I think we can come up with a very long list of reasons underserved areas are not a desirable place to live for many people. Tops on our list of reasons was religion. We didn’t want to live 5 hours away from the nearest synagogue.
Edited to add that the restrictive abortion laws in North and South Dakota may make recruiting more physicians increasingly difficult.
It’s a tiny population center too. You don’t have enough kids going to Med school and coming home to practice. That said Rapid City is kind of hot right now?
Rapid City is the Fastest-Growing City in the Midwest - Elevate Rapid City.
It’s a great city (i don’t know to live but to visit) - and the headline is captivating.
But the next line was even more stunning.
Rapid City was the 54th fastest-growing city in the country
Has the midwest fallen that dramatically?
Rapid City seems like a nice town, set in the beautiful Black Hills. But oh those winters! The interstate has arms that come down when the snow and ice make travel unsafe. At least in hot places like Phoenix, you can move about.
It could be the lack of major medical centers that keep doctors away.
Wow.
States with no income tax make up for it with higher sales tax and property tax. They also tend to spend less on public education. Pros and Cons of Living in a State With No Income Tax
I think you’d probably still come out ahead in SD, given the general cost of living.
Having lived in two no income tax states and several taxed states, it really depends on your income. 300k in a no tax state is going to win most of the time. 40k maybe not.
I question how the numbers would change if you controlled for things like specialty, experience, and total compensation. For example, Glassdoor reports the following for Internal Medicine Physicians working in the healthcare industry. It suggests many states have higher typical compensation than South Dakota.
Average Total Compensation
0-1 Years Experience – California = $281k, South Dakota = $272k
1-3 Years Experience – California = $262k, South Dakota = $256k
4-6 Years Experience – California = $257k, South Dakota = $254k
7-9 Years Experience – California = $261k, South Dakota = $255k
10-14 Years Experience – California = $271k, South Dakota = $256k
15+ Years Experience – California = $282k, South Dakota = $261k
Payscale suggests even more extreme differences for internists, in favor of CA. Using median rather than average may contribute. Payscale reports a median of $271k for CA vs $217k for SD.
@Data10 perhaps this is the reason why…the article is looking at this. I didn’t see anything in that article that referenced salaries today.
The top-earning physicians aren’t where you’d expect
Average annual income in 2017 for professionals ages 40 to 55
Also does the CA salary translate to better pay if you take into account COL differences?
Obviously, if you consider cost of living it doesn’t. Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn’t the WAPO article in your OP only looking at salaries? Medscape releases a yearly report on physician compensation for anyone that is interested. It contains a lot of info regarding salary trends, gender pay gap, and physician burnout. For some reason I can’t link the actual report. but I’m attaching an article that summarizes it and you may be able to get to the report through their link . If you scroll down they have a list of the top states for overall physician compensation. Wisconsin tops the list followed by Indiana, Georgia and Connecticut. California comes in at number 9. North and South Dakota aren’t in the top ten. Both California and Georgia are projected to be among the the 5 states with the greatest physician shortages by 2030.
Edited to add that my home state of Georgia has been rapidly climbing to the top of the physician salary list. We have a huge shortage particularly of primary care and pediatricians in more rural areas. We are also seeing a huge turf war between 3 non profit health care systems in the Atlanta metro who are gobbling up single specialty practices like PacMan and paying doctor salaries far above the national averages for their specialties.
It was. I was simply pointing out that COL is relevant when discussing salaries and how they compare across various states once that information was included in the thread.
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