Low income workers go where the jobs are, not for “quality of life”. The fact is that the us has a shortage of workers, a shortage of unskilled construction laborers.
Midle income workers (like from IL to GA?) also look for work, not “quality of life”.
Of course there are other factors:
1) Government regualation forces employers into inefficient positions thus there is a shortage for workers where they could be productive.
2) Nationwide HR is not logical. Logical, productive people take jobs that are productive. College grads who majored in Gender Studies and soft courses now are concentrated in HR (and PR).
3) Other factors. Shortage of workers exists in a comples society.
You missed my main point is that most those low paying jobs will be eliminated, by automation and robots.
For us more rare STEM types we can get a job anywhere, so we pick quality of life. I’d rather make 120,000 per year in the Seattle area than 150,000 per year in Atlanta.
Yes lower skilled people go where the jobs are. But if they do the political thing and demand wages in excess of what they are worth, such as a $15 per minimum wage, for job that isn’t worth that much in a competitive market that is very price sensitive such as fast foods, with today’s technology they will be replaced by machines that aren’t a constant pain in the butt. That is another point I tried to make. For example Longshoremen are being replaced, “coders” are starting to be replaced, farm workers soon will be mostly replaced, The jobs simply won’t be available anymore. Sure you need a small group of highly trained Technicians to maintain the automation, but not everybody can be trained to do that work and you don’t need nearly as many people.