6 ms·

Places in America that pay people to move there

60 points by tiredwired 9y ago

pnathan 9y ago
Interesting. The thing that is most toxic about long-term survival in small towns is the lack of many jobs. No jobs, no mortgage payment, no point. Although if I was up for relocation right now, I'd look at Colorado (Denver/Boulder) or Baltimore...
- analyst74 9y ago
  yeah, it's a tough situation. People who are financially secure enough to not worry about having a job are not gonna be tempted by some small financial incentives; whereas people who may find those financial incentives appealing tend to need jobs to survive.
  - wallace_f 9y ago
    What about people who want to work remote?
- hirsin 9y ago
  I think this is a case of standing on the mountain (SF) and everything else looking like a molehill. Yes, there are a thousand jobs opening a day in SF, but there are tens of thousands of applicants. I was recently in Oklahoma City for a JS conference (ThunderPlains), and there was no shortage of jobs. There was a shortage of devs though - the folks there felt very comfortable moving or losing jobs because there might only be a dozen jobs opening a day, but there were almost zero people applying.
  - oh-kumudo 9y ago
    Jobs people compete to get are good jobs. The opposite is probably true as well. For those many years, one valuable lesson I learnt is, being a sheep and following other people, in a lot of cases, aren't optimal, but ROI is not bad. Being cynical might make oneself seem smart and level headed, but you can also miss valuable opportunity. Don't assume the crowd know the best, but when there are a lot of people, that often indicates it is where the money is at.
    - milankovic 9y ago
      That is some excellent advice. I agree wholeheartedly.
    - pnathan 9y ago
      I've learned that too. A careful examination might reveal other opportunities, but the swarm of people trying to optimize and coming to similar conclusions suggests that it's at least a local maxima within a fairly decently sized problem space.
  - pnathan 9y ago
    I live in Seattle, and I come from rural areas. I'm happy that OKC has jobs. That's wonderful. No sarcasm. I'm glad to hear it. But it's not rural. :) OKC is a big city compared to everywhere I used to live. Where I am from most recently, there were 5 employers (in the tech field). Two universities. They were doing a lot of outsourcing. One engineering firm, which I worked for, which itself about 90% of all the local jobs. Then 2-3 smaller firms about 1/10 the size of the firm I worked for. I hear that there's another firm in town these days. Local pay was, after you did cost of living adjustments, about 30% under what you'd get elsewhere. New jobs that weren't in the big firm showed up about one-two a month, and a lot of that was skeevy MBA types wanting a startup. This was a big city compared to where I grew up, which had 1-2 web site consultancies, a very-much-not-software engineering firm, and a consultancy I never really looked at.
- randomdata 9y ago
  That is interesting to me, as the small towns I have spent time around have the opposite problem. They cannot find enough people for all the work. The numbers indicate that there are more jobs than people in the town I hale from. And, as it relates to the parent comment, a large section of the community is connected with symmetrical fibre and the entire community is slated to be in the next few years. The biggest challenge for economic development is getting the word out. It seems in my experience that people have it in their mind that cities are the only place you can find work, so they don't even bother looking for jobs elsewhere.
  - Multicomp 9y ago
    So what town would this be if that's not too personal a question? Can't tell if the 'town you hail from' is the town you are currently in (then please ignore my question) or were previously (possibly raised) in.
  - lotsofpulp 9y ago
    I doubt it. The problem is the pay in a small town doesn't make up for the lost opportunity due to networking and having a selection of varied employers and colleagues. Also, the pay would have to incorporate a risk premium in case you lose your job, as it is perceived that it will be harder to find a new one.
    - pnathan 9y ago
      > The problem is the pay in a small town doesn't make up for the lost opportunity due to networking and having a selection of varied employers and colleagues. Also, the pay would have to incorporate a risk premium in case you lose your job, as it is perceived that it will be harder to find a new one. Correct. There's no networking without working your arse off in those locales. And if there are only 3-4 employers in town, you better believe that you don't want to lose your job, ever. I can not recommend, in today's economy, a software engineer ever moving to a place without knowing there is an existing job creation engine running. It's too risky. On the other hand, I'd move to Detroit if the employer was willing to 100% financially derisk the move (full relo, golden parachute on departure for any reason, massive funding of retirement, massive pay). :)
voltagex_ 9y ago
Tribune, Kansas - seems to be DSL or cable, <=50 megabit (why does no one mention upstream speed?) Marne, Iowa - Marne Elk Horne does fibre, up to 200/5 (hope you never want to upload a YouTube video!), but it'll cost you. Curtis, Nebraska - DSL? Because of regulation: https://www.fiberconnect.org/page/nebraska-137 https://www.fiberconnect.org/page/nebraska-137 Harmony, Minnesota - http://www.broadbandsearch.net/service/minnesota/harmony http://www.broadbandsearch.net/service/minnesota/harmony says Centurylink has fibre, but the main game in town appears to be fixed wireless. Baltimore, Maryland - Xfinity in some areas, but seems like it's pretty bad? 2015 - http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/technology/bs-md-ci-broadband-expansion-20151013-story.html http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/technology/bs-md-ci-bro... New Haven, Connecticut - https://broadbandnow.com/Connecticut/New-Haven https://broadbandnow.com/Connecticut/New-Haven says they've got fibre, but another source says it's not in many places at all. Also, how do you get 115 megabit downstream on DSL? Alaska - Initially I laughed, but it's okay. https://broadbandnow.com/Alaska https://broadbandnow.com/Alaska Colorado - apparently you want to be in either Denver or Phillips: https://broadbandnow.com/Colorado https://broadbandnow.com/Colorado Wyoming - https://broadbandnow.com/Wyoming https://broadbandnow.com/Wyoming. Teton, maybe? I'm not from the US, please correct me.
- olalonde 9y ago
  > I'm not from the US, please correct me. Surprisingly, San Francisco has pretty shitty Internet too and it's one of the most expensive place to live in the US.
  - GeneralMayhem 9y ago
    Depends on where in the city you are. In a larger apartment or condo building you can usually get Webpass, which is very good (cheap for the US, fast up/down, low latency, good net neutrality policy, fantastic customer service).
  - gleenn 9y ago
    I know someone who gets 800Mb/s with Sonic fiber now for less $$ than Comcast. So happy for them to be off Comcast too. Can't wait for Sonic to cover me and I think they were only a few blocks away last I checked.
sdrothrock 9y ago
Japan does this as well, with some places even going so far as to offer stipends for children and free rent.
- csdreamer7 9y ago
  Would these areas welcome Americans?
  - sdrothrock 9y ago
    I haven't seen any citizenship restrictions, though usually there is a "you must live here at least X years or repay the benefits" restriction. Edit: If you mean culturally, I really can't imagine any problems as long as you're friendly, respectful, and speak the language. I've lived in some fairly remote places and never had an issue; a lot of people in my experience are pretty hands-off -- even if they don't like you, they don't bother you unless you bother them.
  - stevenwoo 9y ago
    I thought Japan doesn't really want immigrants. This is an opinion piece but it jives with other things I've read over the years http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/12/AR2010031201790.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03... Isn't this part of the reason they are trying to make robots that can take care of their aging population - they don't want to have immigrants come in and do it.
    - sdrothrock 9y ago
      I think it's difficult to say "Japan doesn't want immigrants" but perhaps more accurate to say that "Japanese society is not friendly to outsiders." The difference is that rather than being explicitly "we don't want immigrants," Japanese society is a fairly closed one that relies on a niche language. No language, no acceptance. Beyond that, for educated people to immigrate to another country, you need to have a job market that accommodates those people; Japan doesn't really have that. The wages and benefits aren't competitive and the pension system is unfriendly to immigrants. Additionally, you really need a good grasp of the language. You can also see another recent post of mine about the difficulty of making friends in Japan, which is another thing that makes it difficult for people to come here. It doesn't help that people who come here often have a mediocre grasp of the language, which makes things more difficult and encourages them to live in a "foreign bubble," which will often lead to depression when it pops. On the up side, the Japanese immigration process is INCREDIBLY simple, especially compared to the US one (which I've heard about second-hand from Japanese people). In order to work here, you basically need a university degree and a job that pays more than around $25k/yr -- with those, you're a shoo-in within a month or so.
rpastuszak 9y ago
Does anyone know about a similar list for Europe?
- pjc50 9y ago
  Stoke-on-Trent will sell you a house for £1 and lend you the money to fix it: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/council-plans-to-sell-empty-homes-for-1-to-kickstart-local-economy-a6778411.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/council-plan... The globalisation history there is that the pottery industry went away, to China. But that's an industry that the UK and the Netherlands took away from China in the first place in the 1700s.
ketsa 9y ago
Would they welcome Europeans?
- pjc50 9y ago
  Small towns don't get to run their own immigration policy sadly.
- lithos 9y ago
  If you have rarer skills maybe. Often times you won't have competition for positions, and often times the parent company will be a multinational so you will have some support to get paperwork through (maybe with some delay at the lower levels). Some of the immigration systems are literally set up to make rural areas have some extra leeway or less competition for foreign workers. For IT administering old, rare, industrial, and strange technology. For mechanical skillS heavy equipment repair, tool and die cast, quarry and lumber work, or similar.
dagw 9y ago
Norway does something similar. If you're willing to move to the northern parts of northern Norway they will write off a chunk of your student loan each year plus give you pretty decent tax reduction on your income tax.
- arethuza 9y ago
  You could argue that the UK does something similar - if you are from Scotland and go to a Scottish university then no fees (~£9K a year).
  - dagw 9y ago
    The difference is that this doesn't cause any incentive to stay in Scotland after your education nor for anybody from the rest of the UK to move to Scotland after their education.
    - arethuza 9y ago
      That is true - although being of an age where I have kids a university I do know people who have stayed in Scotland because they have multiple kids wanting to go to university. And here is a discussion about someone considering moving to Scotland because of the fees situation: https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1698260-to-move-to-Scotland-for-the-free-University-places https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1698260...
      - dagw 9y ago
        The 'problem' with this policy is that it cannot be used to direct people to the parts of Scotland where they 'need' people the most. In the Norwegian approach the government draws up a list of counties and says you have to move to one of the counties to get the benefits, and they can update that list as the situation changes. Of course, reasonable people can certainly disagree on whether or not this is something the government should be involved in at all.
susane123 9y ago
It is true that San Francisco is becoming more expensive day to day.

60 points by tiredwired 9y ago

Interesting. The thing that is most toxic about long-term survival in small towns is the lack of many jobs. No jobs, no mortgage payment, no point. Although if I was up for relocation right now, I'd look at Colorado (Denver/Boulder) or Baltimore...

analyst74 9y ago
yeah, it's a tough situation. People who are financially secure enough to not worry about having a job are not gonna be tempted by some small financial incentives; whereas people who may find those financial incentives appealing tend to need jobs to survive.
- wallace_f 9y ago
  What about people who want to work remote?
hirsin 9y ago
I think this is a case of standing on the mountain (SF) and everything else looking like a molehill. Yes, there are a thousand jobs opening a day in SF, but there are tens of thousands of applicants. I was recently in Oklahoma City for a JS conference (ThunderPlains), and there was no shortage of jobs. There was a shortage of devs though - the folks there felt very comfortable moving or losing jobs because there might only be a dozen jobs opening a day, but there were almost zero people applying.
- oh-kumudo 9y ago
  Jobs people compete to get are good jobs. The opposite is probably true as well. For those many years, one valuable lesson I learnt is, being a sheep and following other people, in a lot of cases, aren't optimal, but ROI is not bad. Being cynical might make oneself seem smart and level headed, but you can also miss valuable opportunity. Don't assume the crowd know the best, but when there are a lot of people, that often indicates it is where the money is at.
  - milankovic 9y ago
    That is some excellent advice. I agree wholeheartedly.
  - pnathan 9y ago
    I've learned that too. A careful examination might reveal other opportunities, but the swarm of people trying to optimize and coming to similar conclusions suggests that it's at least a local maxima within a fairly decently sized problem space.
- pnathan 9y ago
  I live in Seattle, and I come from rural areas. I'm happy that OKC has jobs. That's wonderful. No sarcasm. I'm glad to hear it. But it's not rural. :) OKC is a big city compared to everywhere I used to live. Where I am from most recently, there were 5 employers (in the tech field). Two universities. They were doing a lot of outsourcing. One engineering firm, which I worked for, which itself about 90% of all the local jobs. Then 2-3 smaller firms about 1/10 the size of the firm I worked for. I hear that there's another firm in town these days. Local pay was, after you did cost of living adjustments, about 30% under what you'd get elsewhere. New jobs that weren't in the big firm showed up about one-two a month, and a lot of that was skeevy MBA types wanting a startup. This was a big city compared to where I grew up, which had 1-2 web site consultancies, a very-much-not-software engineering firm, and a consultancy I never really looked at.
randomdata 9y ago
That is interesting to me, as the small towns I have spent time around have the opposite problem. They cannot find enough people for all the work. The numbers indicate that there are more jobs than people in the town I hale from. And, as it relates to the parent comment, a large section of the community is connected with symmetrical fibre and the entire community is slated to be in the next few years. The biggest challenge for economic development is getting the word out. It seems in my experience that people have it in their mind that cities are the only place you can find work, so they don't even bother looking for jobs elsewhere.
- Multicomp 9y ago
  So what town would this be if that's not too personal a question? Can't tell if the 'town you hail from' is the town you are currently in (then please ignore my question) or were previously (possibly raised) in.
- lotsofpulp 9y ago
  I doubt it. The problem is the pay in a small town doesn't make up for the lost opportunity due to networking and having a selection of varied employers and colleagues. Also, the pay would have to incorporate a risk premium in case you lose your job, as it is perceived that it will be harder to find a new one.
  - pnathan 9y ago
    > The problem is the pay in a small town doesn't make up for the lost opportunity due to networking and having a selection of varied employers and colleagues. Also, the pay would have to incorporate a risk premium in case you lose your job, as it is perceived that it will be harder to find a new one. Correct. There's no networking without working your arse off in those locales. And if there are only 3-4 employers in town, you better believe that you don't want to lose your job, ever. I can not recommend, in today's economy, a software engineer ever moving to a place without knowing there is an existing job creation engine running. It's too risky. On the other hand, I'd move to Detroit if the employer was willing to 100% financially derisk the move (full relo, golden parachute on departure for any reason, massive funding of retirement, massive pay). :)

voltagex_ 9y ago

Tribune, Kansas - seems to be DSL or cable, <=50 megabit (why does no one mention upstream speed?) Marne, Iowa - Marne Elk Horne does fibre, up to 200/5 (hope you never want to upload a YouTube video!), but it'll cost you. Curtis, Nebraska - DSL? Because of regulation: https://www.fiberconnect.org/page/nebraska-137 https://www.fiberconnect.org/page/nebraska-137 Harmony, Minnesota - http://www.broadbandsearch.net/service/minnesota/harmony http://www.broadbandsearch.net/service/minnesota/harmony says Centurylink has fibre, but the main game in town appears to be fixed wireless. Baltimore, Maryland - Xfinity in some areas, but seems like it's pretty bad? 2015 - http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/technology/bs-md-ci-broadband-expansion-20151013-story.html http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/technology/bs-md-ci-bro... New Haven, Connecticut - https://broadbandnow.com/Connecticut/New-Haven https://broadbandnow.com/Connecticut/New-Haven says they've got fibre, but another source says it's not in many places at all. Also, how do you get 115 megabit downstream on DSL? Alaska - Initially I laughed, but it's okay. https://broadbandnow.com/Alaska https://broadbandnow.com/Alaska Colorado - apparently you want to be in either Denver or Phillips: https://broadbandnow.com/Colorado https://broadbandnow.com/Colorado Wyoming - https://broadbandnow.com/Wyoming https://broadbandnow.com/Wyoming. Teton, maybe? I'm not from the US, please correct me.

olalonde 9y ago
> I'm not from the US, please correct me. Surprisingly, San Francisco has pretty shitty Internet too and it's one of the most expensive place to live in the US.
- GeneralMayhem 9y ago
  Depends on where in the city you are. In a larger apartment or condo building you can usually get Webpass, which is very good (cheap for the US, fast up/down, low latency, good net neutrality policy, fantastic customer service).
- gleenn 9y ago
  I know someone who gets 800Mb/s with Sonic fiber now for less $$ than Comcast. So happy for them to be off Comcast too. Can't wait for Sonic to cover me and I think they were only a few blocks away last I checked.

sdrothrock 9y ago

Japan does this as well, with some places even going so far as to offer stipends for children and free rent.

csdreamer7 9y ago
Would these areas welcome Americans?
- sdrothrock 9y ago
  I haven't seen any citizenship restrictions, though usually there is a "you must live here at least X years or repay the benefits" restriction. Edit: If you mean culturally, I really can't imagine any problems as long as you're friendly, respectful, and speak the language. I've lived in some fairly remote places and never had an issue; a lot of people in my experience are pretty hands-off -- even if they don't like you, they don't bother you unless you bother them.
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  I thought Japan doesn't really want immigrants. This is an opinion piece but it jives with other things I've read over the years http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/12/AR2010031201790.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03... Isn't this part of the reason they are trying to make robots that can take care of their aging population - they don't want to have immigrants come in and do it.
  - sdrothrock 9y ago
    I think it's difficult to say "Japan doesn't want immigrants" but perhaps more accurate to say that "Japanese society is not friendly to outsiders." The difference is that rather than being explicitly "we don't want immigrants," Japanese society is a fairly closed one that relies on a niche language. No language, no acceptance. Beyond that, for educated people to immigrate to another country, you need to have a job market that accommodates those people; Japan doesn't really have that. The wages and benefits aren't competitive and the pension system is unfriendly to immigrants. Additionally, you really need a good grasp of the language. You can also see another recent post of mine about the difficulty of making friends in Japan, which is another thing that makes it difficult for people to come here. It doesn't help that people who come here often have a mediocre grasp of the language, which makes things more difficult and encourages them to live in a "foreign bubble," which will often lead to depression when it pops. On the up side, the Japanese immigration process is INCREDIBLY simple, especially compared to the US one (which I've heard about second-hand from Japanese people). In order to work here, you basically need a university degree and a job that pays more than around $25k/yr -- with those, you're a shoo-in within a month or so.

rpastuszak 9y ago

Does anyone know about a similar list for Europe?

pjc50 9y ago
Stoke-on-Trent will sell you a house for £1 and lend you the money to fix it: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/council-plans-to-sell-empty-homes-for-1-to-kickstart-local-economy-a6778411.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/council-plan... The globalisation history there is that the pottery industry went away, to China. But that's an industry that the UK and the Netherlands took away from China in the first place in the 1700s.

ketsa 9y ago

Would they welcome Europeans?

pjc50 9y ago
Small towns don't get to run their own immigration policy sadly.
lithos 9y ago
If you have rarer skills maybe. Often times you won't have competition for positions, and often times the parent company will be a multinational so you will have some support to get paperwork through (maybe with some delay at the lower levels). Some of the immigration systems are literally set up to make rural areas have some extra leeway or less competition for foreign workers. For IT administering old, rare, industrial, and strange technology. For mechanical skillS heavy equipment repair, tool and die cast, quarry and lumber work, or similar.

dagw 9y ago

Norway does something similar. If you're willing to move to the northern parts of northern Norway they will write off a chunk of your student loan each year plus give you pretty decent tax reduction on your income tax.

arethuza 9y ago
You could argue that the UK does something similar - if you are from Scotland and go to a Scottish university then no fees (~£9K a year).
- dagw 9y ago
  The difference is that this doesn't cause any incentive to stay in Scotland after your education nor for anybody from the rest of the UK to move to Scotland after their education.
  - arethuza 9y ago
    That is true - although being of an age where I have kids a university I do know people who have stayed in Scotland because they have multiple kids wanting to go to university. And here is a discussion about someone considering moving to Scotland because of the fees situation: https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1698260-to-move-to-Scotland-for-the-free-University-places https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1698260...
    - dagw 9y ago
      The 'problem' with this policy is that it cannot be used to direct people to the parts of Scotland where they 'need' people the most. In the Norwegian approach the government draws up a list of counties and says you have to move to one of the counties to get the benefits, and they can update that list as the situation changes. Of course, reasonable people can certainly disagree on whether or not this is something the government should be involved in at all.

susane123 9y ago

It is true that San Francisco is becoming more expensive day to day.