This lacks context: It's what other generations have done Other generations had much higher real wages, and much less risk. During the 1930s and 1940s there w

This lacks context: It's what other generations have done Other generations had much higher real wages, and much less risk. During the 1930s and 1940s there was a huge movement of desperate farmers to California. But wages in California were good, and California went 50 years without a recession -- from the 1930s to the 1980s was one long continuous boom. Going back further, consider the events described in Little House On The Prairie. Laura Ingalls Wilder's family faced ruin after locusts ate all the food that the family was growing. So her father went away for awhile and found work where he was paid $1 a day. And that was enough money to completely reboot their lives. Not only could he keep his whole family fed on that, he also had spare money to buy seed and thus plant a crop the next year. High real wages are the reason why millions of people, including all 4 of my grand-parents, left Europe to come to the USA. Male wages have been in decline since 1973. Family income increased till 1999 only because more women started to work. Family income has been in decline since 1999. Movement and migration can not be be justified rationally in a world where wages are stagnant or falling.