My Family’s Money

Have you ever considered moving because you can live somewhere else for cheaper? I know that my wife and I have. I’ve mentioned before the outrageous prices that currently exist in the housing market in San Diego – and that is despite the precipitous fall in prices in recent months. While in South Carolina, home to my wife’s family, we could buy a pretty spacious fixer-upper with plenty of land about 45 minutes from Charlotte, NC for around $50,000 (plus $40,000 renovation costs over a few years after purchase). We could probably ride that mortgage.

But that is not what I wanted to talk about today. Instead, I want to look at the whole notion of relocating from a perspective other than that of a rich person. Yes, I know – my net worth hardly classifies me as ‘rich’ by American standards, but in the eyes of the world I am super rich. I eat like a king, have adequate shelter, own a car, own a computer, have access to high quality education, I am decently educated, and I make more money in one year than some people will live off of their entire life. I am incredibly wealthy.

In order to accomplish my goal of looking at the question of relocation from a non-rich perspective I am going to have to do one of two things:

1. Rely heavily on my training in history and tap some of my ancestral heritage going back to the industrial revolution or
2. Try to see life through the eyes of the poor around me

I’ll try to use both, but I am going to mainly try and see life as the poor around me see it.

Living in San Diego I rub shoulders with a large contingent of Hispanic immigrants, who are also often illegal immigrants. They leave their native land to live as expatriates in one of the richest countries in the world. Sometimes whole families make the trip, like the family of one of my high school friends. These are generally, but not always, the best off in terms of support structures and income levels. They have relatives who have already made the trip (usually uncles) and quickly find some type of ‘regular’ job because of these connections. Even though these people are poorer than me and their experiences are interesting I really want to think at a lower level of poverty.

Walking to the bus stop in the morning I often pass an Hispanic male who sleeps on a narrow concrete slab with bushes on one side and a bank¹ on the other. Sometimes I hear him talking to a buddy who must be sleeping in the same area just a skip away from the sidewalk. Other times I hear the sound of his sleeping and I am a little embarrassed to be sharing this intimate moment with a complete stranger. I say “Hello” when I pass him as he heads off to buy food or wherever it is he is heading at 6:27 in the morning.

I don’t know this man’s background and I don’t have any idea why he is living in my quiet suburban neighborhood. But I do imagine, and I do have some book knowledge of what his story could be. I imagine that he has a wife and kids back in his home country and that being away from them makes his heart a prisoner in his own chest, longing to break free from the bars of bone and flesh. I see his little girl completely naked from the waste up, sitting in a day-old diaper – her olive legs red with rash. What money he makes doing day labor for my neighbors is enough to feed his belly and send a small amount back to his family, but it’s never enough for him to go back home or to bring them up to America.

So he waits and he works. His clothes become stale with sweat, his face leathery and worn. Gradually he meets new friends in similar circumstances and begins to adapt to his new life. And the main reason he has done so is for money.

What I find particularly interesting about it is this: while I, the rich man, think about relocating for the purpose of reducing expenses this (imaginary, but real) man relocated to increase income. The fact is, working for suburban households at relatively low wages is the best job that this guy could find both in his country and in ours. He has moved away from everything he has ever known to a new land that costs a lot to live in in order to make more money than he could have anywhere else. He lives like a beggar here in order to improve the situation of his family there. Poverty motivates him while comfort motivates me.

We both are looking at our financial situation and what we will be giving up with our moves, but he definitely sacrifices more than I do. While I could see my side of the family again if I move out of San Diego, it would be very hard for this individual to do the same without jeopardizing the very reason that he came across the border in the first place – end his family’s fight against poverty.

We are the same, but different – and I am not so sure what to do with that. What I am sure of is that poverty stinks and that we (the rich) can do a lot to help others with greater needs than our own.

What do you think we should do about relocation as a result of poverty? It happens on both an national (flight from rural to urban) and international (immigration to richer countries: i.e. US and EU) scale. Should these be treated differently?

1. a commercial bank where business takes place, not sloping land like the bank of a river [↩]