In the News
It’s really tough to move out of a dead-end town
Another thing keeping people in dead-end towns is government benefits. Eli Lehrer and Lori Sanders of the conservative/libertarian R Street Institute argued in a 2014 article that “America’s decentralized welfare state” poses “a major barrier to mobility” because moving often means having to re-qualify and re-enroll to get means-tested benefits. Even national programs such as Social Security Disability Benefits can discourage moving to a place with more opportunity because living expenses are usually lower where the economy is in the tank.
