• aesthelete@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Higher cost of living (COL) areas do (at least sometimes) offset their costs. I think public transit availability is a very tiny piece of the puzzle in the US because unless you’re talking a handful of cities the public transit in cities isn’t guaranteed to be good enough to go car free. Additionally, many large offices are not located in transit available, urban locations (i.e. they’re near cities, but not in cities).

    However, the areas that offset their costs do so because people in low COL areas often make a pittalence in comparison to those living in high COL areas.

    In a high COL area, you can forgo some of the COL by living a more meager lifestyle, but in a low COL area you cannot as easily make up the additional $20-30k a year salary difference.

    If you work for a company and move, sometimes they’ll even do the adjustment as a part of your move, and if you go from higher COL to lower COL they’ll make sure your paycheck reflects that.