Yes, but we also make an assload of money... so it balances out. The national minimum wage is $5.75 I think, here it is $7.16 and is about to be raised again. But people aren't any more rich because all the money just goes into living.
Yeah, the only way living here would be advantageous would be if you are moving out of state. When I was in Michigan, they had a gallon of milk for .99 cents which I almost shit my pants for. Here you are lucky to find a gallon for $2. I think high cost of living is one of the ways we like to keep foreigners away.
ooooh i've got indian dahl soup cooking and i'm crushing up some sesame salt at the moment. ahhahha :H god i sound like a crazy mofo health nut kinda
It costs so much because we have everything: perfect weather, lots of high end jobs, is culturally diverse, lots of local resources, etc... oh, another thing is that we don't have property tax, so our sales tax is really high, 8%. But generally... its just a mixture of a bunch of things that can't be offered elsewhere. As for being the suicide capital, that statistic is probably 15 years old. Washington ranked #17 as of 2002, trailing Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Oregon and Utah just to name a few. There is another city, Tacoma, which is located at the bottom of the Puget Sound near Olympia. This city was rated the most stressful city out of the top 310 metro locations in the country. This study was based on divorse rate, unemployment rate, commute time, violent crimes, property crimes, suicide rate, alcohol consumption, mental health and number of cloudy days. Seattle was rated #11. One thing I love about Seattle is that people who grow up here, stay here... people who move here, never move again... and it's actually very unwelcoming to tourists.