People From El Paso Sure Do Love to Complain About El Paso
I've posted a couple of articles this week about cost of living and El Paso potentially becoming a destination for remote workers. Apparently trying to talk about a positive aspect of El Paso causes a whole bunch of Negative Nellies to chime in.
There are a lot of people that apparently don't understand what "cost of living" means. It takes into account taxes, food, transportation, wages, and more. This doesn't seem to deter people from jumping on Facebook to complain about El Paso. Oh, it also doesn't keep people from trying to argue the opposite side by focusing on just one point. News flash, that's not how it works. Here are some of the responses to the cost of living article I wrote.
Oh hell no. Was up in Boston a month ago and the gas price was the same as here in EP. Cheaper I don’t think so
Gas might be the same between Boston and El Paso, but that would be an incredibly tiny fraction of cost of living.
Our minimum wage is still $7.25 am hour here. Try telling the person making that much that El Paso is still cheap.
Um, I did. That's what my article was about. There are A LOT of places in the United States where the minimum wage is just $7.25 but the cost of living is much higher than El Paso.
Please , El Paso has some of the highest taxes. Low wage jobs, and the city doesn't work to bring in high paying jobs but keeps working to pushing people into homes to build the tax base on those low paying jobs. If a person needs more than one job to pay your bills, as I have seen many people here need here have to do, this is not a cheap city, it is just cheap for those who are doing better from elsewhere that move to the city to take the higher paying jobs. Those with education leave El Paso more, for better pay because of the low wages. The Q is really slacking with these articles they put out as if the city is not stuck in a low wage, gig, side job economy based mainly on call centers in this town. Be Real!
Again, comparing El Paso to other cities, it very much is cheaper. I'm not saying it's perfect here. El Paso has it's own issues. But this post is the epitome of what I'm talking about. "We're stuck because other people don't help us out." Of course, we do have some people that understand...
Currently working in Denver and I just paid $10 for an egg and chorizo burrito...
Of course, as I talked about writing this article to people who are from El Paso, all they said to me was "Yeah, welcome to El Paso. Everyone complains but they never do anything about it." I don't think this is exclusive to El Paso, but it's certainly a pretty big theme here.
One major factor in all the articles about this topic I've written this week has to do with remote jobs. Not jobs here in El Paso. "But our jobs here are low pay!" is something I've heard a lot. Okay, don't rely on jobs here in El Paso. Remote jobs are on the rise. Go back to school. Get your degree. Create a better situation for yourself. Spend your time and energy creating a positive future for yourself rather than spending your time and energy complaining about a negative past and present.
Take it from me. Someone who has lived a few different places across the United States. El Paso is a great town. I'm happy to call this place home and look forward to my future here.
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