Agreed. Imagine if tech hiring worked like that. Entry-level positions could be moved to WV or the Dakotas, optimize for low salary and cost-of-living and ignore retention/burnout/washout rates since you figure they're going to be high anyway.

FYI the states(/districts) with lowest ATC pay are DC, IA, MS, MT, SD, VT, WV : See third plot: "Annual mean wage for air traffic controllers, by state, May 2023" and lots of other useful stats in https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes532021.htm