You underestimate the inability of the Soviet regime to provide its own people with basic consumer goods.

You would have a job and some money, but your money would buy nothing, because goods were scarce. Even finding good shoes would be a challenge and you would need to cultivate relationships with warehouse clerks etc. to get some access to stuff before it was stealthily distributed by underground channels to relatives, friends etc.

Modern Americans would go absolutely ballistic if they came to a shop with empty shelves and a bored arrogant assistant who would jeer at their very question "I want to buy X".