A picture of the historic Orpheum Theatre stage in Sioux City
Was thinking of your conversation with KSOO talking head Ruth. She said
“Sioux City???? Who’d wanna live there???
Way too often people only look at the outer layer of something and stop right there. Sure…what we see of Sioux City from I29 cuts right thru there industrial area. What would Sioux City think of Sioux Falls if I29 were where Cliff Avenue is? Not much I suspect.
Ruth’s dig at SC needs to be looked at closer. Maybe from a hourly wage point of view. Ruth’s own job maybe.
So what does a fully qualified and trained radio and television announcer make in SF vs SC? The 90th percentile announcer in SF….$20.88 an hour. In SC. $24.58
How about Customer Service reps? You know, in the town that credit card predators built, the 5470 jobs that start at the 10th percentile wage of a whopping $9.35 an hour. In SF the 90th percentile of those 5470 workers is $17.14 an hour. The SC counterpart? $18.53 an hour. HMMMMMM.
How about a cross section of other jobs and what they pay per hour? We’ll use 90th percentile figures as that is when a person is fully qualified in that particular field.
Chef/Head Cook SF $20.41 SC $24.91
Fast Food Cook SF $10.28 SC $11.23
Security Guard SF $16.66 SC $23.80
Accounting Clerks SF $18.23 SC $19.55
Brick, Block, and Stonemasons SF $22.87 SC $26.10
Carpenters SF $19.82 SC $24.04
Journeyman Electricians SF $25.25 SC $30.29
Plumbers SF $26.25 SC $30.89
How about necktie jobs?
Operations Managers SF $65.05 SC $71.76
Loan Officer SF $34.84 SC $44.26
Civil Engineer SF $42.16 SC $59.04
Numbers accurate from DOL May 2008
So…do Sioux Citians have more fun? You betcha. At least from an affordability standpoint.