Telling Rural People To Move Won’t Solve Poverty

[pbrower2a]

Many in rural areas are unskilled or marginally skilled. That people are making six-figure incomes as programmers and software engineers in Silicon Valley is completely irrelevant to a farm laborer in California's impoverished Central Valley. Going from a retail, car service, or restaurant job in Coalinga to one in Cupertino might get one a raise, but the difference in rent will overpower that raise. The San Francisco Bay Area has been losing its low-paid factory jobs to places (including the impoverished Central Valley) in which the cost of living isn't so high.

People must leave small towns in rural areas if they are unhappy just so that they can find some dignity in life. But they had better have good jobs awaiting them if they are to be happy with what their new lives.