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Cost-of-living adjustments are pretty de rigeur for global operations which hire out of a particular social class and want consistent ability to staff locations
by patio11 11y ago
Cost-of-living adjustments are pretty de rigeur for global operations which hire out of a particular social class and want consistent ability to staff locations important to them regardless of variances in local cost of living. Consider, for example, megabanks.
Many software companies hire remotely and are rediscovering this. We don't need, as a function of the business, to have someone in e.g. central Tokyo and central Kansas, but it turns out that we often end up having that, or the strong possibility of that given the ex ante distribution of individual candidates.
Almost every distributed shop I worked with has a formal or informal discretionary bump in "the formula" to accommodate high-cost-of-living candidates. It is generally closer to $10 ~ $20k rather than "double."
American companies used to (and some foreign companies still) adjust salaries based on family size, too, which was also primarily a way to maintain access to desirable candidates for non-managerial work who had gotten an early start on family formation. (This was subsequently illegalized in the US, AFAIK, but "city in which you live" is not in general a protected class in US labor law.)
- johnnyo 11y agoIf you look at the linked Buffer formula, they are explicitly paying 3k/year per dependent, which I thought was not legal in the US
- jzwinck 11y agoWhether legal in the US or not, it is offensive that having four children gives more of a salary bump than increasing one's competency from "Advanced" to "Master." Seriously, you get an extra $10k for moving up the ladder of competency--what a trifle.
- pravda 11y agoWhy wouldn't it be legal? It is somewhat weird though. I think it would make more sense to pay employees with dependents less.
- jzwinck 11y agoPaying more to people with more dependents effectively discriminates against several classes which are protected in the US: - Those who for medical reasons cannot have children. - Those who for (lack of) religious reasons do not have lots of children (families with 6+ children have a different distribution of religious beliefs than the overall population). - Homosexuals. On the other hand, paying less to people with dependents (why?) effectively discriminates against: - Heterosexuals. - People who for religious reasons have lots of children. - Disabled dependents (not a protected class in the US, but maybe it should be!).
- rmc 11y agoThere used to be a long history of firing (or at least not promoting) women when they start having children. This was viewed as wrong, so a law was put in to say that you can't make job decisions based on a persons "family status", which includes how many, if any, children they have. (It may also include whether they are married or not, because getting married used to be a carrer limiting factor for women).
- jrs235 11y agoIt might be illegal to hire or fire based on family status but it is not illegal to pay differently based on such. I'm also assuming the employee must volunteer the information to get the dependent bonus pay and would be fired if they falsified info. Perhaps they must authorize the company to view their tax returns.
- tyoma 11y agoEmployment discrimination encompasses pay differences, not only hiring and firing. While its not federally illegal to pay differently based on family status, it is illegal in certain localities, like Alaska [0] or Cook County, IL [1]. 0. http://www.touchngo.com/lglcntr/akstats/statutes/title18/chapter80/section220.htm http://www.touchngo.com/lglcntr/akstats/statutes/title18/cha... 1. http://www.jmls.edu/clinics/fairhousing/pdf/cook-county-human-rights-ordinance.pdf http://www.jmls.edu/clinics/fairhousing/pdf/cook-county-huma...