Cost of living is not personal to a person it’s an average to get basics of food cost and housing in an area. Not everyone has the privilege to just move whene

Cost of living is not personal to a person it’s an average to get basics of food cost and housing in an area. Not everyone has the privilege to just move whenever they want. To use your example: if you got paid a Montana salary and already lived in SF and had ties where you were unable to move cities you would be forced to move into a tent because that’s what you would be able to afford. (I’m just using Montana and tent as examples I’m not checking actual figures for this analogy) Adjusting salaries based on cost of living is making sure that people are not forced to move to a different city in order to afford the same size apartment and amount of food. Your outlook makes dollar amount equitable, but a dollar is only useful when you try to spend it on something. That same tent and rice costs 10x more in one place vs another place. COL based salary adjustment makes the purchasing power equitable. The real output of the dollar you’re given. Which is more equitable in my opinion. I was once asked to move to SF for a job and given a 20% bump compared to Toronto salaries so I could afford it. The same apartment actually costs 4x in sf so I’m paying 2x for half the space here. If I hadn’t had my pay adjusted for cost of living I’d struggle to pay rent here and my visa requires that I live within 75 miles of the city for 6 years.