Relocation blues

The lead story in today's business section tells us about how "You can reduce the pain of relocating."

The relocation assistance an employer offers can range from a couple of hundred dollars to ship your belongings to outright purchasing your home. There is no "standard" relocation package.

Worldwide ERC, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that represents corporate relocation companies, reported that the average amount a company spent to relocate a current homeowning employee in 2006 was $62,185, while the average cost to relocate a new hire was $55,165.

Relocation, it seems, is pretty expensive, not to mention a hassle. The executive profiled in the article above, for example, also has to deal with the logistics of his 9 foot-by-9 foot Indonesian opium bed -- something not easy to move and a piece of furniture that not just any new home would have room to accommodate.

You may be getting the sense here that when this article says that "you can reduce the pain of relocating," that you are not the "you" it's talking about. In 2006, the median annual household income in the United States was just over $48,000. If you and your spouse/partner together bring home $48,000, then you're probably not the sort of person who will be offered the opportunity to relocate on the company dime.

You may still have to relocate, of course, and doing so won't be any cheaper -- it's just that you'll have to spring for that entire $55,165 average relocation cost yourself.

I completely agree with the assumption in today's article that these executives ought to negotiate for every advantage they can get. If a new employer wants you to just up and move to a different state, selling your old house and buying a new one, then it seems fair to ask them to assist with the cost and logistics of that move. Relocating, after all, can be almost traumatic. In the best of circumstances, it's still a hassle -- and a very expensive hassle. Without the new employer's assistance, that hassle and expense can be prohibitive.

It's interesting that such obstacles are portrayed as legitimate considerations in an article like this one, focused on people with above-average resources and options at their disposal. Yet when the subject is a different set of people these same obstacles are often shrugged off as inconsequential. Whether that different set of people is a group of elderly retirees on fixed incomes being forced out of their manufactured housing community, or the working poor -- the people our economic theories and economic policies glibly assume will move to wherever the jobs are this year, it's rare to see any serious acknowledgment of how such obstacles can be insurmountable for people without the amount of resources these executives have.

There's an old saying that when the rich catch a cold, the poor get pneumonia. I appreciate the daunting challenge that relocating presents to the kinds of people profiled in this article. I just wish more attention were paid to how that same challenge can be even more daunting for those with fewer resources to address it.

Comments

[Richard Hershberger]

"You may be getting the sense here that ... you are not the "you" it's talking about."

I get this sense routinely from business section articles on personal finance. My local paper in a semi-rural county carries a section of these, from the Wall Street Journal, every Sunday. There is a rather charming cluelessness in the inability to recognize that the problems of the rich are not universal.

[MichaelR]

I have two possible responses here. I can't decide which to use so I'll use both.

The bitter one is that if these people were actually worthy of getting this aid, then clearly they wouldn't have need of it. (Worthiness being meant as "moral character," which is measured by the size of their bank account, of course, since it's obvious that bad things only happen to bad people...)

The more serious one is that if you ask an employee to relocate, the executive has more leverage with which to say "okay, help me move." A new hire for a lower tier job who responds with that is much more likely to hear "hell no, move your own ass or we'll just hire someone else."

[Invisibilitree]

MichaelR is close

It does not make economic sense to pay call center workers to relocate. We can just hire new call center workers. In fact, we may have received a government incentive to relocate precisely so that we'll employ call center workers from a depressed area rather than an area that has plenty of work already, moving people from the area with lots of work to the area that's depressed would be counter-productive - it's exactly the sort of bone-headed move I'd expect from Fred.

All the quasi-governmental letters I receive are postmarked from depressed areas a long way from me. Tax paperwork, government loans, and so on. This is not a coincidence. Once the major banks discovered that the undercurrent of racism is still strong enough to make "local" call centers something you can advertise on TV they all moved to those same depressed areas too.

[Scott]

We clearly need a government program to pay for peoples' relocation. Since the govt is paying, of course Society(tm) should be allowed to decide which relocations to pay for and which not to allow. We would of course have to nationalize all relocation to keep the eviiiil rich from creating a two tier system - programs for the poor are poor programs, after all.

Compassion(tm) therefore requires that the govt decides who lives where. Otherwise, the rich would segregate away from the poor, allowing them to ignore the poor. Think of it as forced busing for adults. You like forced busing, don't you?

If you disagree w/ my nationalized relocation program, you would also oppose forced busing, and so you are therefore proven to be a racist who must be relocated somewhere that a liberal bureaucrat thinks would best teach you Compassionate(tm) life lessons.

Did I say it's for the children?

[cjmr]

All my family and many of my friends currently live in the Detroit area and several work for the auto industry (not the car companies themselves, but companies that do most of their business with them). Three of them are looking for a new job right now. None of them are looking in MI. Why? Because they can't sell their homes. They're all interviewing with companies out of state, because only by moving far away will they be able to find an employer willing to give them any sort of relocation package. They aren't highly-paid executives, either--one's a mid-level engineer, one's a newly-minted PhD, and the third's a press-man (print press).

[cjmr]

Probably the only reason I found Scott's remarks the least bit funny this morning is because I went to four different elementary schools because the courts kept finding the school district's re-districting plans 'in violation', so they kept changing which schools which kids were bussed to until they found one which held up in court. (Thirty years later they seem to have settled on all pre-k through 2nd graders at one school, all 3-5 graders at another, all 6-7 at a third, magnet pre-K through 7th at a fourth, and everyone else at the high school--the student population having dropped low enough to close 3 of the 7 elementary schools and both jr. high schools. Everyone gets bussed now.)

[gabriel christou]

please visit
www.gabrielchristou.blogspot.com

you will see PHOTOS of WHO and WHERE Bin Laden and his NETWORKS ARE….

URGENT…PLEASE HELP…. I CANNOT FROM HERE….. I AM BLOCKED ALL AROUND
FORWARD THIS INFORMATION TO THE FBI.

gavriild@gmail.com

[Jesurgislac]

Good god. Just because we read Left Behind doesn't mean we're stupid.

[Fred]

TO: Members of the Compassionatariat Cabal

I have been careful not to reveal out secret plans for the authoritarian takeover by Really Big Government, yet somehow this Scott fellow is onto our conspiracy. I promise you I revealed nothing of our Master Plan in this post. I merely said that it sucks to have to move, and it sucks even more if you're poor. I made no mention of any government role or function, yet somehow he knew -- he knew I tell you -- what we were all secretly thinking. It was almost as though he had been present during the clandestine gathering at which we first discussed the formation of the Ministry of Relocation as yet one more step toward the centralization of all human activity and the abolition of individual choice. Be very careful around this vigilant champion of individual liberty named "Scott," he can read minds. Even when you never mention any government function or government program, he knows that's what you're secretly thinking -- even if you weren't thinking it! Clearly he knows too much. We should arrange for the Ministry of Compassionate Confiscation to schedule an audit. ...

[cjmr]

*wipes drink of keyboard*

[cjmr]

No, no! That should be *wipes drink off keyboard*! Here I'm Mrs. Spellcheck-Can't-Catch-Everything, and I missed that one.

*headdesk*

[alsafi]

Just last night, I was thinking kindly thoughts about Scott--reflecting that I'd send him cookies if I knew where to send them (even though he'd probably think they were poisoned), since I feel like he must be pretty lonely if trolling here is his idea of fun, and anyway, he'd actually been almost civil and even a made a little sense recently.

Now I'm just wondering if he has to work at being such a jackass, or if it's a natural talent.

[mmack]

Good god. Just because we read Left Behind doesn't mean we're stupid.

Game, Set, Match to Jesu.

[Timothy]

Tell them to give up those legends and those long lists of ancestors, which only produce arguments; they do not serve God's plan, which is known by faith.

[Mabus]

Checked out Gabriel's blog just for kicks...ironically, it looks as if he's attracted a pair of totally-opposite nuts who deny bin Laden had any involvement. Unless I misunderstood him...couldn't read the tiny text in his pictures, and the whole blog was one extra-long post.

Fred, Scott's post was certainly unintentionally humorous, as your response was intentionally. But I'm curious whether you actually have any suggestions as to what should be done about the problem. Do you, by any chance, mean that the government should get involved, and if so how? Or are you requesting the inefficient, demeaning assistance of private charity? Inquiring minds want to know...

[Ray]

Maybe Fred is just pointing out another example of how newspapers report stories in a way that doesn't reflect the reality of life for most of their readers. Most readers who have to move to follow jobs don't get paid large sums for their trouble, but the story is written for the tiny minority who do.

[Richard Hershberger]

If I recall correctly, Scott replied to a previous post of Fred's with a comment about its being on or off topic. Someone else pointed out that this is Fred's blog, so whatever he posts is by definition on topic, but I don't think Scott groks this. It appears that he believes that this blog's topic is Stuff Big Government Should Do. So naturally he interpreted a post about the difficulties of relocating by assuming it was really about what Big Government should do.

[cjmr]

Meta-analyzing Scott? That seems a risky thing to do.

[hapax]

MetaScott! Now there's a band name. (Especially if you use inappropriate umlauts...)

[cjmr]

Hmmm, so like:

MetäScott ?

or, maybe:

MëtaScøtt ?

[Jesurgislac]

MëtaScøtt and the Røkkets!

[Rosina]

It does not make economic sense to pay call center workers to relocate. We can just hire new call center workers. In fact, we may have received a government incentive to relocate precisely so that we'll employ call center workers from a depressed area rather than an area that has plenty of work already, moving people from the area with lots of work to the area that's depressed would be counter-productive - it's exactly the sort of bone-headed move I'd expect from Fred.

My experience of 'relocation' was in a Government Department. The idea was to move most of the Department out of Central London, to the South West. A later proposed move was to Derby. Because they could not be classist the plans proposed for relocation packages were open to all grades of worker, and they sort of forgot to mention that one of the aims was to bring Civil Service jobs to the sticks. The interest shown by junior staff was ginormous and took them aback. I don't think they'd realized that for someone living in poor (all they could afford) housing in London, the chance to upgrade their home, their quality of life, to cut down on the commuting, and to get away from London, were dreams coming true. For the senior staff (those who they really wanted to move) the drop in promotion prospects and being away from the political centre meant that they were far less keen to relocate.

Plans to move the Home Office to the South West and the Prison Service to Derby were dropped. The Immigration Department did get shipped out to Croydon, as a sort of compromise. I don't think it improved the service, though. As it had only moved about 15 miles, relocation terms were not offered (other than subsidised travel for those of us who had extra costs).

[Chris Koeberle]

Congratulations, "Average Amount Spent to Relocate," you're our Worthless Statistic of the Week! We don't know what costs are included in calculating you, we don't know anything about what subset of relocations you're talking about, and we certainly don't know how a million-dollar interest-free relocation loan figures into your "Amount."

Nothing useful to say about the Ministry of Relocation. I just get twitchy, sorry.

[wintermute]

The Immigration Department did get shipped out to Croydon, as a sort of compromise.

Lunar House? The move itself was before my time, I think, but I had several friends who worked there (native Croydonites (Croydonians?)). Never really wondered why it was in Croydon, I have to admit.

Oh, and I know I've been away too long, because "Croydon" now looks like the name of a tiny village in the Cotswolds...

[Tabigarasu]

I'm having a really really hard time believing that average cost for relocation stat. I've been relocated, and I've watched my parents get relocated countless times. The most I've ever *needed* for relo was about $4k (granted, I've always rented my home). The most my parents have used was about $20k, which included a housing subsidy for overlapping mortgage payments until the old house could be sold and the cost of professional packers and movers. Dad's an MD with literally thousands of pounds of textbooks that all get included in the cost of shipping the household goods. That $20k also included the cost of moving fragile items (large tv, glass table tops) and bulky items (platform bed that cannot be disassembled).

My mind is boggling at the thought of someone who either has so much stuff, or such a wildly unmarketable house, that they need more than double that to move. I simply cannot imagine having that kind of lifestyle for myself, ever.

Whether that different set of people is a group of elderly retirees on fixed incomes being forced out of their manufactured housing community, or the working poor -- the people our economic theories and economic policies glibly assume will move to wherever the jobs are this year, it's rare to see any serious acknowledgment of how such obstacles can be insurmountable for people without the amount of resources these executives have.

Right on, Fred.

Two things:

1.) This might not have a LOT to do with moving expenses, but more with the framing of economic discussions in media. Here goes: “Free” trade isn’t sustained simply by removal of barriers to money and goods. As it’s commonly practiced and spoken of, “free” trade absolutely requires the total immobility of people. It’s no good if oil, dollars, jeans, computers, coffee, and JOBS are free to move around if the people can move around just as easily. No, people must stay locked behind borders: every nation a fortress/prison. Or else how would the system work? If a worker can simply move to wherever he can get the best price for labor or if a consumer can go wherever he can buy the things he wants most cheaply, then the whole thing breaks down rather fast doesn’t it?

“Free” trade necessitates very UNfree populations of people.

2.) More materially about moving: I too am mystified whenever I see a column describing what cities are “hot towns” for jobs in XYZ field right now. The whole idea of moving for work is rather foreign to me. Even if I could make double what I’m making now if I were to move to Houston or Atlanta or wherever, I wouldn’t do it. Why? Because A.) I qualitatively enjoy where I live now and B.) I have established strong family and friendship connections where I am and wouldn’t want to break them. In short, I make decisions based on much more than money.

That distant boom/thud sound you all just hear was Scott’s head exploding.

[J]

That was me, by the way.

[Scottbot]

Master Plan?

WORLD DOMINATION MODE ACTIVE

Scottbots, having no working minds, do not fear mind reading Master Programmers who feel that hopping a school bus is the same as travelling half way around the globe to teach the natives how to ship oil to that bastion of free market weaponry, the U.S. Whether Nigeria, Iraq, or Columbia, the free market is ready to make sure that the executive housing is well equipped after a long day in the air conditioning of a late model Range Rover, with the armor package and shot gun riding mercenaries; the natives do get restless, which is why executive turnover is such a problem - even paying a moving allowance isn't enough these days.

Nonetheless, this Scottbot is ready to oppose forced robot relocation, unless paid enough, without taxes, naturally. Scottbot doesn't even get out of bed if it involves taxes, which are the root of all evil.

Money doesn't kill people, taxes do, as Scottbot likes to repeat in all sorts of public forums. Though honestly, this Scottbot sometimes wonders why it bothers - no one ever seems to understand how the world's Most Compassionate And Well Buffed Hunk Of Junque is just trying to save the world from itself.

Which is why Scottbot has decided that world domination is the only answer to government.

Scottbots being mindless, no one can read this Scottbot's mind on what this means - Scottbot is proud to follow the path blazed by its Maker.

[Tabigarasu]

J:

I can see your point in 2) but a lot of people have a very different point of view. Everyone in my group at work moved here from another part of the country, because we all individually value interesting work at the cutting edge of the field. Since this is where the job was, we each packed up and moved (from New York, from California, from Colorado, etc. etc.) I enjoyed where I lived before, and if an appropriate job opens up back there, I'd take it in a heartbeat, but note the emphasis on "appropriate." It's not just the dollar value of the salary, but the intangibles. Is the group 100% white and male or is there some diversity in the workforce? Is it using technology that is 30 years old or is it at the forefront of its field? Is it a huge mind-numbing beauracracy or is it a young and nimble firm that encourages creativity? Those are all things that I will gladly pack up and move for.

[hf]

Ok, don't follow a totally random link unless you have good reason to think it came from a human, rather than spam viruses seeking to propagate. Any program that controls millions of computers can surely acquire its own URL with very little help.

More on-topic, note that women often don't negotiate because they correctly believe the other person will hold it against them. Evidently men tend to reward male negotiators, and everyone else gets penalized regardless of who does the penalizing.

[hapax]

Well, there's the huge factor that very few families in the U.S. can make it on a single income anymore.

One of the reasons (although hardly the only) I chose not to pursue an academic career was the fact that my spouse already had one, and it is so difficult to find jobs, and when you're offered a good one, you move anywhere you can go. To try and do that for two people in the same place at the same time (unless you're such a hot commoditity that the institution creates a position for the other spouse) is a nightmare.

Don't get me wrong, I love being a librarian, but there's no question that one of the attractions of the field is that it is comparatively portable.

[cjmr]

My step-sister and sisters-in-law the librarians would agree with you 100% on that one. Graphic design is good, too (other sister).

[Joolya]

Maybe Fred is just pointing out another example of how newspapers report stories in a way that doesn't reflect the reality of life for most of their readers. Most readers who have to move to follow jobs don't get paid large sums for their trouble, but the story is written for the tiny minority who do.

I agree, Ray. It stikes me also that the danger of this is that the tiny minority, reading these articles, consider their situations as "normal" or "representative". Since it's in the paper it must be a common occurance that lots of people can relate to! Which allows that tiny minority, who of course wield a disproportionate amount of power, to ignore the plight of the majority and the system self-perpetuates.

[Hermes]

I agree with Tabigarasu.

I've moved across the continent a couple times for maybe a couple grand. It must be that these executives are bringing whole houses, or elephants, or a fleet of SUVs with them or something.

[patter]

Indonesian opium bed

What the hell is this, and why don't I have one?

[cjmr]

Googling around, apparently an opium bed is a big square bed made out of teak, which may or may not have large decorated panels around three sides.

[Michele]

I can attest that people move for reasons other than money. I gave up a good-paying job in IT in Cleveland to play handbells professionally in the SF Bay Area. Neither my husband nor I had any other jobs when we moved here, but he found a job in IT rather quickly (itself a miracle at that time - January 2002) leaving me free to pursue my musical profession (though I did wait tables for 6 months just to have some money coming in - stopped that as soon as I had enough $ from music to cover it).

[hapax]

Totally off topic, but I just want to stress that the fact that someone can actually make a living as a professional handbell musician (even in San Francisco, which doesn't exactly count as "the Real World TM") gives me little frissons of joy and hope.

[Vasquez]

J claimed: As it’s commonly practiced and spoken of, “free” trade absolutely requires the total immobility of people.

So, the EU's common market isn't about free trade, since one of its primary effects was to eliminate barriers to economic migration? Sure, it's not as easy to move from Paris to Edinburgh or Berlin to Dublin as it would be to go from Seattle to Los Angeles but it's pretty damn easy.

AFAIK it's illegal for immigration officials in member states to ask other EU citizens types of questions they wouldn't ask their own citizens (e.g. "What is the purpose of your visit? How are you going to support yourself in our country?" ) so they won't ask you anything at all, in fact most EU borders have only a token police and immigration presence. You can export personal items, furniture, and practically anything that's not actually illegal in EU countries without having to pay duty. In the Euro countries (a smaller but still very large group) you may not even need a new bank account to get your salary paid in. Paperwork for employers is typically no more difficult than for someone getting their first job at age 18 - they need to register to pay tax, join pension schemes etc. Short of going along with Scott's idea and providing government funding to ship whole communities from one EU member state to another it's hard to see what more the EU could do to improve voluntary mobility of its people.

[Michele]

hapax: LOL! Me, too! :-) Seriously, though, I make enough money at it that without my husband I could still survive here in the Bay Area, albeit by sharing a house with several other people & either driving a clunker or (more likely) by relying on public transit (which I did for the first 1.5 years here, anyway). Of course, if I lived anywhere *other* than the Bay Area, the money I make would make me moderately Well Off (probably living alone in a nice apartment, and with a low-cost vehicle of some sort). Of course, if I lived anywhere except the Bay Area, I probably wouldn't be able to make this much at handbells, so take that for what it's worth....

But this is SO MUCH better than a desk job!

(I refuse to use the term "real job" - because anybody who says that being a full-time musician isn't a "real job" has never been a full-time musician. It's more like FIVE real jobs....)

[Salamanda]

Michele, you give me hope! What a bold move...were you at all scared?

[Jeff]

So, the EU's common market isn't about free trade?

Not the "free trade" that the libertarians fetishize, no. The EU has unencumbered trade, which is not the same thing. NAFTA and other so-called "free trade" agreements depend on a locked-in population -- the mantiquilas won't run if the Mexican poor can come to the US as equals with US workers.

[Raka]

Tabigarasu (and others wondering at the >$55000 cost of relocating): It doesn't cost the mover that much. It costs the employer that much to get them to move. I have a friend who was headhunted (very skilled engineer in a very specific field) out of state. His package included:

• plane tickets plus lavish lodging during the mutual interview and "seduction" phase
• full coverage for professional movers to pack him up and move him out
• full coverage for a contractor to come in and spruce his old house up with cleaning, painting, minor landscaping and repairs, etc to make it salable
• full expenses (including closing costs) for a real estate agency to handle the actual sale, according to his specifications
• 30 days free hotel living + a per diem for food once he was down at the new job
• 1 year of climate-controlled storage space sufficient for all his possessions
• either 6 months free rent wherever he found a place to rent (with a fairly ridiculously high ceiling) or full expenses (including closing costs) for a real estate agency for whatever house he found to buy
• professional movers to move him into his new place
• a four-digit hiring bonus/"moving expenses" payment as soon as he signed on
• a five-digit retention bonus for staying at the new job paid after one year of work

That's just the money that went directly to him. Lord only knows what various administrative and overhead costs were billed within his employer to the cause of getting him to move.

I don't think Fred's trying to say that there are actually $55,000 in genuine, unavoidable expenses tied up with moving anywhere. But the market value for mobility is apparently around $60K. In other words, if you went up to the average American worker (who is skilled enough to be "worth" relocating) and offered them $40,000 in cash, goods, and services to move-- in addition to an almost certainly significant increase in salary and authority-- they would say "no". The combined costs in money, happiness, time, and connections associated with moving are worth more than that to them.

Yet these same people seem to think that poor and otherwise disadvantaged people should have no reasonable objection to just packing up and going wherever the minimum wage blows them.

[cjmr]

"The butters won't run?"

[Raka]

Raka: I don't think Fred's trying to say that there are actually $55,000 in genuine, unavoidable expenses tied up with moving anywhere.
Fred: you'll have to spring for that entire $55,165 average relocation cost yourself

Whoops. I lose at reading comprehension.

Fine, so I disagree with Fred's specific interpretation of the data. But I think his larger point (or my possibly delusional interpretation of his larger point) still stands-- moving is not in any sense a zero-cost proposal.

[LMM]

Once the major banks discovered that the undercurrent of racism is still strong enough to make "local" call centers something you can advertise on TV they all moved to those same depressed areas too.

Racism? I like my tech support to speak English, thank you.

[Michele]

LMM, English is one of the Official Languages of India, yet most Americans would prefer not to deal with call centers in India. I think that's what the "racism" was referring to.

[cjmr]

I prefer not to deal with call centers in India because I know the people in them are not actually empowered to do any more than listen to my complaint, spout a few platitudes, and make a note in my file.

[Michele]

cjmr: Good point - that's why I don't like dealing with them, either. (I've met enough people from India and/or Pakistan here in the Bay Area that I've grown accustomed to their accent, so that doesn't bother me.)

However, I still think that when whoever-it-was-I'm-too-lazy-to-go-look wrote "racism", they were referring to call centers in India.

[Boris Gudonov]

As far as the plight of manufactured-housing (trailer) dwellers goes, something occurs to me...why can't the churches in an area where this is occurring, or about to occur, club together and buy the park from its current owners?

That way, the current residents could stay on and pay their old rents; churches have advantages over other property owners in that they don't have to pay taxes and have a lot more political clout than your average trailer-park owner does.

A lot of times, the trailer-dwellers' park was started when land prices were low in that area, but when more people start moving in, the prices go up and taxes likewise; the NIMBY types also object to living close to such a "proletarian" thing (never mind that they bought and built out there knowing full well that it was there)---and the NIMBYs usually have more clout with local government.

So why not lobby the local churches to buy the lot? As the current trailer owners die out, they could get rid of the old trailers, and when the last of them is gone, they've got a nice piece of property they can sell, and in the meantime, they've got the rental income.