive a car that would currently be valued around $6-8k. It's safe and reliable. I haven't broken down other parts of the budget.
Statewide, the percent above ALICE threshold matches exactly that of California, at 57%, although there are slightly more in poverty (lower threshold than ALICE) in Texas: https://www.unitedforalice.org/national-overview
Is there data on what % of those are single earner households?
Does the $228/month number include maintenance + fuel or is it just financing/depreciation?
It seems better to bring up the state as a whole. 12.2% of Californians are living in poverty and 14% of Texans are.
If a few cities are having issues it seems like there are issues in those cities, not necessarily the state. That is not to say the state can't do anything to help, but if other cities are not experiencing those same issues then it seems like it is a different issue going on.
I will point out that Texas has one of the country's HIGHEST unemployment rates:
https://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm
Only 5 states have higher unemployment.
It's 2023, I don't think COVID is relevant to any business decision anymore.
If we are going to make up hypotheses on what drives employers to relocate to Texas, I will submit the idea that Texas' poor workers' rights are attractive to business owners: https://www.keranews.org/news/2022-09-13/texas-is-one-of-the...
I find that hard to believe.
You'd have to dig into the state by state presentations on unemployment to get a proper picture and comparison. It's quite a time consuming task.
I don’t mean it’ll become Detroit —a one trick pony, and collapse but it could mimic 1980s NYC when biz moved across the river.
Dallas and Houston have higher total violent crime rates than Los Angeles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
Speaking of regulation, could it be that businesses prefer Texas due to poor workers' rights? https://www.keranews.org/news/2022-09-13/texas-is-one-of-the...
I'm also unsure what California business climate is stifling businesses there, considering it is the #1 GDP economy in the country, 5th highest state in GDP per capita, and only 5 or 6 entire countries in the world have larger economies. Is there a specific regulation that is stopping your business idea from working in California?
Hell, Texas and Oregon are basically the same state once you leave the big cities. Oregon has more trees and mountains though!
just the political atmosphere? or something more specific?
also what part of texas, one of the big cities? a suburban city? rural?
One of the things I worried about when I moved out of Texas was leaving such a strong and diversified economy… but after Covid and the normalization of remote work, this is thankfully less of an issue now. I hope remote work is here to stay. It helps prevent the centralization of labor around existing cities and lets the wealth of society spread more uniformly throughout the country.
> All U.S. employers must properly complete Form I-9 for every individual they hire for employment in the United States
Although that requirement probably doesn’t apply to contractors.
Edit: Major pitfall (or advantage depending on your perspective) of the I-9 system is that it only requires employers to fill out the form and “keep it on file” in case the government asks to see it.
E-verify introduces the ability to share and verify that information digitally with the government (where without e-verify the form would just sit in someone’s filing cabinet or Google drive).
Politicians do not want to anger the criminal businesses profiting from illegal labor.
