Sex and Tampa Bay

Florida is currently in a budget crunch. Our state has no state income tax much of our revenue comes from sales tax. Since the price of things like gas and food are taking up so much of the average persons income, it leads to less money for shopping and spending. Which means less money in sales tax. And that brings us back to the budget crisis.

There are really two options here: bring in more money or reduce services. Neither one is very pretty. People don’t want to pay more in taxes, but they don’t want to see their community centers and schools suffer with less.

Luckily, there is an easy answer.

It’s me. And you. And our friends. All of us young professionals (or SINKs- Single Income No Kids). We generally have larger disposable incomes (so we pay a lot in sales tax) AND we don’t use up many tax dollars in services. No kids in the school system. We get insurance through our jobs. We are largely self-reliant and happy-go-lucky.

So why isn’t Florida more concerned with making this state better for Young Professionals?

It’s the nature of politics that the squeaky wheel get the grease. In this state you don’t get much squeakier than retired folks with more free time than common sense. If you turn out to any city council meeting you might mistake it for a meeting of the JAG fan club. There is nobody there representing our needs.

Of course, part of the problem is that we don’t know what our needs are. Personally, I think we need more/better public transportation options, better parking in downtown, and more job opportunities for those starting out in a career.

We have a ton of colleges around here (USF, Eckerd, UT, Stetson Law, SPJC SPC, etc.) but after graduation the job prospects suck. We are coming into entry level jobs that don’t need a college degree. Things like administrative assistant and salesperson.

Look, I work as a secretary. It’s a good job. But I didn’t need to graduate near the top of my class with a degree in Political Science in order to be here.

If we want to find a job equal to our education we need to move away. Once we have 20 years of experience, then we can come back in the many middle management opening I see on job websites.

Of course, by that time we’ll have kids in the school system, and we’ll be getting back as much in government services as we put in with tax dollars.

I’m not sure what Florida needs to do in order to attract and keep young professionals from moving away. I just know they need to do something.