More Evidence for ZMP

One other "takeaway" is that local laws matter. A partial counterexample to the above is Austin, Tx, where local startups are hiring significant numbers of non-elite workers.

The problem in New York (as well as CA) is hugely expensive labor laws have made it so expensive to hire anyone that companies only hire senior staff at "HQ", while everything else is outsourced, offshored, or done in cheaper "red states" if kept "in house" (see Amazon's vast operations in Nevada, etc). Given that most labor laws and regs cost the same whether you hire a $30K worker or a $300K exec, this is to be expected.

Speaking of ZMP for workers makes no sense. Workers don't have a set MP or an intrinsic MP; they only have MP in relationship to a particular job. For some jobs the same worker will have very high MP and for others negative MP.

The MP of a worker has meaning only in relation to a particular job. If an industry loses a lot of jobs, those workers will have ZMP for that industry, but they will have some MP for other jobs and greater MP if they get retrained.

Austin was also contrasted this morning in a WSJ blog "Brain Hub Cities Attract Jobs", as being one of the few affordable cities in this group. This post emphasized the growing 'hourglass' nature of cities in the present. However, the post I want to provide the link to gave one person's solution for breaking high skilled jobs into middle class jobs that sounds as if it could restore some of the middle. Imagine this solution applied to health care:
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/11/29/how-to-create-middle-class-jobs-in-435-steps

sorry about that, am still learning to post links!