I would say it is worse for people in Chicago that work in the big slaughterhouses and even though they can pursue other opportunities, they still choose to work there.
Using the "small town, no options" narrative doesn't really hold water.
Using all your extensive savings from a job that in many parts of the US, pays up to 20% less than the livable wage?
It's literally not "free" to move. If it were, many people would've done it a long time ago. Beside the financial cost, there are also very real social costs like losing friends and family - basically your whole support network, as well as putting all of that burden on a potential spouse and maybe kids too.
Almost everyone on HN can live to standards that would have been between comfortable and luxurious a hundred years ago, possibly even in a developed country. (The median world wage--assuming a 40-hour work week with 2 weeks off, which is not the median working schedule--is $5/day [1].)
This doesn't undermine the struggle. Just that there is, to varying degrees (but increasingly so among anyone in tech), a choice being made.
[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/166211/worldwide-median-househo...
I'm lucky, I can go find other work and live without working for a while.
Someone on the poverty line working a warehouse job for health insurance to cover their diabetes in America is not able to "just move to a new place" like a sibling comment stated. The real goal should be to raise the bottom line up so even the poorest have a decent standard of living which is how the Nordic countries behave.