Posted on 04/16/2017 3:25:57 PM PDT by TBP
Americans are stuck. Locked into our jobs, rooted where we live, frozen at our income levels. More than at any previous point in our history, we’ve stopped moving — whether moving up the income ladder or packing up a truck and finding another home. We’ve grown ossified, rigid.
The flip side is that we’re stable. If we weren’t so content, we’d be more willing to gamble, to shake things up, to start a new firm or join one. Maybe we’re fine where we are. But maybe this period of stasis cannot last. Maybe it even portends a period of massive disruption.
In “The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream,” economist Tyler Cowen presents an X-ray of societal sclerosis. This isn’t merely another exercise in nostalgia, a sentimental yearning for a bygone era (when, for instance, crime and pollution were higher, people were highly likely to marry someone who lived within five blocks and you would buy an album containing 10 lousy songs because you liked one track). Something has changed in the American character and in the American economy, and the two seem to be reinforcing each other.
For instance, parts of the country (New York City, Silicon Valley, Texas) are doing extremely well, yet able-bodied adults sit idle in other areas. Why don’t the unemployed, and the large numbers who have dropped out of the labor force, move to the boom towns? Wouldn’t it be better to drive an Uber in Brooklyn than to get by on welfare in West Virginia?
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I don’t buy the premise.
More people have moved out of NY State in the past year than before zer0 was president.
I remember my recruiter warning me of being in one place "no more than one to two years". My dad was a gypsy and I never spent more than one semester in any school. I learned to bring home everything on Friday because there might be a U-haul trailer hooked up to our car, usually my only notice. The idea of being in one place for a whole year was beyond my comprehension.
People working for a living in the O’conomy can’t afford to move when there are no good jobs to move to.
Democrats don’t want to move because they would have to find a new drug dealer and restart welfare, food stamps, etc. in a new state which ia a big hassle.
Plus housing, especially for single men. Used to be if you could afford a deposit and first month’s rent, you could find a place in a roominghouse or modest apartment—now housing has all gone corporate, there are no more roominghouses/mens’ hotels, and everyone has to undergo a credit check and background check.
Interestingly i read today that Charleston WV has lost 15000 people since 2000
Not everyone needs or want to be career military. It is a place to grow up, learn life skills, and if you are lucky, learn a trade, then move on, nothing wrong with that.
Join the military? Not with what the liberals have done to it. Too many affirmative action people promoted way past their level of brains and competence. White males don’t have a chance in the military now. The inclusion of openly homosexual and “transgender” people is also a huge problem.
I’ve moved more than a dozen times in my life. We’ve lived in the Charlotte, NC, area since 2003, and I believe this has advantages for my children. (We were talking about a move ‘long about 2008, and the overwhelming consensus was negative. “I’m casting a vote for me plus eight ...”)
The four who were born here haven’t experienced living in Oklahoma, for what that’s worth, but they have stable friendships and a consistent church environment that seems to be very positive.
Mobility statistics are a sign of ... something ... but whether mobility is an indicator of flourishing is highly debatable.
I bet CA is an outlier for this trend. I talk to people all the time who are ready to move out for a better, safer life for their families. In the past, some didn’t want to leave because of weather or family connections here. I’m not hearing as much of that any more.
I’m ready to leave as well after my mom joins my dad in heaven.
This is a beautiful state run into the ground by effing IDIOTS. And the media and Hollywood have made the Angelinos the least accepting people in the world. Sure, if I were transgender or Muslim I’d be patronized on the street, but if I wore my MAGA hat I’d be killed in the first block.
Everyone here thinks President Trump is a bloodthirsty racist devil. And if you try to defend him. Clearly you are the same.
We moved a lot when my husband’s company would transfer him, but if you have to move on your own, it’s incredibly expensive, especially if you have to sell a house. The price of houses has increased dramatically, but realtors still charge their 6% for the most part. That’s a lot of dough, even is you’re selling a relatively modest home. Many people have little left to put down on a new property after paying all the expenses associated with selling a home and moving.
Everybody loves to crap on certain parts of the country but my experience is that over my lifetime the whole country has moved into the middle and the differences between regions are much smaller. Now the whole country has illegal aliens standing in front of home depot. That used to be a southwestern US thing. I could go on. I know people like to crap on certain parts and say other parts are so great, but I’ve seen this country get mixed together over the years and now the differences aren’t really that noticeable any more.
“If you are young and able, there is still opportunity. Join the Navy and see the world, etc.”
Probably not your intention, but it comes off as the Navy being gubmint subsidized vacation package. You join the military to kill the enemy or help those that kill the enemy. Not PC but that is what military is there for throughout human history. “See the world” it is not. If you want to see the world, go to Kayak.com and buy the tickets.
Many are still stunned by the affects of the government’s pursuit of affordable housing, the results of which have made housing unaffordable. Throw in “affordable healthcare” and it is no wonder people can’t move.
I went into the service after high school. The services would not have taken me in this day and age because I had a juvenile record. Nothing bad.
White flight has stretched its limits....simple.
Brooklyn is not America
I grew up in Huntington WV. In 1970 the population was 100k. Now it’s barely 40k. Cabell Co lost a ton of people. Last time I was in to visit it looked more like Detroit than Huntington. I’m going back next month & I’ve been warned by folks living there it’s gotten worse.
Moving is very expensive, especially if you have to sell a house in the process.
I think the opportunities are all over, but people don’t want to get off the easy street of welfare, Medicaid and EBT. I rent to the lower end trailer trash market. Only about 30 percent have jobs and some of those are also on some form of subsistence payments. Why, then, should they risk moving to someplace where the welfare may not be as generous or may have strings attached to it or may have some length of residency requirement? Also, they’d have to find new dope dealers. The government has made it too easy to stay put and stay poor.
One of the renters next to a rental of mine was an astonishing alcoholic. He was, because of alcoholism, on additional Social Security disability. (I don’t know what he told Social Security, but his entire problem was alcoholism.) He would go to the nearest gas station early to play the scratchoffs and buy cigarettes because by noon he couldn’t walk or drive. Fortunately, last month he dropped dead of liver cirrhosis; but not before an extended taxpayer paid stay in the ICU.
Packing up your family and moving to a more expensive area where you have no prospects of a job except a very low paying one is not very smart.
Better to stay where you are and see if you can find a low paying job there. Financially it is the more sound choice.
People move when they have a reason to do so.
Goodness knows when we were looking at houses there was always a sound financial reason that someone was moving. Usually it was because they had another job somewhere else or they were no long to make payments on their current house and were hoping to get something out of it before it went into foreclosure. The third reason was that someone had died.
This are the same reasons that Americans have always moved.
We are also seeing a resurgence in the dad follows the job while mom stays in the house with the kids. Areas where jobs are plentiful and high paying are also many times places where there is no room for a family and the job is often temporary.
A man by himself can live in a small hotel room, split the expense with another man and send most of his paycheck home.
Moving the entire family into an area where housing is scarce and expensive, where the job will probably be gone in a year or less is not logical.
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