I have cousins living in Alexandria. They are comfortable, but not wealthy. In some ways, an affluent suburb is a good thing. DC riff-raff can't afford to live in these suburbs, so they stay out. Much safer in the 'burbs than in DC.
True enough, and the occasional block of DC gets gentrified, but the hazards remain. Alexandria, Fairfax, Montgomery Co, MD, and this is comfortable, not wealthy, because the cost of living there is higher. That because, well, there is money. Compare homes and prices with elsewhere, though. Compare salaries and the cause-effect circle of higher prices because of higher wages because of higher prices, and the 10-20% of their income that is disposable is multiples of the 10-20% of someone's income in small town Kentucky or Iowa or Minnesota.
Which means a 20K car is a smaller fraction of their income compared to someone from farther out.
That's where the Obamacare Ogre really raises its head. Bad enough buying a car, at least you can get a used one, but when the 28K/year to insure your family of 4 is out of pocket because you are self-employed and make just too much for a subsidy, (a necessary transition on the way to making enough to afford it), health insurance consumes 30% or more of your income--
more than housing. You could have spent (some of) that insurance money on a car/truck, something for the business to increase efficiency or size, and maybe got something less fancy in terms of health insurance, but that plan isn't offered any more because it did not meet Obamacare (ACA) requirements.
The other common assumption for people who put in 20 or 30 (or more) years at some escalating GS number is that the job will exist, day in, day out for as long as they are in it--some have known only that one employer their entire lives. For most of us, that just isn't reality.
Since I was 14, I have had 21 employers. Some of those jobs lasted only 3 months (they were, after all temporary, and that was understood), the longest 16 years, rate of pay ranged from $2.25 an hour to $1100.00 a day (but only for field days), but no one day ever guaranteed the next day of employment--or even the next hour.
If it rained and we didn't work (road construction jobs) we didn't get paid.
If the Sierra Club decided the presence of an oil rig would interfere with the unstoppable force of the
elk rut, we didn't drill and didn't get paid, if some genius in an office with the Bureau of Land Management or USFWS decided that instead of replacing an existing bridge, the oil company had to emplace a concrete ford in a small running creek, we had a delay and no paycheck. We don't get back pay for getting shut down.
It's like letting Silicon Valley employers set the perks and bennies for John's Excavation Service in podunk--they are two different worlds.
So, people who live in a world where the size and presence of their next paycheck is a given are writing the rules for people who just do not live in that situation.
Even in steady jobs, working for the same contractor, the amount of work varies, the ability to get those hours in varies, contracts come and go as jobs are finished, and life is lived from job to job; the position is never completely guaranteed. (If you have trouble understanding the difference between a 'job' and a 'position', let me know, I'll give you the rundown, but basically, that is the difference between a government "job" (position) and working for industry.)
When the building is built, when the ribbon is cut on that new bridge, when the last nut or bolt or piece of trim goes in place, the job is done. What comes next is the hard part. Either you get another job, or you live off the money you set aside while you had one (which you will do for a little while at least). It goes out of the bank faster than it goes in, that's for sure.
For some there is unemployment, and while that varies from state to state, to even qualify here and keep qualifying is a 40 hour a week hoop-jumping t-crossing 'i'-dotting combination of steeplechase and scavenger hunt that makes employment a relative relief. Perhaps in some places you can just sign up and collect, but the last time I talked with anyone here about it, it was a mite tougher than that. All that for a fraction of what you make working, so unless there are no other options you find work, some work, any work, and look for better if you didn't find what you really wanted.
I'm not sure how the union thing works, they may have some benefits there. I have never worked in a union job (right to work states, no unions cover much of what I do).
Most jobs come without flex time, sick days, some without vacation, and that is not so unusual. In some which did not have those bennies, there were annual bonuses or performance bonuses which compensated for the absence of vacation pay, but when times get tight, those bonuses are the first to go.
In all those years, and we're talking over 40 years of employment, I took one day off for illness in the family--my wife went into hospital at the end of a job, and one week for myself, where I ended up in the hospital for pneumonia. I was put out of action by an injury for six weeks on one well.
I had the cancer cut out of my face (diagnosed, confirmed, removed, and the stitches out) during a rig move. I worked three months with open nickel sized lesions from spider bites on my feet and legs (bandaged, but not even scabbed over), because to not do so was to lose the contract (self employed, as many small businessmen are).
Because no work is no pay in the real world. But Government jobs never go away.
I'm not saying some government employees don't work hard, or that the things they do aren't important to the running of the country. I am sure some do, and some of those jobs are essential.
But there is a lot of fat in DC, and it serves itself first.
If anyone doubts, look at the variation in Per Diem rates the Government considers acceptable.
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-16-58.pdfNow, I'm not saying we don't all have the option to move to NoVA and get a government job, if that's what we want, nor am I whining that the circumstances differ. You pays your money, you takes your choice.
But what I am saying is that the people setting policy seem to have no concept why that policy is a dismal failure at addressing the needs or capabilities of people outside the FedGov envelope; they are different worlds. Frankly, it hurts to have people setting policy who don't understand the situation elsewhere.
One more reason for the Federal Government to do less.
