California remote workers are bringing their high salaries elsewhere

If Drew Thompson was going to move to Texarkana, Texas, from Pasadena, California, he decided he may as well get $5,000 for it.

Thompson got the cash from the city’s relocation program, along with other benefits like memberships to local organizations and access to a community workspace, but the small city would get far more. It would collect the income tax revenue from his salary of at least $60,000 a year — the minimum threshold to qualify for the program. It would also benefit from the taxes on his partner’s salary and the property taxes from the home they purchased, plus the sales taxes from their local spending at restaurants and stores and gas stations.

The economic boost that one high-income earner — and in this case, two — can bring to a small city like Texarkana is making relocation incentive programs more popular than ever for local governments. A city no longer has to offer big tax cuts to lure an entire company to relocate or start its operations in town. Instead, it can outsource the heavy lifting of economic development to a company like MakeMyMove and reap lasting benefits just by making an individual feel welcome.

Read the full SFGATE article here.