A network of friends and family for such things as childcare and temporary accomodation is worth dollars. If you can leave your son/daughter with their grandmother while at work or can find a couch at a friend's house while between jobs you can put up with lower local wages. To move elsewhere, the new job would have to pay enough for childcare and to allow to build a cushion of savings.

A sympathetic ear and a can of beers is also worth a lot. Often, on this board, we read of burnout and nervous breakdowns.

The decision not to move doesn't seem to come from fear, on the contrary, it's rational, elsewhere life isn't going to be better, and very possibly worse. At the low end of the wage spectrum there is no opportunity left anywhere in the nation.