Come on, stop making up nonsense. Just to pick one example there are numerous single family homes near Cleveland on the market for under $100K.
In addition if pressure demands that lower priced houses are in demand those costs will go up.
Lastly, hopefully you can remote work, or surviving on that $28 and hour in OH is going to be fun.
You realize that nearly 4 million homes are sold per month in the US, right?
People don't need to speculate, or engage in some kind of weighing of Cleveland as a place someone might want to live. Just bring up Cleveland in realtor.com and look at the very few, very low quality house options under 100k. And then consider that most people are going to be living in a suburb that's a lot more expensive anyway.
That there are jobs doesn’t mean that there are jobs that align with everyone’s work experiences, familial ties, or various other obligations. If I get laid off in the bay as an ML engineer and have an elderly parent who lives there that I need to take care of, that there are jobs at Sherman Williams in Cleveland isn’t very useful to me. Similarly, if I’m mid-career and pursue work in LCOL area that cuts my pay in half relative to a larger city, that could derail my lifetime earnings and ability to retire.
Reality is more complicated than the simplistic narratives people use to victim blame or reinforce their just-world fantasies.