<story><title>Work-from-home is the new normal in Canada</title><url>https://nationalpost.com/opinion/work-from-home-new-normal-in-canada</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>afavour</author><text>A reasonably levelled FAANG engineer working a 9-5 is absolutely rich by any objective standard. Applies to plenty of other industries as well.</text></item><item><author>tempaccount420</author><text>Rich? No one who works a 9-5 is rich. It&amp;#x27;s also definitely not a small subset.</text></item><item><author>ghiculescu</author><text>Yeah, it might be the new normal for a small rich subset of society. To say it’s the new normal full stop, is to ignore most of the working class. Ironically the group that’s usually wagging its finger at everyone else about privilege, does not realize its own privilege.</text></item><item><author>afavour</author><text>As someone who has been working from home since the pandemic and preferring it these articles still bug me: the new normal &lt;i&gt;for who&lt;/i&gt;? Not for retail workers, agricultural workers, manufacturing, first responders, those who work in trades etc etc etc.&lt;p&gt;It’s a very notable shift for office workers. It just so happens that every newspaper opinion writer is in the exact socio-economic group most affected and way too often it’s talked about as if it’s universal.&lt;p&gt;It also leads to under coverage of important side effects: for example, here in NYC the economics of the subway system have been messed up since the start of the pandemic. If every office worker works from home the system suddenly loses a ton of revenue. But if they cut back on service it’ll disproportionately affect the (typically lower income) workers that still depend on it. Not unsolvable but rarely talked about.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>3vidence</author><text>These comments always irk me.&lt;p&gt;I am a &amp;quot;reasonably leveled FAANG eng&amp;quot; in Canada.&lt;p&gt;I have enough money to do the following:&lt;p&gt;- rent a 2 bedroom apartment in a smaller city.&lt;p&gt;- Order food from time to time.&lt;p&gt;Things that are difficult to afford:&lt;p&gt;- Any level of a car (currently car share).
- I don&amp;#x27;t even look at house prices almost anywhere in my province.&lt;p&gt;My effective tax rate is around 48% and with the way things keep increasing in price I will likely never own a home.&lt;p&gt;Returning to the original question .... Am I rich?</text></comment>
<story><title>Work-from-home is the new normal in Canada</title><url>https://nationalpost.com/opinion/work-from-home-new-normal-in-canada</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>afavour</author><text>A reasonably levelled FAANG engineer working a 9-5 is absolutely rich by any objective standard. Applies to plenty of other industries as well.</text></item><item><author>tempaccount420</author><text>Rich? No one who works a 9-5 is rich. It&amp;#x27;s also definitely not a small subset.</text></item><item><author>ghiculescu</author><text>Yeah, it might be the new normal for a small rich subset of society. To say it’s the new normal full stop, is to ignore most of the working class. Ironically the group that’s usually wagging its finger at everyone else about privilege, does not realize its own privilege.</text></item><item><author>afavour</author><text>As someone who has been working from home since the pandemic and preferring it these articles still bug me: the new normal &lt;i&gt;for who&lt;/i&gt;? Not for retail workers, agricultural workers, manufacturing, first responders, those who work in trades etc etc etc.&lt;p&gt;It’s a very notable shift for office workers. It just so happens that every newspaper opinion writer is in the exact socio-economic group most affected and way too often it’s talked about as if it’s universal.&lt;p&gt;It also leads to under coverage of important side effects: for example, here in NYC the economics of the subway system have been messed up since the start of the pandemic. If every office worker works from home the system suddenly loses a ton of revenue. But if they cut back on service it’ll disproportionately affect the (typically lower income) workers that still depend on it. Not unsolvable but rarely talked about.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sologoub</author><text>That depends on tenure - if this hypothetical person has been in that position for many years AND has saved a significant part of their income, they may be “rich”.&lt;p&gt;However, FAANG really exploded in size only recently (and then hit layoffs), FAANG jobs are concentrated in VHCOL locations, so savings aren’t great for all. So while their W2 may look impressive, it’s far from a foregone conclusion that they are “rich”.&lt;p&gt;To me “rich” implies independence and the ability to stop working 9-5. That doesn’t describe the vast majority of FAANG (or otherwise) employees. There certainly are outliers and success stories, but it’s not the default case.</text></comment>