The issue is absolutely a shortage of housing.
And depressing wages doesn't solve anything when you already have a huge wealth gap and income disparity.
No there isn't. There are plenty of reasonably priced houses as I cited below.
The key here is that you should be able to live anywhere in America and still have a good job. housing isn't that big of an issue because there are big houses which are only 150k in St Louis or desmoines or Gatlinburg or Las Cruces. The issue is that employers are hoarding all the jobs in a few select cities, which require high salaries AND prevents their employees from buying property there.
The issue is a poor distribution of workers because a small number of cities are hoarding most of the good jobs. You must consider the entire American housing market before you say there is a shortage.
The salary adjustment is the incentive for the employer to allow this . Their corporate boards have a fiduciary responsibility to accept such a proposal if it brings value to the corporation.
And these would work for most of the corporate jobs because there is no reason
[a corporate attorney ,or software engineer, or HR representative , or csuite team ,or middle mgmt ,or call center representative ,or financial broker or b2b salesperson or bussiness analyst] needs to be in New york or California or Seattle or chicago or Atlanta or miami or Boston
Why would you think lowering the buying power of people already stretched thin is a good idea?
Quite the opposite . you would actually have far more left over. The real wages would actually be higher after relocation and a cola adjustment because the vast majority of this person's income in their high cost city went toward housing.
As a case study take an inhouse first-year attorney or first-year engineer living in san jose, both working at general dynamics or Cisco. Look at the massive change in savings using their original 150k salary. Keep in mind starter homes in that same city are starting at $700,000.
If the employer were to reduce the 150k salary to 120k, and allow the same employee to move to kansas city or Albuquerque where a starter home may be only 150,000 they would see their mortgage dropped from $4,800 to $990. This is the equivalent of a $15,000 raise even when you account for the 30k salary reduction.
(Assuming today's 7% interest rate)
This is what I'm talking about. My proposal raises the buying power of the average American.