Why do local jobs tend to pay more up north?

Cost-of-living varies wildly throughout the U.S., and it’s typically not worth it to live in a high CoL area ($18 hourly in somewhere like MS will go further than $28 hourly in NY), but searching on Indeed, it seems like $25+ hourly jobs are plentiful in the smaller towns in states such as WI, OH, IN and even WV. In fact, homes/apartments renting under $600 seem to be much more common in WV. Is it the fact that local drivers have to deal with driving/working in the snow during winters?

Around my area, it’s difficult to find anything over $20 hourly. One company in Adel Ga starts out at $18 hourly AND they require 2 years T/T experience. These wages are not too terrible for a newbie fresh out of school to get hired on and earn experience without facing the horrors of OTR driving, but experienced drivers don’t seem to have many options if they want to stay local. There are higher paying jobs in big cities like Atlanta, etc., but again,the CoL also increases.

 

It’s what I’ve been considering. I read that the eastern panhandle has all the truckdriving jobs a person could want.

 

WV