Fewer Americans Choose to Move to New Pastures | Hacker News Reader

Fewer Americans Choose to Move to New Pastures

nytimes.com

41 pointsSeanBoocock57 comments

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.

>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.

American history is one of large migrations of people to where the jobs are. The quantity and kinds of jobs available in any location never were static.

Not sure how many could really cover it, but my wife and I did just that a few years ago. No jobs lined up and a few k in the bank account, some from selling what little we owned. It was a great decision for us and has worked out well. We both were in the social work profession, so were by no means rich. Maybe we're not a typical story, not sure, but it can be done successfully. Taking healthy risks is an exciting part of life sometimes, and I am glad I didn't listen to my own fears or to others who said we would fail.

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

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.

Has the bar gone up? http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Real-Media...

I've not seen that series before. Thanks!

I do think the bar has gone up. The price of healthcare, housing, and educating one's children has increased at faster rates than inflation.

Since the base unit is the household, instead of the individual, I suspect it doesn't account for how many women have joined the workforce since 1967. There's a number of interesting factors going on with workforce participation in that time period: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000 (can't link directly, but there are chart options on the page).

I can't find a series for changes in hours worked.

I'd also love to discover a measure of job stability, which seems to be part of the "traditional" definition of middle class.

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.

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.

Though there is technology, data and a sharing community that makes moving easier... platforms like https://teleport.org are just the beginning. A long read but worth the time: http://www.wired.com/2013/11/software-is-reorganizing-the-wo...

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.

Yes. Capital moves freely. Labor often cannot.

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).

Capital movement is driven by profit, often without any regard for the consequences it brings to local communities.

Relocation of working-class families across the world isn't as easy as it is for a Hollywood star or a venture capitalist with fat bank accounts.

Yes. But it used to be; many early Americans were poor economic refugees.

What's changed?

Poor American families that might benefit from relocation generally aren't homeless.

There aren't plots of unoccupied land in frontier territory to build shacks on, and they're not permitted to cram into boarding houses with five other families if they can't afford to rent a room in their destination city whilst looking for work there.

The developed world has also taken a lot of steps to prevent more economic refugees arriving in the country.

It's not a fair comparison. Early Americans came to a loosely inhabited continent with a lot of potential for growth and a similar cultural groundwork.

The huge cultural gap, and not unimportantly, the significantly lower standard of living in developing countries like China and India makes it a rather unappealing choice for Europeans and Americans.

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.

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.

There are other factors preventing labor movement, for example : education. Imagine if a lot of new jobs get automated away with robotics and computers. It would be very hard for the displaced workers to take up new positions that open up in tech or finance fields as they may require many years of intense study.

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

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

I agree but you wouldn't get that far to see. You'd just hear absolute brain-piercing screams about 'socialism' until that plan was stopped.

Nothing about decoupling health insurance and employment says it has to be nationalized. It could be like car or home or life insurance, where you buy your own without your employer's input.

It's probably too late for that idea to pan out. We already have that and it's a (overly expensive) mess.

Some blame the gov't and regulations but I place the blame at the market[0]. Healthcare (and the military) is the biggest racket going on today for sure. I mean racket in the traditional term, gov't and private market collusion.

Since the elderly and lower classes already have no-charge healthcare, we're already one foot in. May as well just expand Medicare for all to single-payer to those of us who work for a living.

I think we need nationalized insurance and private market medicine. Nothing will be perfect but we can definitely do better.

[0]http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/11/750pill-pharma-compan...

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.

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).

Or, you know, socialize healthcare :).

... 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.

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.

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.

got it, you're against the concept of taxes. sounds like a great system of government.

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.

No part of all of those desirable outcomes requires coercion. In fact you've already said that you willingly pay for same.

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).

This is why I don't understand why there is not greater support for national healthcare among the conservative / business community. Why do employers want to pay for that? If you decouple healthcare from employment, you encourage a lot more people to take risks and start new companies or simply try a different company.

Or maybe it is evil and employers know that healthcare is another way to keep their employees from bailing for another company.

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.

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...

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?

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?

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.

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.

I'm not sure exactly how the rules work for US citizens,but typically a major inconvenience for non-EU citizens is getting work permits/visas. If this is trivial for US citizens I agree with you but if not I'd say that's a pretty big hurdle..

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.

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.

Most folks don't even have passports, let alone money to support themselves while looking for a job. Many countries will require that you know the local language or take classes (and you might have to pay for those classes). There are usually requirements for money in the bank to supoprt yourself and your family. Here (Norway), you need to apply for immigration for each family member. Your family member may or may not have the right to work in the new country. Many have restrictions that you need to be a skilled worker and/or have a pre-existing job offer. Shipping your belongings overseas is expensive - I gave most of my stuff away, though my situation was marriage instead of job-based so I had a household waiting. Others don't have this. You still might need to pay for health insurance even though most have universal insurance. Tax returns are more of a nightmare. It takes a fair amount of planning and money to do such things, and if it all fails, or you lose your job - you just wind up back in the states.

Folks from the EU can live and work in other EU countries without these sorts of restrictions and without so much formal paperwork from the employer.

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.

If you can't find a job in your current location, but can find one when moving, then the increase is infinity.

There is a lot to be said for being flexible when it comes to relocation. If I had never left the town I was born in I'd probably be making 1/4th of what I make now.

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?

> 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.

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.

What in the world are you on about? Why is your job going to be gone in 5 years, and why would you move to a more expensive city if it was?

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.

Alternatively, one could live in a high-priced city and purchase high-priced real estate to live in, and upon retirement or at a later age, sell the higher priced property and take the potentially greater retirement account contributions and move to say Missouri or a place where the cost of living is lower, with a significant advantage.

Alternatively, one could live in a high-priced city and purchase high-priced real estate to live in

This reminds me of a joke. (I can't remember who told it.) But it goes something like, I'll tell you how to make 10 million dollars. OK, easy, so you start with a million dollars. <Every detail after this relies on that first million.>

It's a pretty big assumption right off the bat.

I hear what you're saying, but I mean the person would work and save to purchase the real-estate. The assumption I make is that one saves a percentage of income towards a down payment on real estate. That can be done anywhere, and I do agree that in some places it could be easier. That doesn't mean that since it's easy, it's the best decision for someone's life (but it could be).

> If you can't even 2x your income by moving somewhere, then there isn't much point.

why is that? wouldn't seeing another part of the country/world be nice?

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