It's pretty understandable, imo. My income would not scale upwards very much if I moved from Chicago to somewhere higher cost like NYC, DC, or SF, and if I were

It's pretty understandable, imo. My income would not scale upwards very much if I moved from Chicago to somewhere higher cost like NYC, DC, or SF, and if I were to go to those places a lot of my current extra income would be wiped out.