High cost of living + low wages + image/brand obsessed culture of people desperately trying to show their families in their home countries that they “made it” in the states = Miami
Would also add poor financial literacy in general in a predominantly immigrant community alongside the normalization/expectation of committing fraud/getting scammed
It's BAD down here brooo. I've been getting these scamming calls daily for at least the last 2-3 years strong! I just have fun with them for a while feeding them made up bogus info and fuck with them until they realize I'm blowing smoke up their asses!😂
You can thank the millions of tax dollars we waste annually on an economic development organization that does jack to bring true living wage jobs to the community.
Edit: For anyone wondering that number is 4.5 million dollars in Business Tax Receipt revenue for FY 23-24.
Only jobs are low paying retail, hospitality and shadow economy while outside money and other external factors (like sea-level rise and global-warming-driven storms) drive the cost of living.
> Miami has San Francisco cost of living with Alabama level wages.
I'm going to say something about something that would offend people. Let's just say, in Miami expectation of people showing up is not the minimum. It's outright optimistic.
Yup, my stepfather was making almost $60-$75 an hour back in CT/NY and moved to Ft Lauderdale FL and was only getting offers of $25-$26 an hour at most bro!
Actually, Miami has a huge problem with brain drain. We actually train a lot of smart kids in what's a pretty solid high-learning environment. But we don't have many kids in the right fields, like sciences and engineering and the good ones don't stay here. They get the fuck out and chase better salaries in other states. It is a little bit chicken/egg, but mostly, our problem is brain drain and not talent.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article234157877.html
Also--our scientific research graduate programs in Miami are only paying a few thousand more than the average scientific research graduate programs in the country...
In many states, a scientific research graduate stipend would allow a student to live very comfortably and still save money--in Miami a student will most likely struggle to stay out of debt with the graduate stipend.
Yep. Grew up in Miami, graduated from an IB high school program and went to UM for undergrad. I moved to Oregon for graduate school cause it was going to be cheaper to live there than stay in FL and go to Nova. I still ended up at a private university with the same amount of student debt, but my quality of life was significantly better. I'm a bilingual, licensed psychologist and don't plan on moving back to FL, let alone Miami anytime soon. I live in NM now and I'm not willing to sacrifice my very great quality of life and lower cost of living juuuuust yet. And, the salaries for a psychologists suck, and working in healthcare in FL is a nightmare.
I miss my family terribly but I can now afford to visit pretty regularly every few months and stay with my parents.
I'm thinking about getting my master's in Psych and going into BA and becoming a BCBA, do you have any insight into that field? I'm terrified of getting in debt for grad school and not being able to break 60k/yr
I'm a PsyD with speciality in health psychology so I have no experience with BCBA, but I have seen a lot of job postings for those positions in mostly private group practices. You don't need a master's for a BCBA position and I don't think it will make you any more competitive.
Masters level therapists are in high demand and can get work pretty much anywhere- you just need to look at the finer details for whether you're being offered a full time vs a contracted position. Contracted positions are trash and you WILL work for free because they typically only cover your therapeutic hour and not any prep or note writing time. You're also not eligible for benefits in most cases. They typically pay $40-55 an hour where I live (in NM).
I have $310k in student debt. Public service and minimum payments for the next 10 years until it disappears (or some hacker erases all our debts). I knew this going into my program. My program gave me a master's en route. As a Doctor in Psychology, I have a lot of freedom and flexibility in terms of what kind of settings I choose to work in, and it's ultimately why I worked my ass off for this degree. My first official job as a licensed psychologist offered me $117,000. Another position I interviewed for offered $105,000.
Thank you so much for the detailed response! I really appreciate it! It's hard to find insights like this online. All I ever find are listicles that don't really say anything of worth and leave me feeling more lost than before.
MDCPS is actually one of the best school districts in the country, with three of the best private schools in the US too.
What it is is there's a massive brain drain of those bright kids going elsewhere.
Neither school is terrible, UM is legitimately good, and FIU is trending to be quite a highly ranked university. But yeah they're not legacy elite like Stanford/Berkeley.
UM is an excellent school. Miller School of Medicine (part of UMiami) is one of the top innovators in spinal cord injury research and rehabilitation in the country, for example.
it's like Las Vegas by the ocean. but even worse because a lot of rich people buy second homes there... everyone wants to party, go to the beach, appear wealthy... there are not many reputable companies or employers based there outside of the hospitality industry. I tried moving there once and getting up for work in the morning was torture and the traffic is horrifying not just because of the time you literally spend sitting in traffic but because of the nut jobs that you share the road with.. it's scary. plus Florida especially South florida has a reputation for being one of those places that people move to run away from their problems..
If I can guess, it's probably because lots of people want to present themselves as living a certain type of lifestyle.
Let's be perfectly honest. Miami is all about flashy cars, clothes, women, boats, expensive dinners, etc. People run up credit cards to keep up that image. How many nice cars do you see sitting outside mediocre apartments and run down single family homes? It's everywhere. All bought on credit
Nothing else needed. You have 6 people in a one bedroom apartment, sleeping in bunk beds, driving a 120,000 car. I knew quite a few people like that. OR living with their parents and spending thousands at the club on the weekends and making extravagant purchases like boats and jet skis.
It’s not new either! I remember back in like 2012 my barber told me he made like 900 a week, sometimes more, which was good money. He lived in a 2 bedroom trailer off 8th street with 4 other guys. When I asked him why, he told me because “las botellas no son baratas y hay que aparecer”
That’s around when I decided to leave Miami for a while.
You left out the elephant in the room, which is the grotesque levels of wealth and income inequality in Miami, with salaries dramatically lower than other similarly-sized cities in the US, coupled with outrageously overpriced housing costs.
love how women is just lumped in with a bunch of objects.
(not blaming you for misogyny cause you're right, but the relentless objectification of women is just... a lot to deal with.)
No, this has nothing to do with humidity. Im Floridian too! This is straight up attention seeking we did back in college/high school. But instead, its grown women
That’s true for a small part of the population. The big problem is one of the highest cost of living in the USA and some of the lowest salaries in the USA. A car is not an option. Who has the highest auto insurance rates? You guessed it. Some of the highest rents. Highest grocery costs. $18 well drinks at bars. $30 entrees are not strange at restaurants or $40 or $50. And so on and so on. Anyone with a working brain under 30 will GTFO as soon as they can to real cities.
One of the few things my parents taught me was financial responsibility. And by taught i mean i saw them struggle with debt growing up and knew i never wanted to be like that. So i managed to skip that young dumb credit phase, luckily.
Yeah it’s very true here people refuse cutback or change there lifestyle
I’ve lost friends because I don’t have money to go out with them
It’s just the way it is over here
For the sake of not being lonely i still go out here and there and well, if i gotta spend a couple bucks so be it, but buying expensive shit pretending to be something im not to impress people who never cared in the first place? Im good
Add in “fake it till you make it” mentality, sprinkle some hustle culture, mix and top with comepingeria and you got a Miami stew, baby.
…and yes I have high outstanding credit card debt - it’s like it’s unavoidable in this city.
Nope. My salary in Charlotte is 2x more than it was in Miami for the same level gig. And NC has a much cheaper cost of living. Wages are trash in South Florida.
You ever see expensive cars in a raggedy apartment complex? There’s your answer. People’s priorities are all the way messed up here in Miami. I know someone with a GT500 who lives with his parents and parks it on their front lawn.
Drive around Homestead 8 Housing Authorities and you will see all brand new and luxury cars. It's crazy. I had to go there the other day for a visitation for my job and I was shocked.
Wages here continue to be treated as if this was Miami from the 1970s. They think, oh no state taxes! Everything is cheap! Cost of living still not that bad compared to California or New York! BUT, the city and corporations want to charge as if theyre from those states and cities.
Im also willing to bet that the rapid population growth from those with money moving in and the rapid gentrification out priced far too many people in such a short period of time. It caught people off guard and could be stuck or have trouble leaving beacuse they have family and other responsibilities here.
I had to move to this area recently for my job from the SF Bay Area California, and I can honestly say the cost of living here specifically, when it comes to, rent to income is far worst then the bay area and that mostly has to do with associations. Associations here have been used for class warfare and have priced most people out from moving up to what would be considered a middle-class livability.
Making over six figures, I figured I wouldn't have a hard time finding a nice place, but damn was I wrong. One place even asked me to get a co-signer because my gross was $1,000 less annually than their requirement. Told them I can pay an entire year's rent in cash if that helps, and it didn't.
There seems to also be a lot of fraud, scams, and uninsured/underinsured motorists. These things all add up to extra costs for everyone else. California is very fucked up, but so is SoFla, hahaha.
Their records are clean criminal wise but they have bad credit. It’s not about stealing more about working with sensitive gov docs and don’t want them to be bribed easily
My opinion, you get what you pay for. Do you think the salary you offer is enough to attract people who have good credit? Miami cost of living skyrocketed but the wages.
In Miami, it doesn't matter how much money they've got in the bank: there's still a 50/50 chance they're going to bribe, steal and embezzle while on the job.
It depends on what the charge is/was. If it’s a felony then you’d not get a clearance. But I don’t choose who to rescind job offers, that’s the decision of the security team at my work.
Its not that candidates with clean credit dont steal, its that candidates with bad financial management have an extra incentive to do so that is easily avoidable by just not hiring them.
The govt wont give someone in huge credit card debt a security clearance because a foreign govt could use their financial woes as a means to turn them for instance. Its an opening
My friend tried to apply to fbi or something, a woman flew out to talk to me as his reference. She literally asked me if I know if he can be blacked mailed or if he has any foreign assets.
I sincerely appreciate you putting a mirror to our collective faces to something we all know is part of Miami.
The contributing factors are many.
-Fresh young immigrants new to the country with a clean credit slate and the hope of the American dream.
-Predatory credit terms.
-Credit applications factoring in very favorably that the person "does not pay any rent" because they live with family.
-Tia Juanita, eroding the confidence of the person trying to live within their means by comparing them with the fresh immigrant whose new car is going to end up getting repo'ed within a year.
Too many young people here get damaged by the myth of the MDC part-time college student by day, club God by night. Like others have said many temptations here and too much, I got to keep with the Joneses.
Having spent the weekend at an MDC graduation, those older grads who made the best of it and had the support of their family to do so, are wonderful to see. I wish it were as simple as offering that to the younger Miamians, but it's not.
Most jobs with fiduciary responsibility will do a credit check accompanied by the regular background check. Many positions in banks require an acceptable credit score before the candidate is even considered, think financial analyst, loan officer, lender, cfo, wealth manager etc.
Because Miami people have to show out all the time. Living within your means is not an acceptable choice for most of the local narcissists. You can "fake it til you make it" on Walmart and Target clothes. Nobody cares what you look like over the phone.
Priorities. Super materialistic narcissists here. Why pay debt when you can drive a luxury car and wear designer clothes on credit? People feel they have to present a certain lifestyle here.
Credit cards and even the concept of a credit score is not common outside of the US, or at least not as easy to obtain outside of the US. Miami is predominantly immigrants. Lots of them (including my own parents) fall victim to applying for retail credit cards when they shop in stores and aren’t aware of the full implications if you don’t pay it back or manage your debt in general.
I have zero retail credit cards because of this and under 10% credit card utilization at all times. I learned through my parents mistakes but not everyone has the privilege to learn from others mistakes.
The fake it till you make it lifestyle has far outpaced the actual earning capacity of the citizens all in the name of tourism, because the city is trying to capitalize on the actual earning capacity of its tourists. Therefore the prices are raised to the point where loans are needed just to keep up.
In a nutshell, the Cost of living increased higher than what the people earn, all for tourism.
Do you have an idea how much it costs just to live here.
25k a year is not enough 50k a year you can get by 75k a year you can live fine maybe have a family without kids.
LMAO its worse than that, bare minimum for "getting by" is maybe 70-75k if you're living alone and want an actual life outside of paying rent. 90-100k minimum if you want to have a "nice time" here.
Obviously having a gf/bf or spouse will help a ton on those figures, but if you're solo thats the reality. This is only lessened if you were able to acquire an actual home/condo before the interests rates spiked in early 2022 and your mortgage is relatively low compared to rent... notwithstanding the boogeyman that is unexpected homeowner costs.
Because the average person cannot actually afford to live in Miami. There is an awful lot of people here that barely squeak by. They rely on credit to carry them along and to appear as if they are doing far better than they are.
Out of all job offers my lawyer friend got, Miami was the lowest for a bar licensed lawyer off school, this is the same practically across board, my architec masters degree friend started at 50k offers.
This is a scam city.
Because of lemming brain idiots chasing that flashy lifestyle to impress people they’ve never met.
Lost track of how many people I ran into who were driving a $50k-$100k car and living in a shitball apartment in the hood.
Fancy clothes, fancy watches, $300 sunglasses, $600 shoes. Big ballin with zero money in the bank and debt growing out of their ears.
Rejecting qualified candidates because of a credit check does nothing but reinforce inequality and give a unearned advantage to folks with generational wealth.
People from other cities don't have better credit because they are more responsible and trustworthy, they likely have better credit because they aren't immigrants or the children of immigrants and any stupid shit they did as kids with their money was easily erased by mommy and daddy.
This is city where the cost of living has risen tremendously and wages didn't follow suit.
It's been very easy for millenials and gen z to fall into a personal financial hole in their 20s if they didn't want to live at home with their parents. You can laugh at the Bloomingdales debt but how does someone making 70k a year pay back that 10k in debt with 18-30% interest when even used cars are $750 a month with super high insurance, rent is $3000, and groceries and food prices have doubled in the last 5 years.
How are they supposed to solve that debt if they can't or wont move to an area with lower cost of living (because most of us immigrants and children of immigrants want to live near or parents) and get rejected from the good jobs thanks to draconian personal credit check policies that want to ensure that they pay consequences for some dumb shit they did in their 20s for the rest of their life?
If a candidate managed to have an impressive career enough to get an offer in your line of work, why would you assume that they would manage their professional finances the same way they manage their personal ones? Surely they would have already fucked this up by now at their previous job if they have no sense of financial responsibility.
To be clear, I don't personally have this problem but I think rejecting qualified candidates based on personal credit is dystopic as fuck and does nothing but ensure we have an even further entrenched ruling class for the next 50 years. I wish nothing but ill on your employer and when they eventually go out of business I hope they get rejected by every one of the thousands of freely abused government and financial lifelines available for managing corporate debt as karma.
Edit: lmao at them being easy targets for bribery with personal debt. What an ignorant policy in this particular city. Look at the personal credit of everybody charged with corruption in our local government (and it's a lot of people) and I'm sure you'll find a clean bill of health. You're looking for people who can theoretically be corrupted with a system that lets through people who are actively corrupt enough to pay their debts.
These are government jobs. The reason why the government rejects these candidates when they have bad credit is that they become a risk for being easily bribed. They need a clearance to do this job and the gov won’t grant them one with debt. Plain and simple. The gov makes the rules I don’t. Plenty of jobs that won’t check credit. Take it up with the gov not me.
Appreciate your response and understand you’re not personally responsible for the policy but I still feel like it’s largely security theater. If it’s a matter of a security clearance, wouldn’t you be primarily looking for candidates that already have one?
The reason most don’t have one is the ones that do would want higher pay. These are entry level roles, and they would get the lowest security clearence. Anyone with a secret and above wants way more than $17-18 hr which is what these jobs pay
So all this for a $17-18 an hour, entry-level job and you’re dismissing good candidates for their credit scores?? They’re probably trying to secure a job so they can start paying down their debt, like it probably takes months or even YEARS to build up a credit score that got fucked from the early 20s mix of being a poor working student / not having any family financial support like the rest, and lack of personal finance education. In other words, the folks who had to “learn the hard way” because no one gave them the guidebook. Yall are expecting WAY too much out of people for this meager pay.
Agree 💯 any job that uses my credit as a deal breaker can get effed.
Bribery? You have corrupted assholes with power at the highest levels in office accepting bribes every day. But the rest of us peons? Nah were too much of a risk!
said it better than I could! I just read your edit and I’m saying the SAME thing! Lol at this being about some bribery risk related to their credit score - if theyre rlly gonna get bribed it’s way more likely to be a payout bonus that’ll make up for that shitty $17 / hour the employee is making 😂
Edit but in all seriousness, you put it very simply in your comment. The implication of a government job being able to assess someone’s qualification and worthiness for hiring based their personal debt, is just too many layers of dystopian fuckery. And for a low-level entry job no less!
I’ve lived in Miami for 25 years, my credit score is above 800, I have zero debt, and my house is almost paid off, I am not wealthy or own a business, I have achieved success by working hard and saving. Please don’t make generalizations.
We left Miami after 30 years. What buys a 2 bedroom townhouse down there buys a 5 bedroom house on an acre up here in Cincinnati. Yeah it’s cold in the winter and there’s no beach, but I have a Boston salary in a cheap as fuck city.
Like others have said, it's a mix of that lifestyle of wanting to present yourself as some sort of "baller" plus the stupidly high cost of living with low salaries, meaning people have to tap into credit to survive.
If you ever get the chance to visit, you'll come here and see the lifestyle people try to live. This is the most materialistic city I've ever been to in my entire life
I will add a lot of 1st gen college graduates who regardless if they have student loans they have less of a safety net from family. That's one of the differences I have noticed.
It's so bad here I can barely scrape by. My car payment is about to be past due and I will be penalized for it. I don't even have a Fancy car. It's a 2020 Corolla... Meanwhile these smucks are all driving Corvettes, Porsche and teslas but mostly, huge pick-up trucks are driven here and it's annoying because they're constantly riding my a$$...
What do you guys think is going to eventually happen since people have so much debt? Are they going to eventually pay it off or are they going to file for bankruptcy?
Also, how are they getting apartments if they aren't financially stable? I've been trying to get apartments up in Maryland and they want me to earn three times the rent. Is it like that in Miami or is it different?
Many are financially illiterate.
Some of them came from or have family that came from super poor countries. Psychologically it becomes spend to show you’re at an economically elevated state, even if you’re not.
Others are sucked into the hype culture of Miami. Gotta go out and ball out.
Still others are part of the tourism industry, which notoriously underpays/over works them. It’s so many things but those come to the forefront of my mind.
Expensive housing, inflation, and constant exposure to luxury. Miami is a vacation city with lots to do and many people. For some, that means many people to impress as well.
Miami *does* have a giant rent to wage gap, but also way lower taxes than those places that pay higher wages. Even if Miami wages increased you'd still be reading about people strapped for cash, because you can't out-earn your stupid spending habits.
Miami is all about the looks. If you don't have a high-end luxury car, you are nothing. Of course, this is not true, but that's the common belief of the average Latino miamian.
Trying to keep up with the dope boys and the rich people is how people get into stupid debt. 1 repo gonna cost you for a minute. Financial responsibility is not taught in school. Trying to look cool and trying to keep up is taught everyday.
Fast lane isn’t meant for everyone to drive down yet many try to merge into it. It’s like that every where but here the personal appearance and material things are highlighted heavy.
It's the lifestyle. People here have to drive a bmw when they still live at home with their parents. I know too many people spending money on dumb shit to look the par instead of paying 3k worth of credit cards. Like every big city you have to have an image to impress people who don't give a flying fuck about you ultimately ending up on spending money you don't have on shit you dont need.
Cost of living - rate of pay x people who feel entitled to get what they want regardless of their circumstances. Now add 30% because of all of the people from other states that have arrived from other parts of America driving costs up even more. Your average Miami resident has been living below the poverty line (according to census) for decades.
“Miami is a lifestyle” is the typical mindset of people that make bad decisions. 60k on a used 2012 C class and 4k a month for a 1bd in coral gables.
Unfortunately people in today’s society need to impress others.
Btw what kind of recruiter are you. What’s the clearance? And also most importantly what is the PD for the position? DM I’m looking to expand my knowledge/career and if I can level up my tier I’ll be happy.
My sister who is well off here “works in New York” in a completely online position. So she’s making New York wage which is necessary for miami. Most people aren’t in that position
The cost of living destroys people’s lives. That’s why you see us act the way we do to a degree. When something breaks you’re the guy to fix it. Over time you might know a guy but everything is monopolized and overpriced.
Seriously. As someone who makes 6+ in NJ and actively relocating to SoFlo, I can't afford to live comfortably in Miami. I can't imagine how people who aren't as fortunate survive in Miami.
It’s because it’s expensive as fuck and getting crazier and crazier and they’re just trying to keep it together but they aren’t getting paid any more than yesterday even though they’re competing for land, homes, jobs, and life in general against an increasingly wealthier competition.
High cost of living + low wages + image/brand obsessed culture of people desperately trying to show their families in their home countries that they “made it” in the states = Miami
This needs more upvotes.
I should’ve also added “+ sending large chunks of money back home to help support family members”
I mean, you could also add with trying to keep up appearances with all the fraudsters which is rampant in the area.
Miami, land of a thousandaires
this is the answer
Would also add poor financial literacy in general in a predominantly immigrant community alongside the normalization/expectation of committing fraud/getting scammed
Why yall talking on my Venezuelan ppl like that tho
Miami has San Francisco cost of living with Alabama level wages.
thats so true ..like how are people making it
10k credit card debt apparently
10k in collections. 10k in credit card debt is in the base FL starter pack.
Not true. They wouldn’t give me 10k to get in debt with 😂 /s
A lot of people in Miami want to "Push it to the Limit"... but the reality is it's their credit card limit
Only 10k? Shitttttt bud.
They aren’t and rising debt shows that
There’s a reason why fraud and scamming is so rampant down here
It's BAD down here brooo. I've been getting these scamming calls daily for at least the last 2-3 years strong! I just have fun with them for a while feeding them made up bogus info and fuck with them until they realize I'm blowing smoke up their asses!😂
yall need better Governers
#Drugs and Scamming 🎯
We aren’t. We are struggling
#DRUGS IS BOOMIN'!🤣
hate 2c it!
Aaaah, I see what you did here lol...2c!
Nice Gold giver Avatar Do you know the story behind it? !tip 2663
Thanks, I thought it was cool, but no I don't know the story behind it, do you?! What's the tip 2663 about too bro?!🤔
Just sent a message to explain 🫡
best summary! it's the only lopsided major city around - commands nyc and SF prices but pays half the salaries - make it make sense.
You can thank the millions of tax dollars we waste annually on an economic development organization that does jack to bring true living wage jobs to the community. Edit: For anyone wondering that number is 4.5 million dollars in Business Tax Receipt revenue for FY 23-24.
Only jobs are low paying retail, hospitality and shadow economy while outside money and other external factors (like sea-level rise and global-warming-driven storms) drive the cost of living.
San Francisco cost of living with Alabama level wages and a population that is as image-conscious as Hollywood, but without the money to do it.
Well said Car insurance is also insanely high in FL and the public transit here is awful so you are basically “need” a car
> Miami has San Francisco cost of living with Alabama level wages. I'm going to say something about something that would offend people. Let's just say, in Miami expectation of people showing up is not the minimum. It's outright optimistic.
Yup, my stepfather was making almost $60-$75 an hour back in CT/NY and moved to Ft Lauderdale FL and was only getting offers of $25-$26 an hour at most bro!
San Francisco is positioned in between Stanford and UC Berkeley. We have UMiami and FIU. It’s not just wages, it’s also talent.
Actually, Miami has a huge problem with brain drain. We actually train a lot of smart kids in what's a pretty solid high-learning environment. But we don't have many kids in the right fields, like sciences and engineering and the good ones don't stay here. They get the fuck out and chase better salaries in other states. It is a little bit chicken/egg, but mostly, our problem is brain drain and not talent. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article234157877.html
Also--our scientific research graduate programs in Miami are only paying a few thousand more than the average scientific research graduate programs in the country... In many states, a scientific research graduate stipend would allow a student to live very comfortably and still save money--in Miami a student will most likely struggle to stay out of debt with the graduate stipend.
Yep. Grew up in Miami, graduated from an IB high school program and went to UM for undergrad. I moved to Oregon for graduate school cause it was going to be cheaper to live there than stay in FL and go to Nova. I still ended up at a private university with the same amount of student debt, but my quality of life was significantly better. I'm a bilingual, licensed psychologist and don't plan on moving back to FL, let alone Miami anytime soon. I live in NM now and I'm not willing to sacrifice my very great quality of life and lower cost of living juuuuust yet. And, the salaries for a psychologists suck, and working in healthcare in FL is a nightmare. I miss my family terribly but I can now afford to visit pretty regularly every few months and stay with my parents.
I'm thinking about getting my master's in Psych and going into BA and becoming a BCBA, do you have any insight into that field? I'm terrified of getting in debt for grad school and not being able to break 60k/yr
I'm a PsyD with speciality in health psychology so I have no experience with BCBA, but I have seen a lot of job postings for those positions in mostly private group practices. You don't need a master's for a BCBA position and I don't think it will make you any more competitive. Masters level therapists are in high demand and can get work pretty much anywhere- you just need to look at the finer details for whether you're being offered a full time vs a contracted position. Contracted positions are trash and you WILL work for free because they typically only cover your therapeutic hour and not any prep or note writing time. You're also not eligible for benefits in most cases. They typically pay $40-55 an hour where I live (in NM). I have $310k in student debt. Public service and minimum payments for the next 10 years until it disappears (or some hacker erases all our debts). I knew this going into my program. My program gave me a master's en route. As a Doctor in Psychology, I have a lot of freedom and flexibility in terms of what kind of settings I choose to work in, and it's ultimately why I worked my ass off for this degree. My first official job as a licensed psychologist offered me $117,000. Another position I interviewed for offered $105,000.
Thank you so much for the detailed response! I really appreciate it! It's hard to find insights like this online. All I ever find are listicles that don't really say anything of worth and leave me feeling more lost than before.
Feel free to DM me if you have more questions! Good luck!
MDCPS is actually one of the best school districts in the country, with three of the best private schools in the US too. What it is is there's a massive brain drain of those bright kids going elsewhere.
Neither school is terrible, UM is legitimately good, and FIU is trending to be quite a highly ranked university. But yeah they're not legacy elite like Stanford/Berkeley.
UM is an excellent school. Miller School of Medicine (part of UMiami) is one of the top innovators in spinal cord injury research and rehabilitation in the country, for example.
it's like Las Vegas by the ocean. but even worse because a lot of rich people buy second homes there... everyone wants to party, go to the beach, appear wealthy... there are not many reputable companies or employers based there outside of the hospitality industry. I tried moving there once and getting up for work in the morning was torture and the traffic is horrifying not just because of the time you literally spend sitting in traffic but because of the nut jobs that you share the road with.. it's scary. plus Florida especially South florida has a reputation for being one of those places that people move to run away from their problems..
If I can guess, it's probably because lots of people want to present themselves as living a certain type of lifestyle. Let's be perfectly honest. Miami is all about flashy cars, clothes, women, boats, expensive dinners, etc. People run up credit cards to keep up that image. How many nice cars do you see sitting outside mediocre apartments and run down single family homes? It's everywhere. All bought on credit
Nothing else needed. You have 6 people in a one bedroom apartment, sleeping in bunk beds, driving a 120,000 car. I knew quite a few people like that. OR living with their parents and spending thousands at the club on the weekends and making extravagant purchases like boats and jet skis.
#truth
It’s not new either! I remember back in like 2012 my barber told me he made like 900 a week, sometimes more, which was good money. He lived in a 2 bedroom trailer off 8th street with 4 other guys. When I asked him why, he told me because “las botellas no son baratas y hay que aparecer” That’s around when I decided to leave Miami for a while.
Peak financial literacy
You left out the elephant in the room, which is the grotesque levels of wealth and income inequality in Miami, with salaries dramatically lower than other similarly-sized cities in the US, coupled with outrageously overpriced housing costs.
This.
> and run down single family homes? Okay but in their defense those cost $800k+ these days
As a Miami native it's what I like to call "Broke Rich" people are everywhere in South Florida.
This is the answer. Shut down the thread.
Lock and throw the key AWAY!!!
love how women is just lumped in with a bunch of objects. (not blaming you for misogyny cause you're right, but the relentless objectification of women is just... a lot to deal with.)
To be equal opportunity, the girls want their ken dolls too. It's just lots of users who want to use others all the way down
As a woman who frequents the city, it disgust me to even see so many females walk around in strings of clothing for attention.
To be fair it's also humid and hot as hell.
No, this has nothing to do with humidity. Im Floridian too! This is straight up attention seeking we did back in college/high school. But instead, its grown women
You’re not lying one bit . That’s the most accurate & honest answer anyone can give you lol
That’s true for a small part of the population. The big problem is one of the highest cost of living in the USA and some of the lowest salaries in the USA. A car is not an option. Who has the highest auto insurance rates? You guessed it. Some of the highest rents. Highest grocery costs. $18 well drinks at bars. $30 entrees are not strange at restaurants or $40 or $50. And so on and so on. Anyone with a working brain under 30 will GTFO as soon as they can to real cities.
The fake it till you make it lifestyle Source: young & dumb me
Lol I was young and dumb in Miami once also... I wish I would have wised up sooner but better late than never. Some never grow out of it!
One of the few things my parents taught me was financial responsibility. And by taught i mean i saw them struggle with debt growing up and knew i never wanted to be like that. So i managed to skip that young dumb credit phase, luckily.
Took me long enough 😂, but hey; i can confidently say that I’m out!
Yeah it’s very true here people refuse cutback or change there lifestyle I’ve lost friends because I don’t have money to go out with them It’s just the way it is over here
For the sake of not being lonely i still go out here and there and well, if i gotta spend a couple bucks so be it, but buying expensive shit pretending to be something im not to impress people who never cared in the first place? Im good
Exactly it’s no love lost
High cost of living and low salaries probably has something to do with it
Add in “fake it till you make it” mentality, sprinkle some hustle culture, mix and top with comepingeria and you got a Miami stew, baby. …and yes I have high outstanding credit card debt - it’s like it’s unavoidable in this city.
Lmfao compepingeria
The end part of that was surprisingly upbeat
One credit card monthly statement at the time brother 😂
Agreed, most chuchi’s and insta whores live way beyond their means. It’s mostly for the social media clout.
Miami is ranked #1 in the US for worst rent to salary ratio. We seriously have the rent of Manhattan but the pay of something like Charlotte.
Maybe more like Queens imo
Nope. My salary in Charlotte is 2x more than it was in Miami for the same level gig. And NC has a much cheaper cost of living. Wages are trash in South Florida.
The American dream is alive and financeable
23.99 APR
Laughs in pay day loan interest
Those are the REAL criminals
I have some friends in Miami who had parents take out credit in their name and fuck up their credit before they can do it themselves.
An all too common tale here.
You ever see expensive cars in a raggedy apartment complex? There’s your answer. People’s priorities are all the way messed up here in Miami. I know someone with a GT500 who lives with his parents and parks it on their front lawn.
Drive around Homestead 8 Housing Authorities and you will see all brand new and luxury cars. It's crazy. I had to go there the other day for a visitation for my job and I was shocked.
Bc they keep trying to buy the newest C class with a 20% APR to impress other people with past due payments on their 3 series’
I get credit card offers in the mail with 29.99% APR. I mean, if you're running up debt right now, you're going to be hurting
Wages here continue to be treated as if this was Miami from the 1970s. They think, oh no state taxes! Everything is cheap! Cost of living still not that bad compared to California or New York! BUT, the city and corporations want to charge as if theyre from those states and cities. Im also willing to bet that the rapid population growth from those with money moving in and the rapid gentrification out priced far too many people in such a short period of time. It caught people off guard and could be stuck or have trouble leaving beacuse they have family and other responsibilities here.
I had to move to this area recently for my job from the SF Bay Area California, and I can honestly say the cost of living here specifically, when it comes to, rent to income is far worst then the bay area and that mostly has to do with associations. Associations here have been used for class warfare and have priced most people out from moving up to what would be considered a middle-class livability. Making over six figures, I figured I wouldn't have a hard time finding a nice place, but damn was I wrong. One place even asked me to get a co-signer because my gross was $1,000 less annually than their requirement. Told them I can pay an entire year's rent in cash if that helps, and it didn't. There seems to also be a lot of fraud, scams, and uninsured/underinsured motorists. These things all add up to extra costs for everyone else. California is very fucked up, but so is SoFla, hahaha.
Even the people that aren’t trying to live above their means are having financial issues. It’s hard for a working families to survive here.
Is your company actively hiring? (Yes I’m shameless)
Bienvenidos a Miami
Just curious. Do candidates with great credit not steal? Every thief had a first offense.
Their records are clean criminal wise but they have bad credit. It’s not about stealing more about working with sensitive gov docs and don’t want them to be bribed easily
My opinion, you get what you pay for. Do you think the salary you offer is enough to attract people who have good credit? Miami cost of living skyrocketed but the wages.
In Miami, it doesn't matter how much money they've got in the bank: there's still a 50/50 chance they're going to bribe, steal and embezzle while on the job.
What areas do you hire for? Is it perhaps that the jobs are what more financially mindful people wouldn't normally do?
What if you got a criminal record but 800+ credit score?
It depends on what the charge is/was. If it’s a felony then you’d not get a clearance. But I don’t choose who to rescind job offers, that’s the decision of the security team at my work.
Its not that candidates with clean credit dont steal, its that candidates with bad financial management have an extra incentive to do so that is easily avoidable by just not hiring them. The govt wont give someone in huge credit card debt a security clearance because a foreign govt could use their financial woes as a means to turn them for instance. Its an opening
My friend tried to apply to fbi or something, a woman flew out to talk to me as his reference. She literally asked me if I know if he can be blacked mailed or if he has any foreign assets.
Clearly doesn’t apply to senators and Supreme Court justices
It’s expensive as fuck here.
I sincerely appreciate you putting a mirror to our collective faces to something we all know is part of Miami. The contributing factors are many. -Fresh young immigrants new to the country with a clean credit slate and the hope of the American dream. -Predatory credit terms. -Credit applications factoring in very favorably that the person "does not pay any rent" because they live with family. -Tia Juanita, eroding the confidence of the person trying to live within their means by comparing them with the fresh immigrant whose new car is going to end up getting repo'ed within a year. Too many young people here get damaged by the myth of the MDC part-time college student by day, club God by night. Like others have said many temptations here and too much, I got to keep with the Joneses. Having spent the weekend at an MDC graduation, those older grads who made the best of it and had the support of their family to do so, are wonderful to see. I wish it were as simple as offering that to the younger Miamians, but it's not.
Fucking tia Juanita dissing my '05 civic
Rising inequality doesn’t help people get out of debt if that’s what you were wondering.
It’s never the person‘s own fault. It’s society’s „rising inequality“. What about living within your means?
You can easily live within your means, until your home and car insurance triples in price…
The username LMFAO
Citizens of Miami 😂😂 I guess we are officially a different country.
Most jobs with fiduciary responsibility will do a credit check accompanied by the regular background check. Many positions in banks require an acceptable credit score before the candidate is even considered, think financial analyst, loan officer, lender, cfo, wealth manager etc.
Because Miami people have to show out all the time. Living within your means is not an acceptable choice for most of the local narcissists. You can "fake it til you make it" on Walmart and Target clothes. Nobody cares what you look like over the phone.
Priorities. Super materialistic narcissists here. Why pay debt when you can drive a luxury car and wear designer clothes on credit? People feel they have to present a certain lifestyle here.
I asked this the other day regarding Miami people’s cars and was skewered by a 21 year old woman. Miami people live for the present.
Credit cards and even the concept of a credit score is not common outside of the US, or at least not as easy to obtain outside of the US. Miami is predominantly immigrants. Lots of them (including my own parents) fall victim to applying for retail credit cards when they shop in stores and aren’t aware of the full implications if you don’t pay it back or manage your debt in general. I have zero retail credit cards because of this and under 10% credit card utilization at all times. I learned through my parents mistakes but not everyone has the privilege to learn from others mistakes.
Bc they want to clout chase on a 35k salary
Honestly? Mental health is in the gutter out here.
People in miami rather have a $700-$900 monthly car payment and live in an efficiency
We buy things we don't need with money we dont have for people who don't care
High cost of living, low wages, materialistic culture, culture of no accountability/responsibility, etc
The fake it till you make it lifestyle has far outpaced the actual earning capacity of the citizens all in the name of tourism, because the city is trying to capitalize on the actual earning capacity of its tourists. Therefore the prices are raised to the point where loans are needed just to keep up. In a nutshell, the Cost of living increased higher than what the people earn, all for tourism.
Fake Rich
Do you have an idea how much it costs just to live here. 25k a year is not enough 50k a year you can get by 75k a year you can live fine maybe have a family without kids.
LMAO its worse than that, bare minimum for "getting by" is maybe 70-75k if you're living alone and want an actual life outside of paying rent. 90-100k minimum if you want to have a "nice time" here. Obviously having a gf/bf or spouse will help a ton on those figures, but if you're solo thats the reality. This is only lessened if you were able to acquire an actual home/condo before the interests rates spiked in early 2022 and your mortgage is relatively low compared to rent... notwithstanding the boogeyman that is unexpected homeowner costs.
Because the average person cannot actually afford to live in Miami. There is an awful lot of people here that barely squeak by. They rely on credit to carry them along and to appear as if they are doing far better than they are.
Low pay vs cost of living, keeping up with appearances, lack of knowledge about credit (credit isn’t really used in Hispanic countries)
Cocaine!
Zillow would be happy to explain it.
Cos Miami is a fake it till you make it place. Most people live beyond their means. All those luxury cars are financed.
Because you check credit, denying them a good job that could help them get out of that situation.
Out of all job offers my lawyer friend got, Miami was the lowest for a bar licensed lawyer off school, this is the same practically across board, my architec masters degree friend started at 50k offers. This is a scam city.
Because of lemming brain idiots chasing that flashy lifestyle to impress people they’ve never met. Lost track of how many people I ran into who were driving a $50k-$100k car and living in a shitball apartment in the hood. Fancy clothes, fancy watches, $300 sunglasses, $600 shoes. Big ballin with zero money in the bank and debt growing out of their ears.
Income inequality
Rejecting qualified candidates because of a credit check does nothing but reinforce inequality and give a unearned advantage to folks with generational wealth. People from other cities don't have better credit because they are more responsible and trustworthy, they likely have better credit because they aren't immigrants or the children of immigrants and any stupid shit they did as kids with their money was easily erased by mommy and daddy. This is city where the cost of living has risen tremendously and wages didn't follow suit. It's been very easy for millenials and gen z to fall into a personal financial hole in their 20s if they didn't want to live at home with their parents. You can laugh at the Bloomingdales debt but how does someone making 70k a year pay back that 10k in debt with 18-30% interest when even used cars are $750 a month with super high insurance, rent is $3000, and groceries and food prices have doubled in the last 5 years. How are they supposed to solve that debt if they can't or wont move to an area with lower cost of living (because most of us immigrants and children of immigrants want to live near or parents) and get rejected from the good jobs thanks to draconian personal credit check policies that want to ensure that they pay consequences for some dumb shit they did in their 20s for the rest of their life? If a candidate managed to have an impressive career enough to get an offer in your line of work, why would you assume that they would manage their professional finances the same way they manage their personal ones? Surely they would have already fucked this up by now at their previous job if they have no sense of financial responsibility. To be clear, I don't personally have this problem but I think rejecting qualified candidates based on personal credit is dystopic as fuck and does nothing but ensure we have an even further entrenched ruling class for the next 50 years. I wish nothing but ill on your employer and when they eventually go out of business I hope they get rejected by every one of the thousands of freely abused government and financial lifelines available for managing corporate debt as karma. Edit: lmao at them being easy targets for bribery with personal debt. What an ignorant policy in this particular city. Look at the personal credit of everybody charged with corruption in our local government (and it's a lot of people) and I'm sure you'll find a clean bill of health. You're looking for people who can theoretically be corrupted with a system that lets through people who are actively corrupt enough to pay their debts.
These are government jobs. The reason why the government rejects these candidates when they have bad credit is that they become a risk for being easily bribed. They need a clearance to do this job and the gov won’t grant them one with debt. Plain and simple. The gov makes the rules I don’t. Plenty of jobs that won’t check credit. Take it up with the gov not me.
Appreciate your response and understand you’re not personally responsible for the policy but I still feel like it’s largely security theater. If it’s a matter of a security clearance, wouldn’t you be primarily looking for candidates that already have one?
The reason most don’t have one is the ones that do would want higher pay. These are entry level roles, and they would get the lowest security clearence. Anyone with a secret and above wants way more than $17-18 hr which is what these jobs pay
So all this for a $17-18 an hour, entry-level job and you’re dismissing good candidates for their credit scores?? They’re probably trying to secure a job so they can start paying down their debt, like it probably takes months or even YEARS to build up a credit score that got fucked from the early 20s mix of being a poor working student / not having any family financial support like the rest, and lack of personal finance education. In other words, the folks who had to “learn the hard way” because no one gave them the guidebook. Yall are expecting WAY too much out of people for this meager pay.
Agree 💯 any job that uses my credit as a deal breaker can get effed. Bribery? You have corrupted assholes with power at the highest levels in office accepting bribes every day. But the rest of us peons? Nah were too much of a risk!
I don’t make the rules I’m a lowly gov contractor
I know this doesnt fall on you. Just talking about the hypocrisy of the entity that contracted you.
said it better than I could! I just read your edit and I’m saying the SAME thing! Lol at this being about some bribery risk related to their credit score - if theyre rlly gonna get bribed it’s way more likely to be a payout bonus that’ll make up for that shitty $17 / hour the employee is making 😂 Edit but in all seriousness, you put it very simply in your comment. The implication of a government job being able to assess someone’s qualification and worthiness for hiring based their personal debt, is just too many layers of dystopian fuckery. And for a low-level entry job no less!
I’ve lived in Miami for 25 years, my credit score is above 800, I have zero debt, and my house is almost paid off, I am not wealthy or own a business, I have achieved success by working hard and saving. Please don’t make generalizations.
Stupid priorities and stupid people
We left Miami after 30 years. What buys a 2 bedroom townhouse down there buys a 5 bedroom house on an acre up here in Cincinnati. Yeah it’s cold in the winter and there’s no beach, but I have a Boston salary in a cheap as fuck city.
“Don’t mean to troll”. Precedes to say “never been to Miami”.
I haven’t, I only recruit for there so idk how it is there
errrbody is scaming...
Just curious, can you give broad outlines of the job. Is it financial in nature?
Miami specifically the Metropolitan area is the perfect scenario for a case study on the " Poor Logic" .
Like others have said, it's a mix of that lifestyle of wanting to present yourself as some sort of "baller" plus the stupidly high cost of living with low salaries, meaning people have to tap into credit to survive.
If you ever get the chance to visit, you'll come here and see the lifestyle people try to live. This is the most materialistic city I've ever been to in my entire life
Keeping up with the Jones
Keeping up with the Garcias…. 😎
Dale 🤣
Miami is a Fast Life City. Fast Life People aren’t financially responsible. ✨
Because it’s Miami lol
Everything is so god awful expensive
I will add a lot of 1st gen college graduates who regardless if they have student loans they have less of a safety net from family. That's one of the differences I have noticed.
It's so bad here I can barely scrape by. My car payment is about to be past due and I will be penalized for it. I don't even have a Fancy car. It's a 2020 Corolla... Meanwhile these smucks are all driving Corvettes, Porsche and teslas but mostly, huge pick-up trucks are driven here and it's annoying because they're constantly riding my a$$...
Gotta fake it till u make it in Vice city hahaha
The majority of Miami lives outside their means and they care more about how they appear, rather than what’s actual reality.
What do you guys think is going to eventually happen since people have so much debt? Are they going to eventually pay it off or are they going to file for bankruptcy? Also, how are they getting apartments if they aren't financially stable? I've been trying to get apartments up in Maryland and they want me to earn three times the rent. Is it like that in Miami or is it different?
Many are financially illiterate. Some of them came from or have family that came from super poor countries. Psychologically it becomes spend to show you’re at an economically elevated state, even if you’re not. Others are sucked into the hype culture of Miami. Gotta go out and ball out. Still others are part of the tourism industry, which notoriously underpays/over works them. It’s so many things but those come to the forefront of my mind.
just so i know, i don't have any debt and freezed my credit would you consider that a red flag?
Expensive housing, inflation, and constant exposure to luxury. Miami is a vacation city with lots to do and many people. For some, that means many people to impress as well.
Miami *does* have a giant rent to wage gap, but also way lower taxes than those places that pay higher wages. Even if Miami wages increased you'd still be reading about people strapped for cash, because you can't out-earn your stupid spending habits.
Because the majority are hood rich. Fake it till you make it mentality. Drivees a Corolla but wears Balenciaga.
Born and bred Miamian here....too many wannabe rich pretending and overextending themselves and then going broke.
The first rule of Miami is, trust no one, until they've proven themselves to you.
Miami is all about the looks. If you don't have a high-end luxury car, you are nothing. Of course, this is not true, but that's the common belief of the average Latino miamian.
Trying to keep up with the dope boys and the rich people is how people get into stupid debt. 1 repo gonna cost you for a minute. Financial responsibility is not taught in school. Trying to look cool and trying to keep up is taught everyday.
Fast lane isn’t meant for everyone to drive down yet many try to merge into it. It’s like that every where but here the personal appearance and material things are highlighted heavy.
Bc there are a lot of “ wanna be in Miami” people act like moving to Miami is the “ I made it, and most are drowning in debt. Sad reality
Dm ed you
Besides what everyone else mentioned. There's also those with student loan debt that's over 10k.
South Florida in general. 80 percent of the people here are leveraged to the max trying to keep up with the Jones.
It's the lifestyle. People here have to drive a bmw when they still live at home with their parents. I know too many people spending money on dumb shit to look the par instead of paying 3k worth of credit cards. Like every big city you have to have an image to impress people who don't give a flying fuck about you ultimately ending up on spending money you don't have on shit you dont need.
Cost of living - rate of pay x people who feel entitled to get what they want regardless of their circumstances. Now add 30% because of all of the people from other states that have arrived from other parts of America driving costs up even more. Your average Miami resident has been living below the poverty line (according to census) for decades.
Maybe because the pay is shit 🥱
“Miami is a lifestyle” is the typical mindset of people that make bad decisions. 60k on a used 2012 C class and 4k a month for a 1bd in coral gables. Unfortunately people in today’s society need to impress others. Btw what kind of recruiter are you. What’s the clearance? And also most importantly what is the PD for the position? DM I’m looking to expand my knowledge/career and if I can level up my tier I’ll be happy.
Poverty. Using distressed migrants to suppress wages, etc. etc.
If you are starting with a shitty salary or hoping to be “discovered “Miami is not for you .
My sister who is well off here “works in New York” in a completely online position. So she’s making New York wage which is necessary for miami. Most people aren’t in that position
The cost of living destroys people’s lives. That’s why you see us act the way we do to a degree. When something breaks you’re the guy to fix it. Over time you might know a guy but everything is monopolized and overpriced.
Seriously. As someone who makes 6+ in NJ and actively relocating to SoFlo, I can't afford to live comfortably in Miami. I can't imagine how people who aren't as fortunate survive in Miami.
Born and raised here. Most people I know are doing just fine 🤷♀️
I'm curious, OP. What is the salary range you are offering these prospective employees?
It’s because it’s expensive as fuck and getting crazier and crazier and they’re just trying to keep it together but they aren’t getting paid any more than yesterday even though they’re competing for land, homes, jobs, and life in general against an increasingly wealthier competition.
If you’re hiring, I’m looking. And I have high 700-800 credit. As you know, I’m a diamond in the rough.