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Permalink Reply by Chris Reuter on May 23, 2009 at 12:04am

Yes, got an offer for an engineer in Philadelphia today. The position is a net raise of 5K (from his previous position, not much I realize, but he is currently unemployed). He is taking the weekend to think about the position because it is actually in the city and his tax rate would be higher. That wasn't even on my radar screen to be asking about. Also his commute will have tolls involved (something I've never had to deal with in Southwest Ohio).

To answer your question, my candidate is definitely taking into consideration the higher tax bracket of the location the job is in.

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Permalink Reply by See_Jane_Recruit on May 24, 2009 at 3:48pm

Well, I live right outside of Philadelphia and (so far) have managed to not have to take a job in the city because it's much more expensive to work in Philadelphia when you factor in parking, traffic, and city wage tax. If you normally make $40k/yr outside of the city, you need to make at least $45k/yr in the city to break even. Parking downtown can cost roughly $300/month (some employers have deals with local parking lots though--so Chris, you might want to check with your client about that) and city wage tax for NON-residents is about 3.5%. Even if you take public transit it's not saving much. To take a regional rail line into the city during prime hours is about $10 or $11 round-trip and that's just going to keep going up every year.

So there's not a ton of incentive to work in the city anymore, except that there are a few superb companies that people will take an initial financial hit to work for. Most city employers realize the cost of working in the city is higher so will offer up more salary. Chris, your candidate who is unemployed would be smart to take the job. He would most likely break even with the $5k/yr raise from the last position. See if your client has any additional incentives (like toll reimbursement or parking deals with local lots) that might sweeten things for him.

Overall, I understand big cities need money from some source to maintain the public spaces but the fact that hard-working people are taking the hit is kind of stupid. It's driving people out of the cities and then the cities are going to lose revenue anyway. I think now more than ever it's important for every citizen to take part in their state and local government. We've let politicians and lawmakers back us into a corner. Time to fight our way out, it seems. Good topic, Steve!

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Permalink Reply by Chris Reuter on May 28, 2009 at 9:48am

The company wasn't willing to offer any other perks, but my candidate did accept the position. Thanks for the helpful suggestions.

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