Jobs in home countries

[jpwalston]

This may be an odd question/comment, but do most of you guys have a specific field your in job wise? IT, Engineering, etc....
I'm really surprised that so many people under 27 are able to claim points for income. I'm from the southern US, and believe me, it's very difficult to make a decent salary down here.

Just curious as to what most peoples professions are!

[gordon]

Most people here appear to be in the private sector; I got 45 points from income earned in the academic sector in the Northeast (but I'm over 32 and therefore did not claim any age points). I would say that the income thresholds wouldn't seem so bad if the dollar were not depreciating at breakneck speed. AG

[apeterso925]

This may be an odd question/comment, but do most of you guys have a specific field your in job wise? IT, Engineering, etc....
I'm really surprised that so many people under 27 are able to claim points for income. I'm from the southern US, and believe me, it's very difficult to make a decent salary down here.

Just curious as to what most peoples professions are!

I think this might come down to an unfortunate side effect of the large differences in cost of living within a particular country. Obviously the HSMP criteria can't get so specific as to allot different earnings requirements to different regions within each country and instead they band entire countries as a whole. In the US, that probably means that you're more likely to qualify if you live in an area with a higher salary range.

But, speaking as someone who briefly lived and worked in Atlanta, the southern US sees lower salaries than other regions...I was in awe of how inexpensive things were down there, but at the same time, my salary was low too.

To give you the flip perspective, I am 29 and with my MBA, I only needed to earn roughly $58K USD to get 75 points...and $58K in the DC area puts you well below the average income level, even as a young person. Case in point, I actually qualified for a special local tax grant last year, intended for low-income residents. Lol.

So I was actually perplexed that I could be considered poor by my home government and yet be seen by the UK government as having a high earning power.

Overall I think it speaks to the fact that the guidelines have to apply to the entire world...and sometimes it doesn't really work out logically.

Also of course, to AG's point, the dollar is so pathetic right now that it certainly isn't helping!