I am surprised this is an issue. Outside of the tech industry, adjusting incomes based on cost of living has been a normal practice for decades. Just because your gross income gets cut does not mean your net income is less. You may end up with a significantly more discretionary income and more flexibility on how to spend your money. Tech company stocks are so high in large part because the companies, with their stockholders support, continue to locate their work forces in the most expensive places to live in the world. To recruit someone to the pacific northwest, you need to pay two to three times what you could get away with in the midwest. That's just to get a young person in the door. The covid epidemic has laid bare the fallacy that you need to locate people in expensive housing markets. Why the stockholders continue to accept the inflated labor costs by operating in expensive markets is surprising. But as I said... in the rust belt manufacturing sector, adjusting incomes has been the norm for decades.

* they are NOT looking for me or you....