Should I transfer from big city Canada to suburban United States?

August 5, 2019 12:42 PM

I'm a software developer in his early thirties, based in Toronto, Canada that is considering a move to suburban Richmond, VA.

My employer provides transfer program which allows employees to move between the various international offices. They take care
of visas (L1-B) and the Green Card process (EB-2) immediately on arrival.

I occasionally work alongside the team I'd be joining so I'm familiar with the people and job responsibilities.

Economics-wise, I'm told that I'd get my current salary but in USD with a slight bump due to the difference in the working hours. Cost of living around Richmond is much lower than Toronto, taxes appear to be similar, healthcare isn't free and I'm planning to have a child shortly after we move. That said, I'm confident we can save more than we do in Toronto. Home ownership is also a possibility unlike in Toronto. I don't drive in Toronto but I'd need a car (or two) in VA.

The Green Card would open a lot of doors for my career and give me a lot of mobility when I decide to move on from Richmond.

posted by anonymous to Work & Money (32 answers total)

healthcare isn't free and I'm planning to have a child shortly after we move.

This is probably fine, but check into what your employer provides in terms of health insurance in the US? They almost certainly provide something but the cost could be significant.
posted by LizardBreath at 12:58 PM on August 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

Seconding the employer healthcare probability. But make sure you know about it before you accept. Also, some employee healthcare plans do not "kick in" until you have been with the company for around 3 months, so ask about that too.
posted by Neekee at 1:20 PM on August 5, 2019 [3 favorites]

You haven't said anything about perhaps the biggest change this move entails (especially with kids on the horizon): moving from a world city to a suburb. Some people find raising kids easier in a car dependent suburb than a transit dependent city. I don't. Here's a couple of reasons why.

What's the free childcare situation like where you are now vs. in Richmond? It's 5+ years down the line but have you looked at Richmond's public schools? Evaluating schools for kids that don't exist in a country you don't live in is fraught, but you might be able to get an idea of whether you'll even consider the public school system an option by reading online, talking to colleagues already in the area, etc. If they're not an option, are you politically comfortable with the private schools? Can you afford them?

If you're planning to leave Richmond anyway then maybe it's worth doing even if these questions make you think again. Access to the US labor market has certainly benefited my career.
posted by caek at 1:29 PM on August 5, 2019 [9 favorites]

I'm not really sure what your question(s) are, but I would not move from Canada to the United States.
posted by Automocar at 1:29 PM on August 5, 2019 [51 favorites]

Richmond is not a suburb. It's a small (ish) city. Depending on where you move it's moderately walkable, it has a lot to offer in the arts, and a pretty decent food scene. I don't think either link that caek offered would apply to richmond, unless you choose to live in the outskirts and don't take advantage of what Richmond has to offer. The public transit is rather awful, to be honest, but it's there. As someone who grew up in VA and then lived in chicago, I cannot understate how different it is to have to rely on a car all the time. Some people like it, some dont.

If getting a green card would be a huge benefit to you, I think it's worth the consideration.
posted by FirstMateKate at 1:44 PM on August 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

I would say Hells No on general quality of life issues: healthcare*, having to drive, having to live in a suburb . Not to mention all the political bullshit**.

The only benefits you're listing are basically economic. You're suggesting trading quality of life for standard of living. Quality of life matters more.

* People telling you you're likely getting employer health insurance are likely Americans who don't realize, because thy don't know any different, how much that sucks. Pick your doctors from their list (switch doctors if you switch employers/insurance plans/or the docs don't sign back on the network), co-pays, duductable (like you're damned car), paperwork, statements, needing to get stuff pre-approved, etc. etc. Even when it's "good", by their standards U.S. private insurance is a pain in the ass.

** The common thing I hear on this when I express reluctance to go to the U.S. (and sure as hell to move there) is that Place X is actually pretty liberal. And anyway, most people didn't even vote for Trump. But listen, you're thinking of moving to place that is running concentration camps, where the president, supported by a solid chunk of the population, constantly promotes racist ideas, where he's confessed to sexual assault and nobody cares. Most Germans didn't vote for Hitler in 1932, but that doesn't mean Germany would have been a great place to move to or to raise a child. (Sorry to Godwin the thread).
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 1:45 PM on August 5, 2019 [21 favorites]

I'm planning to have a child shortly after we move

Since this will be an important consideration, it's worth pointing out that maternity leave provisions in the U.S. are criminally bad when measured by the standard of every other industrialized country in the world.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:57 PM on August 5, 2019 [21 favorites]

I don’t see a question, so I get the feeling that this is a should I/shouldn’t I thread - in reference to the answer a couple above, I say that Toronto is becoming more and more Place X - in that it's pretty liberal but largely surrounded by the sorts of people that vote for a rich, yellow-haired, populist dip shits. If I were you, I'd take advantage of the opportunity.
posted by bonobothegreat at 1:59 PM on August 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

So I did this a decade ago to the other coast of the US. It was fine. But you certainly need to do your research - schools vary really widely, much more than schools within the TDSB. If you have good insurance, health care is fine and possibly even not that expensive. But you have to do so. much. research. to figure out US insurance plans. It's really hard. And you need to save some money for emergencies, much more so than in Canada.

The green card is fine but be aware of the expatriation tax if you decide you want to go back to Canada eventually. Cross-border tax and retirement planning is not impossible, but it's a lot more complex than single-country planning. You'll need to hire someone who has specific US-Canada experience.

Per other commenters I used to joke that the biggest change was not moving countries but going from living in a city (I lived off of Roncesvalles) to a suburb. It is actually a big deal. Depending on what you mean by "Toronto"* this will be the biggest practical change.

* if you mean the downtown core, huge change. If you live in Oshawa but just say "Toronto" because it's less confusing for outsiders, this will not be that big a change.
posted by GuyZero at 2:11 PM on August 5, 2019 [3 favorites]

I grew up in Virginia and went to university in Richmond. It's a pretty place, but if you are unaccustomed to virurant racism you are in for an unpleasant surprise. I left as soon as I graduated and my visits back have only confirmed my decision that living in a conservative, formerly Confederate state is not for me. YMMV, of course, but I hated it. I have literally been spit on in the street for associating with people of other races.

Also yeah, healthcare is terrible in the US. Look into the costs associated with giving birth-- it's shocking compared to Canada. I encourage you to think about hidden costs to this move and how it will feel to raise a child in a place like that.
posted by ananci at 2:16 PM on August 5, 2019 [7 favorites]

This is a random article, but its numbers roughly match those I've anecdotally heard from friends who are new parents.
In Virginia, the average cost to have a child, for a vaginal delivery with no complications, is more than 6000$. That's *with* insurance. (Without insurance, the number doubles). And that's just the average; good luck figuring out how much *your* particular insurance will cost you, or should you have different options from your employer and want to cost compare-- which insurance will be cheapest/best/etc.
posted by nat at 2:51 PM on August 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

I don’t think you will be as further ahead as you think, even with a 30% pay raise (that comes with increased hours - so a bit of a wash), so cost things out accurately, especially considering you will definitely need two cars. I’m pretty sure property taxes are higher in Richmond, with a lot less services to balance it out. With the CTB you would be eligible for after the birth in Canada (and the year-long parental leave/payments) you may not be making as big of raise as you expect.

Personally, I would not want to be a woman using US healthcare or have a baby in the USA, but if your personal comfort level with c-sections and medical interventions is higher than mine then it won’t be an issue. I concur that you should look into the cost of delivery under the proposed health care plan, especially if something goes wrong or the doctors diagnose something as requiring more medical intervention ($$). I’m not sure if you are the pregnant person in this question or not, consider that changing providers during the pregnancy is really not ideal - especially if this is a first delivery. If you/she is currently using the Ontario Midwifery model of care for the pregnancy, the USA does not have the same professional high-level midwifery model of care; unfortunately US maternal care is really lacking. I would also be concerned about the lack of social supports for a new mother, a nanny can only help so much compared to her family/friends. If you are not the pregnant person, you are suggesting working longer hours just when the new mother needs you the most to take on the overnight shift of caring for the newborn. New job and new baby at the same time seems a recipient for disaster.

How will this move affect your partner’s future career? If your partner is a woman in a woman-dominated field you may be surprised to find out how severe the imbalance between her potential career in Canada vs the US is. I concur the overt racism, homophobia, and sexism I experienced in Virginia was pretty shocking to me, Toronto isn’t Utopia but it sure seemed like it when I came back. YMMV
posted by saucysault at 3:04 PM on August 5, 2019 [16 favorites]

Don't do this to yourself.
posted by tobascodagama at 3:28 PM on August 5, 2019 [8 favorites]

Be really really sure about your healthcare. Also remember you may well be kissing things like the amount of sick leave, vacation days, maternity leave days etc you take for granted goodbye. Be really sure of the work culture and how many hours you are expected to work vs how many they say you do. I moved from a country with good socialised medicine to the USA without thinking about it. You know all the people complaining about it, they're not just whiners, be really really really sure you want to have a baby here.

On the positive side, we live in the midwest & the cost of living is amazing, on the downside I moved here during Obamas time in office but now I'm stuck in Trumps America, if I had it to do again I'd not have moved here. If you are a single woman, in a same sex relationship or not working a super secure well paying white collar job don't do it. the sexism here can be mindblowingly bad, and I came here from Australia where it was pretty damn bad to begin with.
posted by wwax at 4:03 PM on August 5, 2019 [3 favorites]

I live in the Richmond VA area now - about 10 miles from downtown. I like Richmond, for a US city on the east coast it is relatively cheap and relatively light traffic most of the time. We have a good arts scene, 40 something breweries, great restaurants, and it's a 90 minute drive to the beach or ocean.

I would move to Canada tomorrow if given the opportunity.
posted by COD at 4:33 PM on August 5, 2019 [12 favorites]

I recently moved from the DC-Richmond corridor to the GTA - in other words, the reverse of what you just did.

I'm not going to tell you not to do this, because it's your decision and you have to decide for yourself if it's what is best for you and your family. But before you make a decision, I would implore you to at least do the following:

1. Visit Richmond for at least a week and get a feel for the region. It is not a suburb, it is a small city - emphasis on city. It has a vibrant arts scene thanks to VCU, but it also has its fair share of typical city crap, like crime. Some people love Richmond. I wouldn't say it's a divisive place, but it's not a place to randomly move if you've never even seen the place before.

2. Does your employer have the same maternity / leave options at its US offices as it does at its Canadian offices? I know some international employers do this; you should find out what your company's practices are, especially for maternity leave, if you are planning on having kids soon. In the US, under what is called the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), employees who have been with an employer (in the case of Virginia and most but not all states, said employer must have at least 50 employees) for at least 12 months can take 12 weeks unpaid leave (in a 12 month period) without fear of losing their job. If you have accrued leave, you can use that until it exhausts but after that it's unpaid. This is the bare minimum in the states. No, it ain't great.

3. After doing 1 and 2, I would write out a really really detailed PRO/CON list and then sleep on it. For a couple of weeks.
posted by nightrecordings at 4:35 PM on August 5, 2019 [3 favorites]

Richmond public schools are awful. If you plan on staying, plan on having to move to the suburbs or pay for private schooling.
posted by Jacqueline at 5:13 PM on August 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

I moved from Toronto to the U.S. a while back, and have lived in very urban areas, smaller urban areas sorta like Richmond, and rural areas. Yeah, you'll be able to save money and buy a house, unlike in Toronto, and there will be many things that shock and even disgust you in the U.S., and you'll miss Toronto a heck of a lot, though hopefully you'll find things you love about your new city, too. Make sure you read, and re-read, your company's health insurance policies, that you know whether, if you need to go to emerg, you have to first phone a number printed in size .002 font on the back of your health insurance card or be charged thousands of dollars, and beware of the temptation of PPOs unless you have money to burn.

But...maybe you should wait until after November 2020 to make this decision.

Alternately, can your company transfer you to another, more international office, in somewhere pleasant and human-centered, where they send you a cute cardboard box for your newborn to sleep in and your partner/you get(s) extended parental leave? Like, in Scandinavia or something?
posted by Miss T.Horn at 6:21 PM on August 5, 2019

Don't underestimate the impact of your portion of the health insurance premium. If you're covering more than yourself, a big chunk of your take-home salary may be sucked into premiums, and either way you'll still have to pay even more, which you'll be billed for anyway after you receive medical care. I suspect that that alone will tip the numbers in favor of staying in Canada.
posted by Citrus at 6:22 PM on August 5, 2019

The main benefit of moving seems to be a future green card, which expands employment prospects. Is the future payoff worth the short term sacrifice of higher healthcare costs and moving somewhere new and unfamiliar? Good luck.
posted by greatalleycat at 6:43 PM on August 5, 2019

I am a native Virginian with a lot of love for my purple home state, and the biggest pro I can think of for this proposed move would be less snow in Richmond than Toronto. Everything else, from public transit to healthcare to schools to neighborhood diversity, is a definite con unless you are really careful about where you live and are willing to pay a premium for it.
posted by basalganglia at 6:55 PM on August 5, 2019 [6 favorites]

+1 to GuyZero & Bonobothegreat.

I'm an American expat living in Australia. If the healthcare, time off/ mat leave, and small-city environment works for you, then go for it. If it makes a big difference, you might have the baby in Canada, take advantage of the mat leave, and then move. It sounds like even if you hate it, you'll have better career options for having done it and leaving will be easy. Living abroad is an eye opening experience, regardless of where.

Having lived in Sydney and left, the ability to save money and having even the option to own a home did make a difference to me.

After much discussion with other expats and a therapist who specializes in expat/immigrant issues, I can assure you that nowhere is a utopia. There are many other (first world) countries where the government is doing similar things and that have similar societal issues, but for a myriad of reasons it doesn't make the news... and because their populations are predominately white and middle class, no one really cares.

"short term sacrifice of...moving somewhere new and unfamiliar"
This is also a YMMV. You know yourself best. Personally, I love moving somewhere new and unfamiliar - which is why I've lived all over the US, Japan, and Australia. Some people hate it. It's worth thinking about, both in the initial move and whether you'll have the emotional energy to instigate another move later on with a kid in tow if you need to or hate it there.

I think a lot of advice from people (in general, not just here) is often based on the specifics of their situation rather than your specific one. "I could never move away from my family" assumes you already live near your family, or that you want to, or that they'd be willing or able to babysit. You might spend more on healthcare, but only you know exactly how the Canadian system works for you or costs you or what your healthcare in the US will be - and spending more on healthcare might be offset if you're spending less on a mortgage than you are currently on rent. Maybe you'd be looking at private schools down the road either way. Maybe the lower cost of living allows one parent to stay home for awhile. We don't really know enough about you or your situation to be giving advice. As to whether this particular move would a net positive for you really depends on the situation you're in now, and you and your partner's temperaments.

Feel free to MeMail me if you wish to discuss more.
posted by jrobin276 at 7:02 PM on August 5, 2019 [3 favorites]

Things to consider with a baby on the way. Maternity leave in the US stinks as I understand it, whereas you can get 12/18 months of leave in Canada. You will lose your Canada Child Benefit that you would be entitled to (dependent on income) as Canadian residents. Nthing the healthcare consideration as well, especially given that your partner may be giving birth in the US and it can be expensive.

Is homeownership the driving factor? Could you negotiate to work remotely/find a new job and move to a lower cost of living area if you are considering moving anyways? I would seriously consider that over moving to the US for what may not be that much more money given the healthcare question.
posted by snowysoul at 7:11 PM on August 5, 2019

I want to echo a few other comments: the political situation here in the US is dire, and if I could move to Canada I would in a heartbeat. I live in a far more liberal area than Richmond and while it helps, as a whole we are heading in a dangerous direction that does, indeed, have many alarming echos to 1930s Germany.

Concentration camps, mass shootings, rampant racism, misogyny, and lawmakers actively working to encourage rather than stop or prevent these things. These things may not affect you on a day to day basis, but they are affecting millions of vulnerable people and we are on tenuous ground. The upcoming election could change this, but I wouldn’t risk it.
posted by nancynickerson at 7:21 PM on August 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

As someone who's originally from the GTA but is close to folks in VA and has spent a reasonable amount of time there: I'd vote for maybe. Realistically, as a professional with a white-collar job and good compensation/health insurance, moving to some parts of the US isn't that horrible. Yes, it's certainly a more openly racist place than much of the GTA is, but for one reason or another may not have much day-to-day impact on your life. As GuyZero said above, one of the real differences is that you need to put so much more work into figuring out education and health care options than you would in Canada. Even so, affluence makes those things a lot easier to navigate.

Understandably, you don't have a lot of good options in Canada for a lower cost-of-living tech hub, so I get why this is appealing to you. Even with the salary bump and opportunity to get into the housing market, I'd look at the numbers really carefully to see if you'd truly be at a net positive once you factor in insurance premiums, car ownership, and possibly private school in several years.

if you mean the downtown core, huge change. If you live in Oshawa but just say "Toronto" because it's less confusing for outsiders, this will not be that big a change.

I'd agree here, but to be fair, even nominally car-dependent 905 suburbs like Mississauga and to a lesser extent Brampton can be more transit-friendly (both logistically and from a social class perspective) than Richmond. Just something to think about.
posted by blerghamot at 7:58 PM on August 5, 2019

Canadian in the US and I would recommend staying in Canada at this time.

(We had our kid here, about $3k out of pocket after insurance and only 4.5mo maternity leave; there was a shooting nearby. Toronto isn’t perfect, that’s where we lived but personally I would not leave. PS if your company is hiring semiconductor engineers in Canada lmk.)
posted by St. Peepsburg at 8:30 PM on August 5, 2019

If you specially mean one of the suburbs of Richmond, choose carefully. In some of them, the majority of your neighbors can be upper middle class Trump supporters with vaguely menacing bumper stickers on the F150s they drive to an office job in. As with many southern cities, the cultural shift as you get away from the city proper can be sharp and jarring.
posted by Candleman at 10:39 PM on August 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

I had family in Richmond for a while, (they left for a job elsewhere). They made it work but the schools were simply bad (when their son acted out in first grade the first suggestion was to medicate him. In some cases, after careful evaluation, some sort of medication might be worthwhile, but this was the first suggestion, without any kind of clinical evaluation. I, personally, find that a deal breaker.

Also, culturally, there is (still) 'Monument Avenue' a broad, grassy avenue punctuated by glorious monuments celebrating those valiant, heroic even men who fought to keep their fellow man enslaved.

And health insurance... watch your back on the health insurance because though it should be a service, they are really only in it to make a buck, and you if you keep them from that, well, best of luck - they probably have better lawyers.
posted by From Bklyn at 2:16 AM on August 6, 2019 [3 favorites]

Maternity leave is really something to think about. Someone above said they “only” got 4.5 months in the US. I got 10 weeks (two of those weeks using my vacation time) and that’s considered lucky and I work for a multinational corporation that’s supposed to have good benefits. My best friend had her babies in Canada and got a year of mat leave with each.
posted by amro at 5:22 AM on August 6, 2019

I'm a Canadian who moved to the USA for work. People above are giving you lots of good questions to answer, by and for yourself and your partner:

- financially, what's the benefit (short and longterm)?
- health care / baby-wise, what are the differences? (And can I time the move to be more advantageous?)
- how important is having a good community around me? What is it like where I am now, and what's it probably going to be like in the new place?
- consider the visa risks and timing, like what happens if I lose my job and am suddenly out of status?
- where do I want to raise my kid(s)?
- where do I want to retire?
- how long do I want to live in the new area (ie. does it make sense to take advantage of lower house prices)?
- how happy am I at work now? (and how can you find out as much as you can about the type of work you'll be doing and people you'll be working with in the new job.)
- how easy will it be for me to move back if we're miserable?
- where do I stand politically, and what that will mean in the two different locations?
- how important to me are my other interests / hobbies. TO, from what I hear, provides access to a lot of 'cool shit'. What's it like in the new area?
will I have the money / time to fill any gaps in suburban life with trips to other places.
- how comfortable are we with hot summers that require A/C indoors and may make time outside uncomfortable on hot days? (People don't really acclimatize.)
- can you cope with things being spreaaaaaaad out
posted by spandex at 8:19 AM on August 6, 2019 [4 favorites]

I grew up in the semi-urban periphery of Richmond (that is, the area had sidewalks and occasional bus service), but I've spent the last ten years living in bigger, more expensive, and less conservative American cities. Sometimes, I fantasize about the life I could have if I moved back - if I could get a job there comparable to the one I have now, I could become a homeowner pretty easily. In my current city, that possibility is perhaps permanently out of the question. But if I had a choice between an affordable house in Richmond and reliable health care and social benefits in Canada, I would definitely choose the latter. Plus, I find the climate of central VA intolerable - one of the reasons that car culture is so dominant is that it's unbearable outside between early May and late September.

In case it is relevant to your considerations, I will mention that the Richmond area was not a good place to grow up as an immigrant, a speaker of English as a second language, a non-Christian, and a person of somewhat ambiguous ethnicity. It was a homogeneous and parochial place. Most children seemed never to have met someone from outside the US. Throughout my years there, I had to respond to people of all ages asking me where I was really from and trying, brazenly, to guess my national origins. As a child, I was occasionally bullied by xenophobic bigots and regularly accosted by Christian fundamentalists. My sense is that some parts of the city and environs have gotten somewhat more tolerant in the intervening years, but there is probably still a lot of this in the suburbs.

It took leaving Richmond to realize how much racism--both institutional and individual--informed the culture in which I grew up and attended school. Until the year 2000, the state of Virginia officially recognized a holiday called Lee-Jackson-King Day (commemorating, respectively, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Martin Luther King, Jr.). There is now a separate Lee-Jackson Day. Richmond is a majority African American city that still has prominent monuments to Confederate generals lining its most famous street. I go back regularly, and I see that white F-150s displaying Confederate flags are still part of the local culture.

There are, undoubtedly, good things about Richmond as well. But this is what I remember when I think about moving back.
posted by a certain Sysoi Pafnut'evich at 1:32 PM on August 6, 2019 [6 favorites]

My family of four spends on average more than $1400 per month for healthcare, once premiums, deductibles, and co-pays are factored in. That's a very generous employer-sponsored plan, picked as the best available option out of all the options available to us. Factor that into your cost comparisons.

When my kids were born, I got paid for four weeks of 60% of my salary. I took an additional 9 weeks unpaid time off, but due to the small number of employees at my office location, my job was not guaranteed to still be there when I returned. My husband got zero. This is typical. And we are both adults with degrees and professional licenses in our fields, working full-time jobs with benefits.

I have a friend working for a large employer who has been promising to start the green card process for them for years. And somehow it hasn't happened. I am sure my friend is not willingly breaking any laws but I worry about them every day.

The only reason I would contemplate moving, in your situation, would be if I had family already in Richmond that I wanted to be close to.
posted by beandip at 8:04 AM on August 7, 2019