Go West, Young Welfare Recipient

I thought this sentence was a parody — or at least a cynical paraphrase — when I first saw it on Instapundit, but it's an actual quote from a news story:

Record low unemployment across parts of the West has created tough working conditions for business owners, who in places are being forced to boost wages or be creative to fill their jobs.

Here's more from the article itself:

Established baby boomers, including retirees, have been moving into Montana for the mountain views and recreation, bringing with them money for new homes that fuel construction job growth, said Swanson.

Along the way, younger people have moved away searching for bigger paychecks as the state's wages still lag behind other areas and are slowly increasing overall. Now, the aging work force is unable to expand to meet the demands of the job market, Swanson said.

He said the problem is compounded by the fact that employers, accustomed to paying relatively low wages, have been slow to increase salaries. Montana wages have historically been among the lowest in the country, and still rank near the bottom. The silver lining for workers is that wages are now growing at the third-fastest rate among U.S. states.

Kinda makes a Rhode Islander wonder whether it mightn't help our disproportionate number of poor people make the healthy move to a booming economy, as in Montana, where one can start at over $20,000 a year working for McDonald's, if we were to cease contributing so much public dough to their inertia.