Don’t Subsidize Low-Wage Cities
“Instead, make highly productive cities cheaper places to live. Anew study by Harvard economists Benjamin Austin, Ed Glaeser, and Larry Summers, ‘Saving the Heartland: Place-Based Policies in 21st Century America,’ laments that although wages are far higher in America’s most productive cities than they are elsewhere, Americans have become less likely to move to new regions with better economic opportunities. The authors fear that the country is ‘evolving into durable islands of wealth and poverty.’ They recommend subsidizing low-wage geographies, through welfare spending and infrastructure investment, for example.”