If you're in CA there's always a lot of opportunity to start a business and just accept BTC as the preferred payment method but you would need to keep a tight ledger to pay taxes. Mining is pretty much dead except for free electricity people.
Everyone should do their own ROI. I am lucky to have space and cheap electricity so mining is very much alive for me on Asics. Granted I did stop GPU mining as heat and electricity was making my profit to slim, and was better off selling my cards.
I'm sure for someone in big cities this is much different then me, but depending on your situation mining is very much alive.