Source: NYT > Business
The arbitrage that enabled American remote workers to live like the upper-middle class in Lisbon or Mexico City has inverted—home prices and wages have diverged so sharply that repatriation now means a tangible lifestyle downgrade. This creates a semi-permanent expatriate class unlikely to return, fragmenting the consumer base and shifting where American spending power concentrates. Geographic wage and cost-of-living decoupling, once a fringe benefit of remote work, has hardened into structural economic inequality that favors dollar earners abroad over domestic market participation.