Ok, so really you can't "just move to anywhere in the US tomorrow without issue" since you're raising issues.
I don't understand, you complained about an hour commute each way, I thought you wanted to reduce that, not move to the midwest. Anyway tons of people who work in Manhattan live in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, even the Bronx or (god forbid) New Jersey. Plenty of public transportation from just about anywhere in the region.
My point is "moving closer to work" doesn't make a lot of sense.
Queens to Manhattan is easily an hour or so.
I have a pretty high paid job that's fully remote. I'd have to make something like an additional 50k a year to even consider going back into the office.
Even then, it would have to be in a location I like.
Offices are relics which have no modern reason to exist for the vast majority of tech jobs. Often the team is distributed anyway.
Hypothetically let's say we're talking about a job in Manhattan.
Rent will be about 5k for a 1bdrm vs 1500$ in Chicago. In this case even with a 60k pay difference I'm losing money.