Since you're not going to get much but "my job went to India" - I'd take a look and see what you NEED. Do you have a family? $40-45K would be good ($20-22.50 per hour), especially if your spouse works. Take the highest you can get. Resume' experience and skills pay off.
I make $45K in LA, and let me tell you, supporting a family on that in SoCal is hard. We pay almost $1000 for a one bedroom apartment in a safe (but not luxurious) neighborhood, where my wife and I live with our toddler and our infant. Things are tight out here; I had to move from San Diego to get this job, and one of my co-workers moved from Silicon Valley. The salary range actually topped out at $40K but the wanted the skillset I was bringing to the table badly enough to come up the extra five. Asking
Think about this for a second. $45K is pre-tax. Take away social "security" tax, state tax, federal tax and with luck $30K remains. Now take away $12K for rent, that leaves 18K. Per month, that is $1500. Now take away food, clothes, medical bill, and maybe a car payment and gas, and there isn't a lot of wiggle room.
Don't forget to take away medical insurance, as many companies only insure the employee and you have to pay for the rest of the family. br So I'd drop that 18k down to 8k. And if you don't have a lot of money, have been out of work and what not, you almost certainly have lots of debt. Makes life quite stressful.
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br
So I'd drop that 18k down to 8k. And if you don't have a lot of money, have been out of work and what not, you almost certainly have lots of debt. Makes life quite stressful.