Yet they must be gaining something for that cost of living or they’d just go live somewhere else with a lower cost of living and less substandard conditions to be concerned with. Sure, they’d earn less, but you’re saying their buying power isn’t greater with a higher salary now anyway.
If everyone moved to areas with low costs of living then there would be no areas with low costs of living.
That thing that people gain by living where they do is called a job. Often it is a secure job with good benefits. We don’t live in a magical world where every town, no matter how bumfuck it is, has a good job waiting for any and everyone. And there are certain professions where you’re simply gonna be SOL unless you are willing to move to a high-density, high cost-of-living area.
Yes. They gain a good job, in their desired profession, rather than scraping by in some other line of work. They are able to put their kids in organized daycare, while they pursue that chosen career. This is the gain, the special benefit. They’re doing what they want, earning more, and not compromising on either career path or child care, all at the cost of reduced proportional (not absolute) discretionary income, for a certain number of years.
You can be “scraping by” and still be in your desired profession. Plenty of academics know this all too well.
I guess I don’t see having a stable job as a “special benefit”. There are plenty of people working in places like Miami (where I lived for three years) who are struggling with childcare and rent, who cannot move because they don’t have the savings to uproot themselves for the aforementioned reasons, and of course it is scary to quit a job without having another one lined up. I would not say these people are enjoying a special benefit above and beyond simply not being homeless and unemployed. I guess YMMV.
I don’t know why you think people who live in high-cost of living places don’t have to compromise on career or child care. Plenty of folks living in high cost of living areas have to compromise on stuff. “Do we use 50% of our income on housing so we can have a 30 minute commute, or do we use 30% of our income on housing so we can have a 130 minute commute?” “Do we live in this tree-lined neighborhood with people who look like us and share our values and there’s a Starbucks on every corner, but where we’ll only be able to afford a one-bedroom apartment, or do we live in this trash-lined neighborhood with people who don’t look like us and kind of intimidate us, but where we’ll be able to buy a four-bedroom house?” “Do we send Junior to the neighborhood public school where most of the students are on free lunch? Or do we ditch the second car and the summer vacation savings and send him to private school?” "Do I continue working 10-hour days, only to watch a big proportion of my income go to daycare and baby sitters–income that could be going into house- or retirement-savings? Or do I stay at home to keep costs down, and then say good-bye to the advances I’ve made in my career?
Why the hell do you think compromising isn’t something everyone has to do?
What I’m saying is that Bob in Small Town who brings home $2800 a month and spends $800 on day care ends up with $2000 to spend on other stuff.
Lola in Big City who brings home $4100 a month and spends $2100 on daycare also ends up with $2000 to spend on other stuff.
Both are comparatively fortunate, in the sense that they are able to provide a safe place for their kids and neither one is likely suffering. But Lola’s not broke because she spends all her money on lattes and HBO. She’s broke because childcare is ridiculously expensive.
She’s not broke. She has the same amount of income left for other things. Plus she has all the advantages of the Big City, that she presumably lives there for.
I don’t think these things. I said, having “a good job, in their desired profession” is a special benefit, a privileged condition. Lots of people never have that; being able to pursue it represents an opportunity and a choice. Of course it often requires compromise in other areas, but complaining about having to make those choices, particularly in the context of a discussion about being unable to understand how people with less privileged conditions, less freedom to make such choices, can possibly get by… well, it’s a position of either sheltered ignorance, or simple self-absorption, that merits no particular respect.
Word. And even being able to choose to sacrifice “a second car and summer vacation savings” to send a child to private school is a luxury. Many of us have no second car, no summer vacation savings, *and *no option other than public school.
That’s vastly oversimplified. There aren’t enough people in the world to make every location as overheated a housing market as is currently the case in places like San Diego, San Francisco, and NYC.
I think it’s more likely that if everyone moved to areas with low costs of living, every place would become medium-low cost of living.