Why My Citizen Getting Low Average Income

[Propfam 2,288]

Hello,

I am playing my city in my experiment region. But, something strange is happening: my residents only have 20,000 to even 10,000-ish average income and it is very fluctuating. One year I got increase and the next year I got decrease. I have 236,000 all-R$$$ residents, 900,000 all-CO$$$ office jobs, and 50,000 all-CS$$$ commercial jobs. My education is almost 200 and the life expectancy is around 90 years. I also has 0,5 seconds of commute time. This should make my residents get around 300,000 income units (I think it's simolean), but it didn't. I tried to replace my old population with young ones with rebuilding residential. But, it didn't work. Why do my residents only get around 20,000-ish average income?

Sorry for my abstract language. Thanks.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Hi chfzdn, Before the real experts's reply, let me talk about my thought, if you have

4 hours ago, chfzdn said:

236,000 all-R$$$ residents

then I guess that this is your main city, and you might have adjacent cities, Frankly I don't know the exact formula of Income, I presume that maybe there were some R$$$ worked on the other cities, so their incomes counted by other cities? And also I think your judgement is right, the aging population of the city maybe relevant to this issue, 

 

4 hours ago, chfzdn said:

I tried to replace my old population with young ones with rebuilding residential.

May I ask after your replacing, how about your working population and the age groups chart. I used the same way before, But it didn't help.

And also did you change the tax at that time, since I guess that when the tax is rasing, it might means the incomeof sims is decreasing. Anyway this is conjecture on my part, I suggest you to wait more capable people in simtropolis. I'm sure it's worth it.

btw, Is the number '900,000 all-CO$$$ office jobs' right, I just think the 90,000 is a proper one. Forgive me if I was wrong.

Sincerely,

-- Raymond

[Propfam 2,288]

1 hour ago, Raymond7cn said:

Hi chfzdn, Before the real experts's reply, let me talk about my thought, if you have

then I guess that this is your main city, and you might have adjacent cities, Frankly I don't know the exact formula of Income, I presume that maybe there were some R$$$ worked on the other cities, so their incomes counted by other cities? And also I think your judgement is right, the aging population of the city maybe relevant to this issue, 

 

May I ask after your replacing, how about your working population and the age groups chart. I used the same way before, But it didn't help.

And also did you change the tax at that time, since I guess that when the tax is rasing, it might means the incomeof sims is decreasing. Anyway this is conjecture on my part, I suggest you to wait more capable people in simtropolis. I'm sure it's worth it.

btw, Is the number '900,000 all-CO$$$ office jobs' right, I just think the 90,000 is a proper one. Forgive me if I was wrong.

Sincerely,

-- Raymond

To clarify, I built my city with high-density residential and commercial and zero tax for R$$$ and CO$$$. So, I can get 200K R$$$ and 900K CO$$$ in a medium city.

Thanks.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

The average income is based on the three residential wealth levels and the four education levels per wealth level. That can be found in the Demand Simulator under the Average Salary for Demographic (0x8A63F2A1).

And converting those to decimal:

R$
0x00004268 =  17,000
0x00004B32 =  19,250
0x000053FC =  21,500
0x00006590 =  26,000

R$$
0x000061A8 =  25,000
0x00007A12 =  31,250
0x0000927C =  37,500
0x0000C350 =  50,000

R$$$
0x0000AFC8 =  45,000
0x0001A8CE = 108,750
0x0002A1D4 = 172,500
0x000493E0 = 300,000

While I didn't test specifically for the education level breakpoints in The 505 Year Education Experiment, there is a bit of discussion about salary vs education in some later reply posts there. I suspect the education breakpoints are 0 to 50, 51 to 100, 101 to 150, and 151 to 200.

If you force all the Sims out of the city and get new ones to move in, they have a starting EQ based on their wealth level:

Low Wealth (Starting) EQ: 0x14 which is 20 in decimal.
Medium Wealth (Starting) EQ: 0x28 which is 40 in decimal.
High Wealth (starting) EQ: 0x3C which is 60 in decimal.

 

Then there is one more factor which is the EQ Reset Percent (0xCA027325). When average age reaches life expectancy in a tract, the tract's EQ is set to 80% of its current value. And a tract is a 4 x 4 cell block of land and those start counting from the upper left of the city tile.

[Propfam 2,288]

16 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

The average income is based on the three residential wealth levels and the four education levels per wealth level. That can be found in the Demand Simulator under the Average Salary for Demographic (0x8A63F2A1).

And converting those to decimal:

R$
0x00004268 =  17,000
0x00004B32 =  19,250
0x000053FC =  21,500
0x00006590 =  26,000

R$$
0x000061A8 =  25,000
0x00007A12 =  31,250
0x0000927C =  37,500
0x0000C350 =  50,000

R$$$
0x0000AFC8 =  45,000
0x0001A8CE = 108,750
0x0002A1D4 = 172,500
0x000493E0 = 300,000

While I didn't test specifically for the education level breakpoints in The 505 Year Education Experiment, there is a bit of discussion about salary vs education in some later reply posts there. I suspect the education breakpoints are 0 to 50, 51 to 100, 101 to 150, and 151 to 200.

If you force all the Sims out of the city and get new ones to move in, they have a starting EQ based on their wealth level:

Low Wealth (Starting) EQ: 0x14 which is 20 in decimal.
Medium Wealth (Starting) EQ: 0x28 which is 40 in decimal.
High Wealth (starting) EQ: 0x3C which is 60 in decimal.

 

Then there is one more factor which is the EQ Reset Percent (0xCA027325). When average age reaches life expectancy in a tract, the tract's EQ is set to 80% of its current value. And a tract is a 4 x 4 cell block of land and those start counting from the upper left of the city tile.

But, I have a question. My residents education is ~200 and the life expectancy is 90 years and even at one point, 95 years. That's impressive even for real life. But, why on earth my residents income is $20,000, and can even get lower to $5,000?

Another question, is the residential income an important thing in SimCity 4? Is the income an annual income?

Thanks.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

1 minute ago, chfzdn said:

But, I have a question. My residents education is ~200 and the life expectancy is 90 years and even at one point, 95 years. That's impressive even for real life. But, why on earth my residents income is $20,000, and can even get lower to $5,000?

Since it can go below the $17,000 minimum of the standard game settings, I'll have to guess some badly modded mod might be wrecking havoc for yours.

 

3 minutes ago, chfzdn said:

Another question, is the residential income an important thing in SimCity 4? Is the income an annual income?

As far as I know it's nothing important at all, but rather is a statistic one can watch and track and pretend that the little Sims are getting happier as it increases. It's an annual income representation.

[Propfam 2,288]

2 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Since it can go below the $17,000 minimum of the standard game settings, I'll have to guess some badly modded mod might be wrecking havoc for yours.

 

As far as I know it's nothing important at all, but rather is a statistic one can watch and track and pretend that the little Sims are getting happier as it increases. It's an annual income representation.

I have the Census Repository mod from RippleJet. My mayor rating is negative when I bulldoze almost all the census tower because it's ruining my city aesthetic and most importantly, taking up valuable space. I don't know this affects or not.

Thanks.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

On 2/1/2020 at 12:42 AM, chfzdn said:

my residents only have 20,000 to even 10,000-ish average income

Exactly what are you looking at? Are you looking at the sims' income? Or are you looking at the city's tax income from residents?

And your jobs: Are you looking at jobs available, or sims employed? If your sims are unemployed, then average income could be quite low (because many would earn zero -- before moving out).

[Propfam 2,288]

8 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

Exactly what are you looking at? Are you looking at the sims' income? Or are you looking at the city's tax income from residents?

And your jobs: Are you looking at jobs available, or sims employed? If your sims are unemployed, then average income could be quite low (because many would earn zero -- before moving out).

If you look the Graphs tab of the Mayor Panel, you will see a graph callee Avg Res Income. That's what I mean. Regarding unemployment, that was an issue in the first 100 years but now (year 300), that's not an issue anymore. I have 200K R$$$ and a million $$$ commercial jobs. I do have a majority of population with age of 50-60 years.

Thanks.

[Propfam 2,288]

I have made some changes. Here are the pictures. Note that I'm using Census Repository (and its tower) and BSC Funding:

I hope you can analyze the details. Thanks.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

I wish I could help you, but my oldest city-sector is 7 years, not 300+.

[xxdita 1,097]

You really only need one Census Repository per city. I typically place it in the most southern corner of each new city, as it can be harder to find otherwise. My CAMelot Counter park is always nearby. In larger tiles, I may have a second of each at the northern corner as well. 

Either way, the Census Repository would not cause issues with your Sims income levels. Compare your average wage with your Jobs & Population graph. 

I have noticed that some cities just go wonky after 100 years or so. I can pause the game, save it, then dezone the whole tile leaving nothing behind and somehow still have a population of over 20,000. I still can't explain that. Perhaps you should try that? Save the tile first, switch to the Zones view, then dezone everything. Just make sure you don't save the game again in that condition. Exit to region without saving. This may help you get a better sense of what's going on exactly. 

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

13 hours ago, xxdita said:

I can pause the game, save it, then dezone the whole tile leaving nothing behind and somehow still have a population of over 20,000. I still can't explain that.

Eternal commuter loop.

[xxdita 1,097]

That's what I thought at first too, but there was no traffic on the neighbor connections, and commute time was nonexistent. So I'm leaning towards the possibility that for some reason, the simulator isn't counting when certain buildings are replaced or demolished. Whether that's missing Occupant Groups from particular buildings, or simply a problem with running on Cheetah Mode for over 100 years nonstop I have yet to determine. 

[Propfam 2,288]

On 6/2/2020 at 2:54 PM, xxdita said:

That's what I thought at first too, but there was no traffic on the neighbor connections, and commute time was nonexistent. So I'm leaning towards the possibility that for some reason, the simulator isn't counting when certain buildings are replaced or demolished. Whether that's missing Occupant Groups from particular buildings, or simply a problem with running on Cheetah Mode for over 100 years nonstop I have yet to determine. 

Sorry for late reply. My computer is a 4th-gen i3 laptop with 4 gigs of RAM and 500 gigs of mechanical drive running Windows 10. Does this configuration affects the simulation and the average residential income calculation?

Thanks.

[xxdita 1,097]

27 minutes ago, chfzdn said:

Sorry for late reply. My computer is a 4th-gen i3 laptop with 4 gigs of RAM and 500 gigs of mechanical drive running Windows 10. Does this configuration affects the simulation and the average residential income calculation?

Thanks.

I never said anything about your system specs. My Wally World HP Special has pretty much the same schematics, although I did recently upgrade to 8GB. Since the game only requires a Pentium 3, I think we're good to go for SC4 and SOL with Cities Skylines, though I'm suspecting that's the Intel graphics. 

Your problem is either an eternal commuter loop or hidden modding issues. Eternal commuter loops can be corrected usually, but modding mistakes can stay with your cities until you destroy them. Even correcting the issue(s) may not actually resolve damage done, though it will prevent it from getting worse.