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The cost of living scaling doesn’t cover the entire salary. Only about 30% of my salary goes towards cost of living, more than half of it goes to savings. If my

The cost of living scaling doesn’t cover the entire salary. Only about 30% of my salary goes towards cost of living, more than half of it goes to savings. If my salary was scaled from Seattle to Spokane levels, my savings at retirement would be enormously impacted. That sort of cost of living also doesn’t account for a huge amount of other things too. Having a holiday in Bali costs the same whether you depart from Spokane or Seattle (probably slightly more departing from Spokane actually, when you account for transport from Spokane to SeaTac). Buying a new 4K big screen costs the same in Spokane as it does in Seattle. Living in Spokane doesn’t make your kids college cost less either.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
Agreed, that bestplaces COLA calculator is bizarre. On one hand I think it's great that it breaks down relative costs by area - like you say, it's clear the difference in cost between Spokane and Seattle is almost entirely due to housing. But then it fails to take into account the percentage of income that actually goes towards housing. If you make 200k and move to a place where the primary difference is housing costs (say 2x housing costs), the adjustment should be up to about 250k (assuming housing ~25% of income), not 400k.
scarmig 6y ago
> Living in Spokane doesn’t make your kids college cost less either. It would depend on how much of a pay cut you experience moving to Spokane, but that can certainly make colleges with extensive need-based aid cheaper.
- nrmitchi 6y ago
  When you're talking at the levels that most engineering positions are paid pretty much anywhere in the US (even lower cost of living areas), you are unlikely to qualify for need-based aid anyways. A pay cut from (lets say) 200 -> 150 is significant, but I don't believe likely to qualify a student as "low income" by any means.
  - scarmig 6y ago
    Stanford covers all tuition for parents whose income is $125k or less, and partial tuition for parents making more than that until some cutoff. Regardless, $150k would be getting you a decent bit of financial aid.
    - AmericanChopper 6y ago
      I don’t think “your pay cut might be big enough to qualify you for financial aid” is a typical part of the WFH sale pitch, in any case.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

Agreed, that bestplaces COLA calculator is bizarre. On one hand I think it's great that it breaks down relative costs by area - like you say, it's clear the difference in cost between Spokane and Seattle is almost entirely due to housing. But then it fails to take into account the percentage of income that actually goes towards housing. If you make 200k and move to a place where the primary difference is housing costs (say 2x housing costs), the adjustment should be up to about 250k (assuming housing ~25% of income), not 400k.

scarmig 6y ago

> Living in Spokane doesn’t make your kids college cost less either. It would depend on how much of a pay cut you experience moving to Spokane, but that can certainly make colleges with extensive need-based aid cheaper.

nrmitchi 6y ago
When you're talking at the levels that most engineering positions are paid pretty much anywhere in the US (even lower cost of living areas), you are unlikely to qualify for need-based aid anyways. A pay cut from (lets say) 200 -> 150 is significant, but I don't believe likely to qualify a student as "low income" by any means.
- scarmig 6y ago
  Stanford covers all tuition for parents whose income is $125k or less, and partial tuition for parents making more than that until some cutoff. Regardless, $150k would be getting you a decent bit of financial aid.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    I don’t think “your pay cut might be big enough to qualify you for financial aid” is a typical part of the WFH sale pitch, in any case.