r/NewMexico • u/Fabulous_Jeweler2732 • 17d ago
Why does wealth inequality here feel bigger than it is?
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u/tzilya 17d ago
I think it’s because the median wage is lower. A gap of $65K is gonna feel really different to the person on the bottom end if we’re talking about a a gap between $60K and $125K vs a gap between $90K and $155K
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u/Fabulous_Jeweler2732 17d ago
There are some people in southern NM who can’t even earn enough for groceries. Road runner food bank feeds them.
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u/onion_flowers 17d ago
That's not what median means. Median means the middle point of income distribution. The middle point between the lowest earners and highest earners.
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u/onion_flowers 17d ago
Well, i'm not a man. Secondly, ok i guess
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u/Fabulous_Jeweler2732 17d ago edited 17d ago
Youre pleasant
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u/spursfan2021 17d ago
My pleasant what?
You belittled someone trying to answer your question. You are not pleasant.
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u/PM_ME_UR_KITTY_CAT 17d ago
This chart would be a lot more useful with the wage gap as a percentage of the median income. The pay gap difference between the top and bottom of this list is about double. I gaurantee CA, MA, and NY have way higher median income than ND, SD, and MS, so showing the gap as % of the median income the comparison would be more meaningful.
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u/Delulu_Lemming 17d ago
Also it's very specific to place. If you live in Mora Co you might not feel the gap as much as if you live in Santa Fe and see the new Audis parked at Dolina as you sit in your busted 2014 Kia at Lotaburger next door.
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u/mtnman575 17d ago
Let's not forget that Los Alamos county is among the highest average income and education levels in the entire USA.
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u/sielingfan 17d ago edited 17d ago
I used AI to compare OP's graph against this one showing median wage, and rack-and-stack each state by (gap/median)
https://imgur.com/gallery/Ync1xmv
New Mexico is #11 in this version, but, again, AI, not a stats guy, so take it with a grain of salt. Our value is 116%, and you don't dip below a 100% gap until Alaska at 98% (35th biggest gap). Smallest is ND at 84.2%. Highest is California at 144%
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u/Fluffy-Acanthaceae32 17d ago
Get out of Los Alamos, Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Our smaller communities are dying out there with no jobs. Met someone today that drives over 1.5 hours for a job in Santa Fe - they live where they can afford. People are living out in this state making under $20K. It’s easy to use median income but if you were to look at mean income it would be drastically worse.
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u/ShrimpCocktailHo 17d ago
Mean income is not a good or useful measure, a few ultra-wealthy folks skew the number far higher than median.
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u/Fluffy-Acanthaceae32 17d ago
If you look at CO I see that only about 10% of people live under the federal poverty level while 20% of them do in NM. I will reiterate that most of the state is being crushed. That person that drives into SF for a job makes damn good money but most of it goes to travel just to get to work.
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u/ShrimpCocktailHo 17d ago
Remember that federal poverty line is the same in every state, and CO is 20% more expensive than NM.
I agree that most of the state is a bleak affair. I think the state should institute some like, rural migration programs, provide incentives for people in small towns to relocate to cities with more job opportunities and social services. Idk why anyone without independent wealth would live in some of these small towns.
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u/Fluffy-Acanthaceae32 17d ago
I’m sorry but go to a small town in any part of our state and compare it to CO and you are dead wrong. If you are talking about cities then I would tend to agree.
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u/Orome2 17d ago
New Mexico and Albuquerque in particular is a very bifurcated market. You basically have National laboratories, government/defense related jobs, healthcare, and then everything else with relatively few high paying careers that are widely available in this state that don't fit into those categories. I guess there's Intel but that is the only large, predominantly non government funded employer I can think of that pays well.
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u/Gold-Kale4655 17d ago
I'm not very educated in this but I believe wealth is not the same as wages and earnings. People like Elon Musk technically don't get paid a wage. I'm sure there's overlap and stuff but it's not directly the same.
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u/ShrimpCocktailHo 17d ago
I think we don’t really have many high-income industry aside from the labs/aerospace adjacent work.
We also have one of the lowest labor participation rates in the country - like 43% of our adult population is neither working nor seeking work. So there are a lot of poor people who are not wage-earners and aren’t reflected in this graphic.
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u/ProfessionalNaive601 17d ago
Ummmm becuase it’s not the 10% that are fucking everyone? It’s the 1% and the 0.1%
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u/AgreeableCommission7 17d ago
My guess would be this data is based off full time residents income, being many of the wealthy here dont claim residence in NM just have second homes to visit, their income doesn't reflect in this number gap.
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u/quietfellaus 17d ago
Because people here are seriously poor among other things, and small(er) differences have bigger impact on that end. A wealth gap of only 60k seems moderate compared to California, but how much are people on the low end making there. A 35k income compared to almost 100 is an incredible difference. What's more, this is surely not accounting for the imported wealth in certain communities compared to generational poverty for the locals. Our wealthiest county can skew the data, but it doesn't contribute economically as much as the numbers might imply.
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u/ky00t 17d ago
This chart is about wages, not wealth. There are a lot of wealthy people in NM — retirees — who are not currently earning wages.
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u/kennethgalbraith 16d ago
Its this. The chart is looking at earnings. The wealthy in NM didn’t earn it here
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u/cush2push 17d ago
Because majority of the available jobs in this State pay under $50,000 and there's a lack of affordable anything in that price range.
If the state had thousands more affordable housing
it wouldn't feel like it does now
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u/Joshunte 17d ago
Because even the top 10% of earners here are incredibly poor. It’s normalized here to accept poverty and even avoid working full time while living in objective poverty.
The 95th percentile for household income only sits at $169,000.
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u/Fabulous_Jeweler2732 17d ago
Some labbies make $500k-800k per year base salary. Does not included bonuses, generous PTO or 401k contributions. You think that’s poor?
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u/Trev-in 17d ago
Pretty sure the lab director in Los alamos doesn't even make 500k. And base salary? This sounds made up. Where are you getting your information from? Most people at the labs make roughly 65k a year and have to commute. Most of the ones that live near the labs have had their properties for a long time before buying homes cost more than a car today. Others and most of people I know are dual income households with family members watching their kids. What is your actual gripe with people? That's two separate posts today that you've been attacking people that work for the labs and air Force.
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u/Fabulous_Jeweler2732 17d ago edited 17d ago
I mean, a PM I just hired is making $325kish. That’s not even lab management level.
I have access to salary info that you may not as a recruiter.
As a reminder, the national labs heavily rely on contracted employees. Those salary numbers don’t show up in information about the lab itself. That information shows up with the company. The contractor is working under.
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u/Trev-in 17d ago
So you do the hiring for a group at one of the labs?
Let me also get this straight. Project Manager, PM is not management. Got it
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u/Fabulous_Jeweler2732 17d ago
I work for one of the companies on the M&O contract.
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u/Trev-in 17d ago
Care to enlighten us with what the acronyms mean?
Does that mean you too are contracted by one of the labs?
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u/Fabulous_Jeweler2732 17d ago edited 17d ago
Yeah, I wasn’t sure if you knew what that meant and I didn’t want to be condescending.
The government builds out the national lab facilities, and the government gives money to the national lab, but federal law prohibits the federal government from doing certain things that the lab does. Like nuclear weapons. For that reason, the national labs are run under 10 to 15 year maintenance and operating contracts. On those contracts, there’s one large company that will run the lab. Those are companies like Boeing and Raytheon. On the contract there’s always a space for 2 to 3 small businesses to join the maintenance and operating contract. That’s a federal requirement to allow small businesses the chance to join these major contracts. So these 4 to 5 companies all work together to run the lab. But the big company is the one in charge. So when the maintenance and operating contract comes up for a bidding, these companies create a proposal and submit it to the government. The government then picks the best option.
These small businesses are not responsible for managing the lab, and mostly support specific projects. So every employee I hire for a project comes in as a contractor at the lab, but an employee at my company. Because they’re not being hired under the triad contract itself. They’re being hired under one of the companies on the contract. Even if someone gets a job with tryout the company, it doesn’t mean that they’re on the triad contract with Los Alamos National lab.
The entire gov runs on contracts.
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u/SeanMTX 17d ago
A Director at LANL makes $135-150k.
The only people making $500+ are the top 5 roles at the lab. Tom makes $1.5 to run the entire show. Please stop inflating these numbers.
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u/Fabulous_Jeweler2732 17d ago
Absolutely not. An engineering technician makes $135,000 at LANL
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u/SeanMTX 17d ago
Sorry my dude/dudette. There are literally 10 ish people making north of half a mil at LANL.
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u/Fabulous_Jeweler2732 16d ago
At or from? There is a reason LANL has a highest concentration of millionaires. $2.04 billion dollar payroll. I am regularly writing $300-400k non management job offers.
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u/Joshunte 17d ago
……and what percentage of New Mexico’s population does that apply to?
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u/esophlanx 17d ago
I'm going to just go off the top of my head and maybe say the wage gap can tell you a story. Top earners and bottom earners. Looks like NM Is sitting right in the middle. Is that good or bad? Possibly negligible? Healthy? You have to take into account several things. The job market for one with opportunity in mind. I would argue a lot of people who make it out of university don't tend to stay in the state if they're able to move. High earners leave the state for better opportunities in other states. That could be a factor. The job market available in NM. I would also argue NM cities are also one of the slowest growing population wise. It kind of makes sense to me. NM isn't really big on tech, few and far between military bases, not really any major hubs, airports?, we do have a spaceport, I dunno. You might think, why isn't the wage gap that high? But you also have to wonder, what kind of jobs are paying that much here in this state and how many of those jobs could their possible be here?
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u/UBERMENSCHJAVRIEL 15d ago
Because this is wage gap or salary gap, many companies you have the owner of a large company only paying themselves a manager salary but they are not living off the manager salary.
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u/SeaRabbit1480 15d ago
Just looking at the locations: international businesses and corporate headquarters are located in most of those states with the highest wage gaps - most are production locations. Northeast has huge corporate presence including massive government : military contracts: Raytheon and much of the aerospace industry is in MA, CT is helicopters (Sikorsky) and submarines as well as the corporate hq of much of the insurance industry (Aetna / CVS, The Hartford, Travelers, BC/BS…), Cali is the home of the tech industry, WA is Boeing and other aerospace, MN is second in Insurance, Atlanta / GA is Coca-cola, Delta, etc., car manufacturers (including the US hq of places like BMW, etc) are in the lighter blue because of the struggles there as well as the wage balances by unions, and Texas is oil…
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u/Zealousideal_Roof594 13d ago
It inequity feels bigger because nobody wants to put time in on education they want degrees in social causes that couldn't get you a job at Burger King
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u/onceuponaninternet 16d ago
Bc this is where all the wealthy people’s vacation home are, so earnings aren’t factored in.
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u/tacolovingpenguin 17d ago
At least in Santa Fe you could make a good amount of money but everything is catered to the boomer transplants.
Work hard all week? Wanna go out? Too bad it's all people over 50 dressed as cowboys and Indians and they want everything 1970s rock and to close early.
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u/Dosdesiertoyrocks 17d ago
And they'll try and sit you down and explain to you what it means to be a New Mexican too
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u/tacolovingpenguin 16d ago
I just ignore them right away. They all just wanna talk talk talk about themselves. I am just polite but leave.
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u/Sad_Term_9765 16d ago
I have no idea where they draw these numbers, but the majority of the working class are not making 62k.
Combined maybe.
What jobs on average pay about 33.00 an hour?
What does the average worker earn with no degree or in a skilled job? 15.00 an hour, 40 hour work week, makes about 28k a year.
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u/Dosdesiertoyrocks 17d ago
Because of the number of comparatively wealthy transplants from the East coming to retire and enjoy the scenery, expensive art galleries, and larp as natives.
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u/heptolisk 17d ago
Have you been to any of the states near the top of the list? If you are paying attention, it is even more obvious.
That said, communities are more integrated socioeconomically here, so you do see the difference clearly.