"Starting Salaries but New York Tastes"

stupid

wow. i never knew urban life could be so tough.

Very interesting. I hope that someday soon this guy will be discovered and make it big. Then Hollywood can make a movie out of his unique story. Pizza and beer? The horror...

With all due respect to the writer, this is the most obvious piece I've ever read about NYC living.

This should have been in the onion... "Starving Artist Just Makes It; Doesn't Starve"

Waaaah waaaah. This is why we live in Baltimore. We eat steaks every night and give change to people like Peter on the streets.

yeah...but it's baltimore.

must be tough waiting for that trust fund to kick in.

He just has to sign up with m i l l i o n a i r e d a t e . c o m and bag himself a rich cougar.

$15 an hour is not that bad. If he got married to someone making that much, combined they would be well over the median household income in the city.

This article is fucking infuriating.

The dude making 60k a year should not be in this article.

Get some roommates bro...

someone call Unicef

New York City Estimated median household income in 2005: $43434.

Must be rough "squeaking by" on only roughly 30% more than the median.

well temp doesn't necessarily mean full time
but even full time isn't that just in the high twenties low 30's a year
that is a good stretch if you're living in new york, especially as a recent transplant without the rent control that longtimers have
but good grief 600 for a 10X10 room
is willy b really worth it?!
that's like a bathroom right?
that's just stupid
and good grief who doesn't do the whole spanish platter thing and eats late
hell i even save half for lunch the next day

best line from this article:

"Victoria Varney, 23, a brand manager for the Soundgirl clothing line, schedules haircuts into her trips home to Ohio."

alligator lounge!!

After evacuating Wburg and moving to Greenpoint, you can earn below median income, but still enjoy a nice place to live (with a bitchin' back yard) broadband internet, cable television, Xbox 360, Wii, eat out a few nights per week, and go on sweet vacations.

I read about people making more than me and "barely getting by" and it just baffles me. Might have something to do with those $200 jeans.

word!
maybe the writer is writing with the readers in mind
who reads the ny times is it reach ppl who are probably reading about their children or at least their contemporaries and think this is an honest stretch from their once lavish lifestyles?

i kind of feel bad for the kids though cuz they look silly but maybe didn't have this in mind to proclaim that their life is hard living

why don't they just get higher paying jobs or rich parents?

that looks like my friend krisin laughing it up in the photo.

Whitey.

maybe they should get skills for a higher-paying gig?

or leave the city and have a lower cost of living.

seems pretty simple to me.

WHERE IS OBAMA AT? HURRY UP

what about all the blacks and minorities living like that without a choice. this is article is ridiculous

15 bucks an hour sounds pretty good. what about 2 million people in this city who live below poverty line?

Life is hard.

This article doesn't even mention that we're in a recession.

Is this what passes for Journalism nowadays? Some hipster chick interviewing her hipster friends about how they have to slum it to live in hipsterville?

New York Times, shame on you.

Awesome. Stay in NY with all the rest of the idiots.

I make $8/hr washing dishes. I am SERIOUSLY considering getting some richer parents.

look at the big self-serving smiles. so shallow. y don't all the posers move the fuk back to whatever midwest craphole they crawled out of. Anyway all the real artists looking for a like minded enviorment already left and moved to berlin, not NYC. NYC is, and has been for the past 10 years, just a big show for fakes with big smiles from the midwest.

"maybe they should get skills for a higher-paying gig?"

I forgot, we live in meritocracy. Those guys on Wall St. sure have lots of skills!

11:05...my parents are blue collar and i was raised to get out of it with education...and now im doing quite well based on hard work and intelligence...i know how rare that is for you to comprehend but maybe you shouldve opted out of that philosophy degree when you had the chance.

"must be tough waiting for that trust fund to kick in."
Do people still talk/complain about trust funds? Hadn't heard that one in a while. Always thought that was a stupid complaint. After 10 years living in NY, and a good portion in WB/Greenpoint, I can honestly say I've never once met one of these "trustfund" kids. At least to my knowledge. I always felt like a couple pissed off kids knew some rich jerkoff and started calling everyone they hated a trustfund kid. And why the F would i begrudge someone for having fiscally responsible parents? Plus isn't a trust fund better than someone's parents just constantly doling out money. At least they have to struggle a little bit...
Still, the kids in this article and the writer seem like top-notch d-bags. Rice and beans? you can save a lot more money packing a lunch. And I'm sure there are plenty of people in Wburg that Ohio chich knows that would gladly give her a cool new haircut.

I'd be grateful to only have to pay $80 in student loans. Whiner.

did you guys ever look at situation in states like Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee? those states are fucked, youre LUCKY if you can get a job for $8 to $12 an hour. $12 an hour thats a career! dont be ignorant, while you are posting on bv, USA is going down the toilet, we are well on the way to degenerating to Mexico style poverty- few people very rich, rest of us scraping to get by.

11:15 - Correlation does not equal causation. But whatever helps you sleep at night...

i always thought we were supposed to take pride in our struggle to get by on little pay. isn't this just a right of passage that came about as an odd byproduct of liberal guilt?

that way, when we're in our forties, have switched political parties, and abandoned Williamsburg for the suburbs, we can justify our materialism and striving for wealth by constantly referencing the two years we were poor.

that being said: let's all agree to stop accusing every white New Yorker under 30 of having a trust fund. Likewise, let's stop assigning them all Midwestern childhoods. Particularly since anybody with even the most basic knowledge of the geographic distribution of wealth in this country should know that the likelihood that somebody is both Midwestern, and has a trust fund, is extremely slim. It's stupid.

Also, 11:04am, when will you recognize that nobody beats gentrification? It's not as if getting there first somehow alleviates the guilt you should feel for contributing to the drastic change of a city/neighborhood, etc. Everybody authentic left NYC for Berlin 10 years ago? Awesome. I'm glad all the authentic people had a meeting and decided that since they'd spawned something in New York that they hated enough to leave behind, they'd go to Berlin and do it again. Awesome. Two cities that they get to ruin and leave behind.

I love white people. We're really just great. We hate our ancestors, who moved to America for cheaper land, and more opportunity, because they displaced a native population in the process. But then, we pat ourselves on the fucking back and claim to be authentic and edgy when we do the exact same thing in Bushwick, or East Williamsburg.

yeay 8 to 12 but the cost of life is lower
at least when it comes to housing

aw

10X10 is a normal sized room.

I dont know what city you guys are living in.

kid should start robbing rich folks - that's where the money is

No joke...10' x 10' w/ a window sounds pretty standard to me. Maybe he just has a lot of furniture crammed in there and virtually no free wall space. That can be a bitch.

I guess it depends what the rest of the apartment looks like. If the living room is also 10X10 that would suck. And im assuming theres a shitload of people in the apt.

That article makes me wanna puke. Not one original thing in it. Young people cutting back on expenses? In New York? Really? I've never heard such a thing! Pre-gaming? What a novel idea! I also enjoyed how these revolting people skip meals but would never dream of not drinking sometimes. Cut out the booze? God forbid!

iOh wel, i thought it was a pretty good cover

doesn't matter cause $8 an hour anywhere in this country fucking sucks. you simply just can't live off $8 an hour.

when I lived in Raleigh my rent was 200 bucks.

totally lived off 8 bucks an hour.

It seems these people, and many posters here, are generally well-adjusted, but still operate with a take-for-granted American mindset where life satisfaction equals entertainment (sex, media, partying, social acceptance, partying, etc.). The only struggle here is for those things, hence the need to live in bburg, drink PBR, own a guitar, and go to $25 concerts.

Food, shelter, and cloths are provided for at $8/h.

But Americans will never again be satisfied with just satisfying their basic human needs = the ultimate double-edged sword.

I started a job in 2002 for $6.25/hour, worked there for a year and a half and when I left, I made a whopping $8.00/hour. Shakespeare & Co. bookstore, you worked there because you liked the people or you just quit. Everyone I worked with either was in school or lived with their parents. I just had a sketchy living arrangement. I still have the sketchy living arrangement, actually.

11:55, well-said!

that twat in the blue shirt looks like adam sandler in 1990.

this article sucks. 80 bucks a month for student loans would be a godsend. someone should punch these losers in the weiner.

How do you pitch this idea to an editor? "I think I can get you 700 words on young people in New York: There are people who live in new York and it's expensive. They have to cut back on expenses because they live in New York. Who knows, there's a lot of breathing room here...let me know."

$80 for student loans? Is he even scraping the surface of his debt?

The NYT should spend more of their time fact-checking Bill Kristol and selling a fucking war. At least they do the latter moderately well.

24 and you're still temping? and you have a degree?

time to grow up

Anon 7:29 = Viacom Management

anon 7:29 = 20 with a wife and 3 kids

24 is the new 14!

This pathetic excuse of a NY Times article makes it sound like we're supposed to feel bad for these kids who move to NYC. Does anyone NOT know what they're getting into when they decide to live here?

BTW, the kids with the trust funds are mostly from CT and NJ. The midwesterners are pretty easy to spot - extra dirty with gnarly hipster beards (the chicks, too).

i think i recognize this guy, he went to Boston University.

Ramen noodles cost $1 for 3-5 packages, depending on where you buy them. You could live off of a loaf of bread, some veggies and cheese for a week easily, for $5-$10. Cry me a river.

What a fucking joke.

10:26 -- if you do that, how quickly will you be able to fit into skinny jeans?

sincerely,
hipster in training

white people, yipeeee!

Oh please, get over yourself you williamsburg moron...welcome to the fucking city.

I really love what you post here, very fresh and smart. One issue though, I'm running Firefox on Fedora and parts of your content are a little wonky. I realize it's not a common setup, but it's still something to to keep in mind. Just giving you a heads up.

Good article. Just goes to show how tough it can be in the big city trying to survive. There are always other ways of getting cash when you need it but that doesn't take away from the fact that it can be hard.