"Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs • Hacker News Board

Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs

#451

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 7:24 PM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #421

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Socializing costs" is a widely used term to describe the phenomenon of the public taking on private costs for some real or perceived benefit.

Frankly, this way of talking seems to have its origin in the 2008 financial crisis more than in any actual technical economic language ( https://www.cnbc.com/id/34921639 ). And it speaks more to American's mis-education about what socialism is (or its history) than anything else. Apparently HN does not agree with me, I challenge my downvoting fans to find citations for "socializing losses" in the way you're talking a…

Your comments don't appear gray to me, so not sure what downvotes you're referencing. But allow me to channel my inner HN and humbly suggest that the downvotes you're receiving, such as they are, arise from your assumption that if terminology is not "technical economic language," it is incorrect. You replied to a person who used a commonly understood term correctly and you claimed it was incorrect. Now you're saying that the terminology didn't come to have the current meaning until 2008. But I'm not seeing the connection between that and whether the terminology is appropriate to the current context. Why would anyone bother to cite you a source of this terminology before 2008? Nobody has even referenced a claim that the terminology is older than that. It's a non sequitur to observe that the terminology is young.

The long and the short of it is that the person you originally responded to was correct to call the behavior "socializing costs." You were incorrect in your response where you claimed that a subsidy is not "socializing costs," since that's exactly what the term means in common parlance. The downvotes probably come from your not recognizing and admitting your mistake.

Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs

#452

Post by MetalGuru » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 7:25 PM UTC

darth_avocado wrote: post #444

No, equal pay for equal work, especially in remote jobs isn't going to work. Why is it that for almost the entire history of man, we've had wages decided based on COL, and suddenly when it comes to tech bros who are seeing a pay cut, we are all up in the arms? A Starbucks barista in SF gets paid one and half times that in Oklahoma. They do equal work, just different locations. A lady in the Zara sweatshops in Banglad…

Pay isn’t directly based on COL. It’s based on supply and demand. If there were thousands of baristas available to fill jobs at SF Starbucks, the pay would be lower. The reason pay is higher in SV is because all the same firms were competing against each other for the limited supply of talent. One could argue the supply is impacted by COL, but it’s still only an indirect cause of pay determination.

Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs

#453

Post by Siira » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 7:25 PM UTC

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #112

> You should expect "equal pay for equal work" at your new remote job So naive. In an ideal, utopian world? Maybe it would work this way. Maybe. In reality, your compensation is a function of your negotiating power. Some people, in fact, manage to get the same pay even when working remote, because they're "highly employable". Others don't. And let me add: I almost agree that remote work shouldn't necessarily command…

Economic efficiency has nothing to do with how the surplus is divided between parties. Powerful entities such as corporations can easily get most of the surplus their employees produce, and the market will not correct this. (I.e., you have no economical argument that non-protection of labor is needed for cheap commodities. Perhaps such an argument can be made, but yours doesn't cut it.)

Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs

#454

Post by tick_tock_tick » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 7:26 PM UTC

ben509 wrote: post #409

Cabal wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one thing, if you give your employer a wildly wrong address (i.e. different state), your taxes will end up pretty screwed up. Your example could possibly work for NYC vs. upstate, middle-of-nowhere NY, though.

The withholding will be screwed up, but if you claim to be in NY and are actually in Wyoming, you'll probably get a big refund. But you'll file in your real state of residence, and the other state will then insist you owe them taxes because your employer reported you were working there. That could be an awkward conversation since a W-4 has this above your signature: "Under penalties of perjury, I declare that this ce…

Fraud is what you're talking about doing and it is illegal. Also most states require payroll taxes so the company would be on the hook for the lie too. You'd be lucky if you only got fired.

Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs

#455

Post by bumby » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 7:28 PM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #373

aeternum wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the marketplace failed to provide both affordable milk and the ability for dairy farmers to make a living. So the price is both two low and too high? This is not a failure of the marketplace (aka price discovery), this is the U.S. deciding that cheap milk and overproduction is in the nation's best interest and we should socialize some of the production costs. There are logical (milk as a staple product and avoidanc…

A subsidy to a private corporation is not "socializing" production costs. Socialization is putting goods under social control. This is literally the opposite -- providing benefits to private interests. Even if the end has the appearance of being for the social good, in reality this has more to do with the power of the private dairy lobby than any pricing concerns about availability of milk. That dairy producer's lobb…

>This is literally the opposite -- providing benefits to private interests.

While true in many cases, I don't think it's always initiated this way. Many subsidies start as a social good and then perpetuate based on lobbied interests.

My favorite example is the subsidy for alpaca wool. This was started as a social good to ensure there was enough cold-weather gear to fight the Korean War. However, this subsidy continued into the mid-1990s.

Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs

#456

Post by superfrank » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 7:28 PM UTC

darth_avocado wrote: post #444

No, equal pay for equal work, especially in remote jobs isn't going to work. Why is it that for almost the entire history of man, we've had wages decided based on COL, and suddenly when it comes to tech bros who are seeing a pay cut, we are all up in the arms? A Starbucks barista in SF gets paid one and half times that in Oklahoma. They do equal work, just different locations. A lady in the Zara sweatshops in Banglad…

> suddenly when it comes to tech bros who are seeing a pay cut, we are all up in the arms?

I think you cut right to the heart of the issue here. As a software engineer, for years I've heard "If you want to make the big bucks, you have to move to the bay area" or some variation of that. No one on here seemed to have a problem with location based comp when it worked in their favor. Now that it's not people are up in arms.

Let's be honest and call it like it is. A lot of people in major tech hubs see an opportunity to game the system and are just hurt that companies aren't going to let them.

Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs

#457

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 7:29 PM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #371

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > You should expect "equal pay for equal work" ... > So naive. > In an ideal, utopian world? Maybe it would work this way. Maybe. > In reality, your compensation is a function of your negotiating power. > ...if you accept that you live in a market-enabled society, your salary is at stake, too. This logic horrifies me because it applies equally well to wage disparities based on protected classes. We have collectivel…

> This logic horrifies me because it applies equally well to wage disparities based on protected classes. I dunno if GP meant to imply that, but this is kinda the key flaw with the "equal pay for equal work" thing. most engineers earn way more than the median income. this is a direct result of existing in a market-based economy where wages are determined by supply and demand rather than some abstract notion of fairne…

> you can't complain that the payscale is different for atlanta vs sf while maintaining that it's totally fine for you to make 5x as much as the cashier at 7-Eleven.

It's that the "equal work" part? Comparing one cashier to another cashier (assuming same hours, same responsibilities, etc) is equal work, so is part of an "equal pay for equal work" conversation. Comparing a cashier to a software dev is a wholly separate conversation.

Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs

#458

Post by whimsicalism » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 7:29 PM UTC

nybble41 wrote: post #450

whimsicalism wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The market's only real "failure" is that it's too democratic for the liking of certain individuals It's interesting to see this sort of rhetoric re-emerge after it took a long break after the '08 recession. Of course, the idea that the market is "too democratic" is absurd. At least, I haven't seen a democratic system where 1% of the population gets 40% of the vote. As long as "willingness to pay" is the market prox…

> At least, I haven't seen a democratic system where 1% of the population gets 40% of the vote. In a pure voluntaryist market system everyone gets 100% of the vote (i.e. veto power) when it comes to how they use their own labor and resources. If one has acquired more wealth then one has more options available and more decisions to make, but still doesn't get any direct say in how other people use their property, no m…

> everyone gets 100% of the vote (i.e. veto power) when it comes to how they use their own labor and resources

Yeah, so uh... not democracy.

I'm not going to relitigate the entirety of Anarchy, State & Utopia in the HN comments section, but suffice to say that these ideals are far from objectively "egalitarian" and the idea that other's negative, non-inferential side-constraints must be sometimes violated in the context of social cooperation is actually foundational to republican (as in the political philosophy) thought.

Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs

#459

Post by joelbluminator » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 7:29 PM UTC

yboris wrote: post #128

joelbluminator wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's funny how people expect moral behaviour from other people Do we though? We expect people to not break the rules, e.g murder or steal. We don't expect people to stop eating meat, polluting the earth, or generally to stop being extremely selfish. If we expected everyone to be moral you and I wouldn't be spending money on vacations and buying computer games but on trying to save poor kids in Africa and Bangladesh…

We should nudge and pressure people to be better (whether using some 'dark arts' or with kindness). Once you learn about the horrors of the animal abuse happening thanks to the money with which you buy meat, I think it's the right thing to stop. And similarly, to encourage others to decrease their meat consumption by letting them know that by buying meat, they are very likely going against their values (just ask them…

> And similarly, to encourage others to decrease their meat consumption by letting them know that by buying meat, they are very likely going against their values

Well, people know. Maybe they don't KNOW know, in the sense of actually visiting a slaughter house and smelling the blood, but I'm sure most people know about animal shipments, tiny cages, and that gassing or slashing animals throats isn't a picnic. Personally I donate money to an animal protection program (probably don't donate enough). Conversations I have with people in my life about this are overwhelmingly futile and people become quite hostile when you talk to them about this.

Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs

#460

Post by bradleybuda » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 7:33 PM UTC

dwaltrip wrote: post #412

klodolph wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What kind of explanation could you possibly want? Something that isn’t a tautology. “Why do you pay $4 for a cappuccino?” “Because that is the market price for a cappuccino.” “What does ‘market price’ mean?” “It means the amount of money people pay in the given market.” You can see that nothing at all has been explained. So when someone says that people are paying a certain price in a certain market “because it is…

I imagine anyone who could provide a very concise, comprehensive, and accurate explanation for such things would promptly receive a Nobel prize in economics. There are some rough approximations we know to look at (e.g. the "market price" of the inputs, existence of competing products, and so on). But as you clearly noted, there are an immense number of complex factors affecting this.

There's a very concise explanation for why someone would pay $4 for a cappuccino, and it's the one they teach you in Econ 101: it was worth at least $4 to the buyer, and it couldn't be found more cheaply from a similar (location, quality, convenience) seller.