Small Towns Offer Remote Workers Incentives Up to $20,000 to Relocate

Small towns are offering people $20,000 to move and work remotely to help build their local economies.

Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other major cities already have booming economies. However, for the everyday American, surviving in those kinds of cities means dealing with a higher cost of living that most cannot afford. Now, some cities are experiencing shrinking tax bases and fixing this, they are asking out-of-towners to move there and contribute to the local economy.

According to Yahoo! Finance, at least 45 communities around the nation are offering people incentives to move there. Some of those places include southwest Michigan and Morgantown, West Virginia, and northwest Arkansas.

Shanelle Sherlin, a 30-year-old social media strategist, moved to work remotely in northwest Arkansas after seeing a non-profit’s offer of $10,000 and a mountain bike to qualifying workers. Instead of living in an L.A. home that could cost her $2 million, Sherlin moved into a $405,000 house in the Ozark Mountains.

“It’s just not feasible to really buy something” in L.A., says Sherlin, a hiking and biking enthusiast. “I’m so excited.”

The news outlet reports that some of the non-profits’ goals are to bring money back into the small towns and expand their tax bases. “We’re breaking the cycle,” says Adam Ozimek, chief economist of Upwork, an online freelancing platform. Cities “can appeal directly to people instead of the companies who employ them.”