[quote author="WINEX" date=1236175698] About a month ago I turned down a position that would have allowed me to go back home that paid $171k. </blockquote>
Holy shit. Now I know why you hate taxes!
This is from a local paper back home about a year ago.
<a href="http://www.hanfordsentinel.com/articles/2008/07/29/news/doc488f5919d62b1072221873.txt">http://www.hanfordsentinel.com/articles/2008/07/29/news/doc488f5919d62b1072221873.txt</a>
<blockquote>Only 6.5 percent of residents in the 20th District have a bachelor's degree, the study reported. By comparison, 56.8 percent of West Los Angeles residents have a bachelor's.
The median annual income -- for those holding part-time or full-time jobs -- in the Valley's 20th District is $16,767, the lowest in the nation. By comparison, residents of Manhattan's Upper East Side, which is part of New York's first-ranked 14th District, earn the highest income in the nation at $51,139 a year. Their residents live on average 4 1/2 years longer than residents in the Valley district, the study reported.
</blockquote>
I didn't make $40K there and I lived like a king. I haven't been gone that long. Of the 6.5% that have degrees, almost all of them are teachers. When you turn 18 you must leave - there are no jobs.
<a href="http://lettersandscience.net/labormarket/graph?data=unemployment_rate&in=Kings_County">http://lettersandscience.net/labormarket/graph?data=unemployment_rate&in=Kings_County</a>
Unemployment is currently over 14%.