Two reasons. One, I had to stay near to my elderly mother to help her every few days. Two, if it were merely increased rent, that would be tolerable, but the cost of the act of moving, along with deposits and fees, would be impossible.

Not the original poster, but plenty of people have higher priority obligations in life outside of their job that would make it impossible to move. Family, health, etc.

I'm not trying to personally attack you either, but one trend I have noticed on HN is many comments acting like everybody is an unencumbered 25-year old American CS grad for whom the world is their oyster, and not quite "understanding" that others might be stuck in the real world due to circumstances not quite of their own choosing. A lot of which leads to innocent comments like yours pushing readers further into despair and less likely to ask for help.

Those types of choices are not often made for money-based reasons.

because moving closer doesn't increase the salary but costs more (under teh assumption the rent costs more)? Also, not everybody wants to move every year or two...