video 1572798366

5 Nov 2019 · 1 min

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1:00

An attorney worked three years of overtime to cover a Chicago mortgage, then moved to Miami and created a LinkedIn profile. Banks there called immediately but wouldn't hire her because her Chicago salary made her too expensive for Miami's market, trapping her in a lower-wage city with higher housing costs.

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I couldn't sleep, but I kept working. Why? Because I had a mortgage to pay. So for the first year I did this. For the second year I continued. By the third year I was like, um, this is not sustainable. So what I did was I created a LinkedIn profile and I put my profile up there looking for a job as an attorney. Right away I was getting offers from, or I was getting contacted by recruiters, and I began interviewing with banks in Miami to work as a young associate. And everybody kept telling me the exact same thing: "You're too expensive." The problem was I would live in Miami, which has a very low salary for professionals, but the firm I was working for was based in Chicago, so I was getting paid Chicago salary. Everywhere I went I heard be too expensive. And it wasn't that. I just, I couldn't make a dollar more because I had a mortgage to pay.