
Fewer Americans Choose to Move to New Pastures - SeanBoocock
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/25/business/economy/fewer-workers-choose-to-move-to-new-pastures.html
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jordanb
I wonder how much of this is companies getting stingier with relocation
expenses. Even in tech, companies which claim to be begging for more talent
tend to offer either no relocation benefits or really kinda insulting benefits
("$5000 max reimbursable with receipts, and you have to pay it back if you are
separated within a year" for instance).

How many Americans could really cover a cross country move out of their own
savings in search of work? Especially when job switching is so risky these
days. I know a woman who relocated herself to SV to work for a startup and
then was terminated a few months later after the startup shifted priorities
and eliminated her position.

~~~
BuckRogers
>How many Americans could really cover a cross country move out of their own
savings in search of work?

I've done this, twice. But only because I really needed a job. Now that we're
settled, it won't happen again so easily. One time I did it with a job already
locked-in. Second time for my wife with no job locked in but it did work out
well.

Once we're settled in our locale, it will take a great deal to get us to move
again. Someone would have to be offered a lot of money and the other person
have some sort of opportunity available. Eg. my wife is a teacher, we'd need
it to be a state where they had reciprocity.

The fact that we need to move like cattle and have such lax labor laws to be
let go with no cause are not really conducive to each other. Like what
happened to your friend. Hard to imagine they truly couldn't find her some
other job to do within the company when they "shifted priorities".

I say this as someone who is never a victim of circumstance, we are those who
within reason, move or do whatever it takes to get ahead. So we moved but
we've both also given up all our friends, family and the comfort those bring.
But it remains that American work culture and labor laws are completely upside
down and they need to change.

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fiatmoney
Two-earner households, and a society that makes a two-earner household a
prerequisite for a middle-class lifestyle, makes relocation inherently more
difficult.

~~~
cheriot
Another problem that can be solved by putting women back in the kitchen?
</sarcasm>

Is there a case for preferring one-earner households? The bar for a middle
class lifestyle going up is a problem, but I'm not sure it's the same problem.

~~~
fiatmoney
Yes, there is. Elizabeth Warren, when she was an academic, did a fair amount
of work indicating most of the marginal gain from the second earner goes to
positional goods (like real estate in "good school districts" (ie areas with
good demographics)) to no net gain. It also, as I said above, makes
coordination more difficult.

Two-earner households also result in delayed fertility, which has harmful
demographic effects and dysgenic effects.

~~~
cheriot
I'll ask without the sarcasm. What's the alternative? Do we discourage people
from working? Discourage people from sending their kids to the best schools
they can?

I lived that life. My parents payed more for property and commuted farther so
I could go to the best schools around and I'm grateful. Yes, there are down
sides, but these are the choices people make because it's worth it to them.

------
jmadsen
This is what shoots down the biggest myth of the "pure capitalism" crowd.

They have a habit of presenting complicated economics in "Lemonade Stand"
simplistic terms. "Labor will move to where they can make the most money,
until equilibrium is achieved".

If your job moves to China, you can't move your family to China. The same
restrictions apply at less restrictive levels for anywhere else.

The fact is, labor has never moved freely, and so any model built on that
argument is inherently false.

~~~
duncan_bayne
Only if you assume that the free movement of labour is impossible; capitalists
like myself argue that it's an entirely achievable goal. After all, we've
achieved relatively free movement of capital.

The issue is that there are strongly entrenched powerful interests operating
against free labour movement. Sadly, those people and organisations are
themselves labelled as capitalists (sometimes, self-described).

~~~
zeemonkee3
Look at the EU: although there is complete freedom of movement of labour for
EU citizens, cultural and language barriers prevent true movement to a far
greater degree than within the US.

~~~
bluetomcat
Moreover, movement of labour within the EU is mostly unidirectional. A German
or a Brit is very unlikely to go to work in Poland or Bulgaria, whereas the
other way around is almost always the case. This unidirectional movement sucks
out young blood from the donor countries and leads them to an even direr
future.

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BrainInAJar
If workers are terrified of changing, employer-linked healthcare is probably a
big part of that.

~~~
aklemm
I would love to see the dynamism that would spring from decoupling health
insurance plans and employment.

~~~
WalterBright
They're tied together because then the premiums are paid for with before-tax
dollars rather than after-tax dollars.

The original reason employers offered it was because in WW2 there was a
government-imposed wage freeze, and companies got around that by offering
benefits like health insurance.

~~~
clevernickname
So the solution is to stop taxing dollars spent on health care, period. Which,
coincidentally, is a large part of Trump's health care plan (untaxed
contributions to "Health Savings Accounts" that can accumulate without limit,
can be shared with any family member, and are completely transferred on death
as part of your estate).

~~~
davty
Or, you know, socialize healthcare :).

~~~
duncan_bayne
... which is just as problematic, ethically speaking, as socialised corporate
losses (e.g. bank bailouts).

I don't see how anyone can be in favour of one, but not the other. In
practice, though, _most_ people favour one or the other, but not neither of
both.

~~~
unprepare
You dont see why people believe society should help a gunshot victim but not a
bank that sold questionable loans?

To most people, there is an extremely obvious distinction.

~~~
duncan_bayne
Sure, there is a massive difference. I think society should support the
former, but not the latter.

But those arguing for socialised medicine aren't arguing that society should
help the gunshot victim, they're arguing that the money to do so should be
coerced from members of society. That coercion is morally wrong, regardless of
how worthy the recipient is.

Also, if societal support were voluntary, people could choose between
supporting the gunshot victim or the bank.

~~~
BrainInAJar
No, "coercing" money from people isn't morally wrong, it's part of the social
contract. I'm a pacifist, but I still recognize that the sort of society left
undefended doesn't last long so I pay the share of taxes that go to the
military. Trade becomes difficult without roads, so every member of a vibrant
economy pays for the infrastructure necessary to conduct that trade. I extend
that to healthcare. A sick populous is less productive and less desirable.

~~~
duncan_bayne
Also, and this is a serious question: what is your definition of pacifism,
that it allows for coercive funding? I assume here that you support the arrest
and jailing of those who refuse to pay tax (and their probable death, should
they refuse to be arrested either).

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furtive808
I feel that remote workers and telecomuting could account for some of the
decrease. When jobs dried up in my town the tech savvy people got work 100km
away in the nearest city but never changed addresses. You couldn't have done
that 20 years ago.

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bkjelden
Related article that I found quite surprising:

The Typical American Lives Only 18 Miles From Mom:
[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/24/upshot/24up-
fa...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/24/upshot/24up-family.html)

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hugh4
Or is this a good thing? I mean, I know it's de rigeur in journalistic circles
to assume that any new trend must be a terrible one, but... if people are
happy, and able to find jobs, without needing to move, this is a pretty good
thing, right?

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tzs
OT: in the photo of a late 19th century wagon train heading west there are
several people who are walking. Anyone happen to know why they would not be
riding the wagons? Are the wagons so loaded at the start that the weight of
passengers would be too much for the horses and so some walk until enough
supplies are consumed to lighten the load?

~~~
cheriot
Even riding in a vehicle with modern tires over terrain like that can become
violently bumpy. I can't even imagine doing it with wooden wheels. If the
wagon is going at a walking pace already, I'd have done that too.

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ericdykstra
Maybe a higher portion of the population choosing to move is choosing
somewhere outside of the US? Between cheap flights and better communication
technology, moving from one coast to the other isn't so much more inconvenient
than moving from the US to Europe, and it's definitely much more exciting.

~~~
vonkow
I'm pretty sure the kind of people who used to move from Akron to, say,
Philedelphia for more opportunities before middle america's mobility and
income were severely reduced by the march of progress can't quite afford to
move to London in hopes of finding a better life these days.

~~~
clevernickname
To add to this, in the past it may have been worthwhile to uproot your family
and move across the world to "the land of opportunity." That doesn't imply in
any way that today it is worthwhile to uproot your family and move across the
world to "the land of less job opportunities but lower rent" on a whim.

The only people that can really exploit this are tech workers that can
telecommute and pocket the difference between western salaries and expat cost
of living, and that's not really "finding a new life" so much as it is
maximizing an already disproportionally good life situation.

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xyzzy4
If you can't even 2x your income by moving somewhere, then there isn't much
point. For example, moving from Africa to the US could be much more beneficial
than moving from one part of the US to another.

~~~
dionidium
Interestingly, I think a lot of people would benefit from moving to places
where they'd earn _less_. The high cost of housing in places like California
far outpaces the increase in wages when compared to the Midwest. If you can
find a job in a place like St. Louis or Cincinnati, you could take a
meaningful pay cut -- say 30% or so, at least -- and _come out ahead_ in
lifestyle.

Do you want to spend the next 20 years complaining about the high costs of
real estate or would you rather move somewhere that you can own _today_?

How important to you is that sunny weather?

~~~
bsder
> If you can find a job in a place like St. Louis or Cincinnati, you could
> take a meaningful pay cut -- say 30% or so, at least -- and come out ahead
> in lifestyle.

 _IF_

The problem is that most people in tech understand that your job in gone in 5
years, 10 years at the outside. Given that I need 4 jobs over my lifetime (at
least), I'm going to stay where I can get my next job even if that area is
expensive.

If I find a good job in St. Louis, Cincinnati, or Pittsburgh, what happens
when that job goes away? Now I have to move to San Jose, Austin, Boston anyway
_AND_ I'm going to have a difficult time because my family is used to that big
house and yard in the suburbs, but I didn't put enough money away fast enough
to make the jump to the more expensive area because my salary was 30% less.

~~~
dionidium
1) You're absolutely right that there are more tech opportunities in the Bay
Area than anywhere else on Earth.

2) Nonetheless, your all-caps _IF_ was a tad dramatic :) I'm a programmer in
St. Louis. Jobs are plentiful. I've been working for about 10 years without
issue (both at big companies and small).

3) None of this even applies to me because I have no family and no interest in
owning a home right now. (So I'm not coming from a position of trying to
defend my own choices.) But if I _were_ interested in buying a home, I
wouldn't hesitate to do it here. Concerns about the Midwest job market are
mostly bunk, especially when you factor in the cost of housing. You know all
that stuff about software eating the world? Yeah, it's eating the _world_ ,
not just SV. There are jobs everywhere.

