Mihir Desai, Columnist

Move Americans to Jobs, Not the Other Way Around

Give people a tax incentive to seek out opportunity.

August 28, 2017 at 11:30 AM UTC

Mihir A. Desai is a professor at Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School and the author of “The Wisdom of Finance” and “How Finance Works”.

A good deal for whom?
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

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For far too long, U.S. politicians have been promising to bring jobs to Americans. They should instead be encouraging Americans to move to jobs.

The absurdity of tax incentives to "create jobs" reached new heights last month with Wisconsin’s deal to lure iPhone assembler Foxconn Technology Group -- which will reportedly cost taxpayers more than $100,000 per job. By promising to bring employment to depressed areas, politicians have convinced Americans that they have a right to a job where they live, and not that they should live where the jobs are. Even though labor-market incentives to relocate have increased over the past 50 years, with growing differences in wages and unemployment around the country, people actually move for work less and less.