I have an unemployed renter. She could find work in a minute if she moved. But, the county she lives in has wonderful schools and is beautiful. She doesn’t want to move. She has family close by who can watch the kids.
That’s the choice. Move for work or stay put and unemployed. In my final years after being laid off, I was prepared to move anywhere. But the Obama economy and my (cough) advanced age prevented me from replacing the income I had been making. The only real opportunity I had would have put me in DC where the living cost would have eaten up my income. But as a younger man, I’d have jumped on it and simply kept looking for a better opportunity.
I know that is often discussed in terms of steel mills, auto factories, and coal mines, but here in NJ we are losing our young educated/skilled people because companies have been chased out by high taxes. The remaining jobs are mostly McJobs, and companies would rather hire the imported Asians (for white-collar jobs) or Hispanics (for blue-collar jobs). Americans simply won’t work for the low wages offered; that is why these foreign populations are trafficked here. Their lower-middle class standard of living beats what they faced back home, but is totally unacceptable to Americans with any hope of having a family or even owning/insuring a car.