This fails the basic sniff/math test. If wages are 50% lower but cost of living is 70% lower.. you're WAY ahead not only due to that 20% nominal spread-% but also the tax benefit of being in a lower/non-taxed bracket entirely. People get very stuck on the nominal value of a wage (which is why logic fallacy ideas like 'minimum wage' are economically vampiric in nearly every region), but it is extremely relative. Most people in "poor rural areas" don't have significant cash flow but also are asset net positive due to low/no debt levels. So who's poor now? The local guy driving the 1998 Chevy truck that has been paid of for 15 years or the tourist driving a 2018 Chevy truck with no hope of ever getting out of debt? There are, today, three types of people in the greater Chicago area (in ascending order of wealth): the debt slaves, the homeless, and the super wealthy.
I Grew up in a small Iowa farm town . Illinois has lots of the same. Unless you were going to be a farmer there were few choices we had 5,000 people 70 years ago , and 5,000 today. As I recall many farm kids drove new p/u trucks , more than I saw in the burbs around Chicago. The big problem for most of us was not enough money and there were few opportunities to get a job that afforded a new truck or car, but , we did anyway. It ment cutting something else , there was only so much you could do. Food was not cheep, when I moved to greater Chicago. There were many choices , many items cost less than living in a closed community, there was little competition and that kept prices high for many everyday items. ....... this is why I said what I said about young people fresh out of the University. “ Move to the big city, make your mark, save for retirement , then move to places where their were choices “ Returning to small town America. , with college loans to pay back was not a good idea.
TLDR Summary: Wages are an incomplete part of the quality-of-life story.
