[auchenberg]

Working for Microsoft, and moved to Seattle, WA last year, after having lived in Vancouver, BC for about 1.5 year.

I can confirm this trend for several reasons:

1) The pay gap is real. Many get about a 40% pay increase by moving 3 hours down south. It's significant.

2) Taxes are aprox 10% lower in Seattle. Makes a difference too.

3) Rent-net-pay-ratio is about the same for Vancouver/Seattle

4) For a tech worker the health care is both places privately insured and the same.

Personally, I miss Vancouver. The city is awesome, and life quality is better, but financially it's simply not attractive enough.

[jonny_eh]

> Rent-net-pay-ratio is about the same for Vancouver/Seattle

Doesn't that mean that Seattle is the same as Vancouver financially? If so, why not stay in Vancouver?

[marvin]

No, because absent taxes, your disposable income has increased by the same percentage as the increase in salary. Taxes make the increase in disposable income even more pronounced.

This math mistake is the key to the fallacy that a cost-of-living increase zeroes out an increase in salary.