No extra spending money for Visalia-porterville residents

State third worst for discretionary income, despite fourth highest salaries

If Porterville residents are feeling like there isn’t much money left to go around after taxes and basic expenses, it’s probably because that’s exactly the case.

Trove Technologies, a Bay Area moving and storage company, has released the first-ever Trove Discretionary Income Study, and the data indicates that the Visalia-porterville metropolitan area ranks in the bottom 20 percent of American cities for discretionary income, which is defined as the amount of money remaining after subtracting estimated taxes and basic expenses.

The study found that the average salary in the Visalia-porterville area is $45,199, but after deducting an average of $10,204 per household for federal and state taxes, and basic expenses such as housing, transportation and groceries averaging $35,852, discretionary income for area residents is actually less than zero, coming in at a negative $857.

“The Visalia-porterville metropolitan area is completely unaffordable for many workers in the lower and middle wage brackets,” said Michael Pao, Trove cofounder. “Our research finds that wages beat the national average by 3 percent, but expenses come in at 7 percent higher than other cities.”

The study also combined occupationspecific data, which indicated that the

Visalia-porterville area ranks poorly among California cities for discretionary income in construction and extraction, healthcare practitioners, and architecture and engineering occupations. Police supervisors and detectives, psychiatric technicians, and radiologic technologists were the top jobs for discretionary income in the area.

The study is the first of its kind to incorporate data on regional differences in salaries, cost of living, and taxes to most

accurately reveal the take home pay of American workers across 778 occupations. The designers of the study feel discretionary income is an effective tool for comparing occupations across metropolitan areas, cities, and states, as it can be used for savings or for expenditures that tend to vary less by residency.

“Trove works with clients in transition all the time, whether they are thinking about starting a family or moving into a bigger home,” said Pao. “We wanted to provide data to clients to answer the question of ‘where would I live if I planned to keep the same job, but wanted to maximize my take-home income?’ There have been numerous studies that take salaries or cost of living into account, but the

Trove Discretionary Income Report is the first we have seen that adjusts for the effects of geographically-specific salary, tax, and expense data.”

Of the 20 small- and medium-sized California cities included in the study, 19 also rank in the bottom 20 percent of cities for discretionary income nationwide. Data on Porterville is grouped together with Visalia’s data as the Visalia-porterville metropolitan area, which ranks 14 out of these 20 cities. El Centro, Salinas and Bakersfield topped the list with the most favorable numbers for discretionary income, while Redding, Chico and Oxnard rounded out the bottom of the list.

When compared to other states, California ranks third worst nationally

for discretionary income, despite having the fourth highest salaries; only New York and Hawaii were ranked lower. Michigan was the top state for discretionary income, followed by Texas, Ohio and Tennessee.

While salaries across all occupations in California are 14 percent higher than the national average, housing and non-housing expenses are 61.4 percent and 5 percent higher, respectively — both numbers are third highest in the nation.

The data underlying the study is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Tax Foundation, and The Council For Community and Economic Research. Full results of the study are available free online at www. mytrove.com/t/dir-score.