Lesson: Relocation, relocation, relocation. Granted, most of us don't have it as bad as the Joads, the Oklahoma farm family forced to move across the country by harsh economic conditions, ruthless business practices and devastating dust storms. But many people do have to move to a new city, a new state or even a new country in order to find a good job.

More than a million people claimed job-related moving expenses on their income tax returns for 2006, according to Worldwide ER (the Association for Workforce Mobility). And a 2008 Manpower survey found 40% of people would be happy to pick up and move for work.

The trick, of course, is figuring out the best place to relocate. In "The Grapes of Wrath," the Joads had nothing more to guide them than a rumpled yellow handbill advertising some fruit-picking jobs in California. Once there, they found that jobs -- not to mention basic human decency -- were rare commodities.

Today, we can just check Relocate America's annual list of the top 100 places to live. Ironically, the top pick for 2009 is Tulsa, Okla., where the unemployment rate is 6.2% (3 points below the national average) and the median price for a single-family home was just under $137,000 in 2008. Other top metro areas offering stable economies and good home prices? Dallas-Fort Worth; Pittsburgh; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Huntsville, Ala.; Houston; Albuquerque, N.M.; Lexington, Ky.; Little Rock, Ark.; and Oklahoma City.

Continued: "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World"