It just doesn't make sense to be earning minimum wage and spending $1400/month to live in a 1-bed apartment. There are cheaper places to live elsewhere that are safe to live where you can earn similar wages.
True, sure they could move to Idaho or Montana, but many people have roots and strong family ties, which bind them to a small geographic area, so to them leaving simply isn't an option to them anymore than going and living on the moon would be (and I mean that almost literally). I have an uncle that's never left the state and considers a "city" an hour away an exotic location.
For example 46% of midwesterners live in the same community their entire life (http://pewsocialtrends.org/files/2010/10/Movers-and-Stayers....), even though many of them could probably move elsewhere when the finish school (HS, Tech, College, Uni, etc.) and get much better jobs than they could locally.
That was exactly my thought when I read this paragraph.
>Candelaria shares a one-bedroom apartment with her husband and two teenage daughters. They struggle to get by even though she and her husband both work -- she as a janitor at night, and her husband as a tree-trimmer during the day.
