The Wage Gap 2
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The Wage Gap 2
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Re: The Wage Gap 2
#2I'm one of those "discriminated" against here. I live in kentucky, work for a FAANG company.
My employer pays me less because of that, and you know what? I'm okay with that. My discretionary income after housing and basic living expenses are removed is way higher than that of someone in a HCOL area.
I have a 3300 sqft house that was built in the last 10 years and a quarter acre of land. That costs me $1400/month. If I wanted a comparable standard of living in SF, the wage gap between here and there would need to be many thousands more that it really is.
So pay me 20-25% less, it makes me more employable and I have a better standard of living than you do.
Re: The Wage Gap 2
#3I'm one of those "discriminated" against here. I live in kentucky, work for a FAANG company. My employer pays me less because of that, and you know what? I'm okay with that. My discretionary income after housing and basic living expenses are removed is way higher than that of someone in a HCOL area. I have a 3300 sqft house that was built in the last 10 years and a quarter acre of land. That costs me $1400/month. If…
Hey I’m in KY at a FAANG too! Happy to take the pay cut, I don't see how I could have the life I want in the Bay even at 100% pay.
I’m buying later this year, really thankful I grew up in a place where I can easily settle down, and I’m looking forward to passing that on someday.
Re: The Wage Gap 2
#4I'm one of those "discriminated" against here. I live in kentucky, work for a FAANG company. My employer pays me less because of that, and you know what? I'm okay with that. My discretionary income after housing and basic living expenses are removed is way higher than that of someone in a HCOL area. I have a 3300 sqft house that was built in the last 10 years and a quarter acre of land. That costs me $1400/month. If…
Hey I’m in KY at a FAANG too! Happy to take the pay cut, I don't see how I could have the life I want in the Bay even at 100% pay. I’m buying later this year, really thankful I grew up in a place where I can easily settle down, and I’m looking forward to passing that on someday.
There's dozens of us!
Re: The Wage Gap 2
#5I'm one of those "discriminated" against here. I live in kentucky, work for a FAANG company. My employer pays me less because of that, and you know what? I'm okay with that. My discretionary income after housing and basic living expenses are removed is way higher than that of someone in a HCOL area. I have a 3300 sqft house that was built in the last 10 years and a quarter acre of land. That costs me $1400/month. If…
I think this is part of the dilemma(and I am not arguing right or wrong here), but there will be a subset of employees who are okay with giving ground to the employer on this issue, in exchange for job security and some financial security. And this ultimately takes away some of the ground from the people trying to fight the inequality. I believe economics will have the last say in the long run.
Re: The Wage Gap 2
#6I'm not sure exactly what he's talking about here. Is he talking about people in other countries not getting USA pay, or different locations getting different pay?
At least in the US, things don't always look so unbalanced. Moving to , New York, or Chicago has baggage attached to it. There's other costs an annoyances.
I would need a massive salary to consider even trying it. So how would it be unfair to expect more money depending on location? It really depends on the specifics, and seems to work out either way, depending on the situation.
Lots of people are leaving these high payed areas simply because they don't think it's worth it. Many might be retiring, but you're also seeing them take less glamorous jobs in small cities... I know many of them have already made their money, but it really looks like something else to me.
Or is this article backlash from salty SV employees that are now whining that they can't keep their SV salary, while they pay $300k cash for a $50k shack in Kentucky? Honestly, I would be a little pissed about that, since you didn't see them complaining about the decade they were able to make a half million dollars to move some GUI buttons around and attend meetings. Now they see dollar signs and are mad that they're being asked to make similar dollars to the rubes.
Anyway, what a rant, sorry, especially if that's not what the authors meant. If he's talking about US vs. eg. Mexico, India, China, ect. that's a really interesting question, though it technically has similar issues (eg. I know it's pride, but my Indian coworkers insist their quality of life is the same there, despite lower pay)
I doubt most rich people (ie. everyone in the US/EU) are really willing to deal with the realities of competing on a wider scale, with "fairer" pay.
Re: The Wage Gap 2
#7I'm one of those "discriminated" against here. I live in kentucky, work for a FAANG company. My employer pays me less because of that, and you know what? I'm okay with that. My discretionary income after housing and basic living expenses are removed is way higher than that of someone in a HCOL area. I have a 3300 sqft house that was built in the last 10 years and a quarter acre of land. That costs me $1400/month. If…
I think this is part of the dilemma(and I am not arguing right or wrong here), but there will be a subset of employees who are okay with giving ground to the employer on this issue, in exchange for job security and some financial security. And this ultimately takes away some of the ground from the people trying to fight the inequality. I believe economics will have the last say in the long run.
Is it an inequality though? Everyone's seen the baseball game equality comic with the different high people. Equality is when everyone can see the ballgame, not that everyone gets the same height boxes to stand on. I'd argue that this is the same here. I'm the "taller" person because my cost of living is lower, if you give me the same size box (income) as the person in the HCOL area, they might not be equal to me, because I start with an advantage.
Re: The Wage Gap 2
#8I'm one of those "discriminated" against here. I live in kentucky, work for a FAANG company. My employer pays me less because of that, and you know what? I'm okay with that. My discretionary income after housing and basic living expenses are removed is way higher than that of someone in a HCOL area. I have a 3300 sqft house that was built in the last 10 years and a quarter acre of land. That costs me $1400/month. If…
Arguments against location-based pay generally assume that all employees would be given raises to match the company's most expensive market.
Realistically, most companies aren't interested in paying everyone more just because some of their employees are in an expensive location. I would expect any location-independent compensation programs to move toward median compensation across locations, not upward toward maximum compensation in the most expensive location.
Existing companies like the FAANGs don't have a choice because they have a lot of customers in those locations, but younger companies adopting location-independent pay would absolutely be targeting median compensation rather than paying everyone top of market in Silicon Valley just because that's the maximum possible compensation they might need to pay someone.
Re: The Wage Gap 2
#9I'm one of those "discriminated" against here. I live in kentucky, work for a FAANG company. My employer pays me less because of that, and you know what? I'm okay with that. My discretionary income after housing and basic living expenses are removed is way higher than that of someone in a HCOL area. I have a 3300 sqft house that was built in the last 10 years and a quarter acre of land. That costs me $1400/month. If…
I think this is part of the dilemma(and I am not arguing right or wrong here), but there will be a subset of employees who are okay with giving ground to the employer on this issue, in exchange for job security and some financial security. And this ultimately takes away some of the ground from the people trying to fight the inequality. I believe economics will have the last say in the long run.
Ultimately, I'd be far, far more concerned about a race to the bottom. That race to the bottom is possible regardless of location-based pay or not. Once people discover how to navigate remote work across big timezone differences en masse and mentality shifts, things will truly get interesting.
Re: The Wage Gap 2
#10I'm one of those "discriminated" against here. I live in kentucky, work for a FAANG company. My employer pays me less because of that, and you know what? I'm okay with that. My discretionary income after housing and basic living expenses are removed is way higher than that of someone in a HCOL area. I have a 3300 sqft house that was built in the last 10 years and a quarter acre of land. That costs me $1400/month. If…
Arguments against location-based pay generally assume that all employees would be given raises to match the company's most expensive market. Realistically, most companies aren't interested in paying everyone more just because some of their employees are in an expensive location. I would expect any location-independent compensation programs to move toward median compensation across locations, not upward toward maximum…
That's exactly what companies like Reddit do that don't have location based pay. They pay middle of the band nation wide and the excludes people from HCOL from working for them.