Former Kentuckian here. I moved out to California shortly after college, partly due to the exact reasons you described. There's simply no parallel job-wise to west coast tech jobs in Kentucky, including my hometown of Louisville.

I know several fellow southerners and midwesterners who are working at large tech firms out here. No matter how much we may love where we come from, there's simply no realistic avenue for us to go back.

Places like Kentucky already have huge tech talent pools, but the workers are currently in exile in the coasts. I'd imagine if these states focused more on bringing tech firms to their state, they'd see a lot of that tech talent return home.

Very true. UK, U of L, and many other schools in the state produce solid devs. And you're right a lot of the better grads leave for better jobs. But I wouldn't agree that there are no "good" jobs here. The salary is lower, but you probably come out ahead in CoL terms. There have been some startups doing well recently in Lexington and from what I understand Louisville is only doing better. The place I work, Badger Technologies, is doing some pretty awesome things and has some open positions.

This article in the Herald Leader explains and give some numbers to what you're saying https://www.kentucky.com/news/business/article181564581.html Supposedly some of the reason the group was pushed by some larger employers in the area that were hearing potential employees were turning down offers because if the job didn't turn out well in the long run there weren't many alternatives.

This is exactly how I feel about it. I came to the Bay Area for compensation closer to the value I provide. I stay because few other places offer the same combination of opportunity, compensation, and diversity. I'd take a 10% to 20% pay cut to live closer to family in a less expensive area, but where they live (a Midwestern city) every single one of those three things is strictly worse.

Is compensation really strictly less with a 20% pay cut? I'm from the midwest and I have a hard time wrapping my head around the compensation differences. Google-able "cost of living" calculators give me an 80k range for my midwest city salary, that works out to 35-62% cut.

The cost of living adjustment doesn't include things like savings rate and is at best an apples-and-oranges comparison for housing. In my target city I could easily buy a house 50% larger than I currently rent: but the schools, parks and such would be worse. Think of it like social classes: to get access to equivalent schools and other county provided services (parks, libraries) I'd have to live a level (or two) above my Bay Area lifestyle, negating a lot of the base COLA adjustment. Also my savings rate would plummet: to save the same amount at typical incomes in my target city I'd have to increase my 401k rate by a factor of 1.5 or more, use more of my post-tax income for diversification, etc.

yes. there's a similar problem in Alaska. We do have jobs but not nearly enough compared to the quantity of developers/graduates up here. It drives down wages and most developers end up leaving. It took me years to find my first development job while being stuck in call centers and tech support roles for 4 years.

I think in the mid-long run, remote workers will scramble to get out of KY. State income tax is 6%, and if you live/work in Louisville you get hit with another 2.2%. I GTFO when I realized that my state/local income tax in KY were was than enough to rent a comfortable apartment in Seattle.

Obviously I get hit with dozen different taxes in Seattle, but I'm also able to reap the benefits like decent public transit and well maintained roads/sidewalks. I seriously struggle to understand where my taxes went in KY. It's a pretty abysmal situation.

For somebody with student loans, how can Kentucky entice them to stay? In a way it makes more sense to do the retraining Interapt does. Picking up the older people who are less likely to want to move.