I don't know who's been giving you your information, but it's not very solid. I live in Northwest Iowa in a city with 150,000 or so people. Chick Fil A pays $11 an hour, I work for local government and make roughly $23 an hour. You could work at a casino and get $12 an hour plus tips, Tyson meats starts at $17 an hour, the local ice cream place pays $16 and change plus they have a shuttle that takes you to and from work. You could be a med aid and make $13.50 an hour plus pickup pay and overtime. United healthcare starts at $14 an hour to sit in a call center. There's a shit ton of jobs here.

My point is, life in the Midwest is much easier than in a city like LA or NY. There are thousands of transplants from CA, NY and even Texas where I live. I have a 1250 sq.ft new construction townhome with a garage and I pay $1165 a month. 1BR 1Bath apartments are like $550 a month. There's not a ton of exciting stuff to do here but I'm only 3-4 hours from Kansas City, Minneapolis, an hour from Omaha, etc.