Relocation blues

Relocation blues October 22, 2007

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.


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