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Comment by BeetleB | Hacker News Reader

> "if you cannot afford it, stop complainingb and live elsehwere" they say...sure...but a commuter train into Manhattan can run you $30-50/day. Add in parking at the commuter train station and you're down about $60 or more a day.

When people say that, I think they mean "get another job in another city that doesn't require a commute to Manhattan."

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Yes, there are lots of cities in the US. Most cities dont have job centers. They might have jobs at Walmart, McDonalds, etc but not jobs that pay living wages. People are rational -- they either do the math, or have witnessed the math playing out in real life. You can live in a super-low-cost city but earning minimum wage don't make ends meet. Worse, it may even put you into a threshold where you get no medical care. If you have children, it doesnt pay for rent + healthcare + child care.

There is another reason people stick to major job centers -- because it is extremely risky moving to a 2nd or 3rd tier job center. You have to sign a 1yr lease on an apartment and are locked in. But your job isnt guaranteed for a year. There may be few or no other jobs in 2nd or 3rd tier job centers. Say you default on your lease -- now you have a way bigger problem because you cannot rent again (you have bad credit) and you also need to pass credit checks to get a job. https://www.nerdwallet.com/finance/learn/credit-score-employ...

Ultimately we all need to realize people are rational (NOT lazy) -- people are doing the math and the math aint mathing. Hence the "Sharp Drop in Labor Force Participation"

I'm guessing many (most?) people commuting to Manhattan aren't in the category of minimum wage workers.

Picking one of the most expensive places in the planet (Manhattan) as your example isn't helping you much. Lots of well known cities are much cheaper. When people I know move to, say, Tennessee, they're not working minimum wage. Ditto Kansas City, almost any Texan city except Austin. St Louis, Louisville, etc.

Until recently, even the Chicago Metro was still among the more affordable places for white collar workers - where you could buy a 2000 sq ft house and not go broke over doing so. I don't know if it's still the case, but it was still cheaper pre-pandemic than any of the cities in the Western states.

Edit: Just confirmed - Chicago is still cheaper. Affordable houses, in good neighborhoods.

Except it doesnt only impact minimum wage workers...or does it only impact NYC -- its the same problem in Washington DC, Virginia suburbs, Boston, SF, Seattle. I suppose they could move to some rural area for cheap rent, but what jobs exist there?

I have multiple relatives making $60k or $100k and can barely survive once you introduce healthcare co-pays, deductibles, rent, pharma copays, etc.

Please, for a moment, consider that you are a techie possibly making $250k $500k, or more and there are people suffering who making a third or a fifth of you. Consider that you might be single but there are others with kids. Also consider that you might have a Platinum healthcare plan but others have "healthcare" with 10k deductibles per familymember.

> I'm guessing many (most?) people commuting to Manhattan aren't in the category of minimum wage workers.

Do you think there are no minimum wage workers in Manhattan? Or do you think someone making minimum wage could afford to live in Manhattan?

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