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Absolutely, and also it opens up a whole host of other questions that are similarly intrusive: - I have a family with children. Should I get paid more than an

Absolutely, and also it opens up a whole host of other questions that are similarly intrusive: - I have a family with children. Should I get paid more than an employee who lives alone? - I have a big house that has a large mortgage. Should I get paid more than an employee who lives in a cheap apartment? - I have purchased a yacht that requires maintenance. Should I get paid more than an employee who hasn't? Sure, the last one is ridiculous, but honestly, they're _all_ ridiculous. The idea that your employer should be able to look at your expenses and judge which ones are valid and which ones aren't, and then adjust your pay "appropriately" is offensive on a deep level.

dmitryminkovsky 6y ago
> The idea that your employer should be able to look at your expenses and judge which ones are valid and which ones aren't, and then adjust your pay "appropriately" is offensive on a deep level. It truly is. I may have a passion for Alizé and Cristal and to afford that passion I may want to live in a rural setting. That’s my business. Who are these people to try and tell me that whether I live in SF or Nebraska, they’re only going to let me drink André?
- true_religion 6y ago
  The argument from the employers point of view is: we are forcing you to live in SF in order to work, thus we will pay you a premium to accept our choices. If an employer has nothing to do with your lifestyle choices, then they won't pay for them. For a truly remote position, they won't pay extra if you life in NY/SF vs Nebraska. However, I think the world hasn't adapted to that market economics yet, so in this time of transition people talk about location-based pay as a stopgap measure. Software development doesn't benefit from a centralized location, so in the future developers won't naturally live in big expensive cities and employers won't pay them wages that permit them to do so. To be honest, I think the best thing would be for SW Devs to have a guild that aids in collective bargaining. Otherwise, the power balance will gradually tilt too far towards employers. Other professional jobs (e.g. medicine, law) have similar arrangements, and that's the only reason why pay can remain high in them.
  - runarberg 6y ago
    > guild that aids in collective bargaining Sort of like a worker’s union?
motohagiography 6y ago
I don't have a boat, my friends who do have one bill based on what it costs to maintain it. Do they tell the HR person or clients "I have a boat I need to maintain," never, as that just gives away leverage, but they only seek out roles that facilitate their life. The language itself, "should I get paid" assumes a parental allowance relationship and we should get out of the habit of using it. "Get paid" is a day-labourers colloquialism. The form of the phrase itself defines you as the passive subject. Bill for work, draw a salary, agree to compensation, accept consideration, negotiate a package, earn bonuses, settle invoices, sell services (not time), sell equity - do not "get paid" by anyone. It's a psychological impediment that keeps people poor.
- cantankerous 6y ago
  Structural impediments keep people poor. Not internal monologues.
  - K0balt 6y ago
    Internal monolouges enable structural inequalities and broken paradigmes. Memetic constructs form the basis for all societal constructs, so I think maybe you are under selling the importance of thoughts in this case.
    - syops 6y ago
      Your first sentence is quite a claim. Do you have evidence that this is what enables structural inequalities and broken paradigms? Maybe it would be more reasonable to say such internal monologues help perpetuate these things. It seems to me that the structural inequality comes from first.
  - GavinMcG 6y ago
    Internal monologues absolutely keep people poor. Failure to effectively negotiate is nearly 100% about internal monologues, particularly once the time has come for negotiation.
  - anaerobicover 6y ago
lotsofpulp 6y ago
>The idea that your employer should be able to look at your expenses and judge which ones are valid and which ones aren't, and then adjust your pay "appropriately" is offensive on a deep level. No one making these decisions actually has this idea. It's just more acceptable PR than "we're going to lower your pay because we think you will accept it because we think that you won't or you think you won't have better options."
adkadskhj 6y ago
> I have a family with children. Should I get paid more than an employee who lives alone? - I have a big house that has a large mortgage. Should I get paid more than an employee who lives in a cheap apartment? - I have purchased a yacht that requires maintenance. Should I get paid more than an employee who hasn't? Should you? No. Do you have to? Yes. If you have a family of four, a yacht and a mortgage maybe you need to make - say - $200k/y. Cool. But what about some single guy with none of those things, he can work for $100k/y and make the same profit as you. Are you saying he shouldn't use his competitive advantage over you to get hired? This isn't about the employer. It's about the employee, and what their life allows them to work for.
- enumjorge 6y ago
  > It's about the employee, and what their life allows them to work for. So rather than compete in the job market based on your skill set and what value they bring to a company, you should instead focus on not starting a family and living as cheaply as possible in order to make yourself attractive to companies. I'm sure employers would love for you to center your life around making yourself as cheap to hire as possible, but from the point of view of the employee it sounds extremely unhealthy.
  - adkadskhj 6y ago
    > So rather than compete in the job market based on your skill set and what value they bring to a company, you should instead focus on not starting a family and living as cheaply as possible in order to make yourself attractive to companies. I'm sure employers would love for you to center your life around making yourself as cheap to hire as possible, but from the point of view of the employee it sounds extremely unhealthy. Maybe. I got into this market because i was able to apply at a much cheaper position, beating out other more skilled employees. I levered my lower pay to offset my lack of history in the market. Were there more skilled people applying? Definitely. Did they apply at a higher rate? Definitely. Sure if you wanted to go to extremes you should live as cheaply as possible. But you could say that about anything. Instead, live how you want to live and expect to deal with that cost of living. You said it yourself, "skill set and what value they bring". What value you bring to a company is relative to what they pay you. If you cost $500k/y but your skillset is that of a junior engineer, do you honestly think your value is the same of a similar junior engineer working for $100k/y? Unlikely. If you want to live in a city you are simply required to make more money than someone living in a rural environment. If i have a huge mortgage i can't work at walmart. I need to make more. These are all relative values based on COL, how much you spend, etc. This shouldn't be a controversial statement, in my view. Mind you i'm very liberal. I believe in worker rights. But forcing everyone to be paid for insanely high COL SF rates seems bonkers. Absolute bonkers.
GekkePrutser 6y ago
The reason they look at cost of living is because they won't fill the jobs otherwise. You can pay a Bangalore wage for a developer in San Francisco but it'd be less than a local janitor makes. So obviously they have to take this into account.

dmitryminkovsky 6y ago

> The idea that your employer should be able to look at your expenses and judge which ones are valid and which ones aren't, and then adjust your pay "appropriately" is offensive on a deep level. It truly is. I may have a passion for Alizé and Cristal and to afford that passion I may want to live in a rural setting. That’s my business. Who are these people to try and tell me that whether I live in SF or Nebraska, they’re only going to let me drink André?

true_religion 6y ago
The argument from the employers point of view is: we are forcing you to live in SF in order to work, thus we will pay you a premium to accept our choices. If an employer has nothing to do with your lifestyle choices, then they won't pay for them. For a truly remote position, they won't pay extra if you life in NY/SF vs Nebraska. However, I think the world hasn't adapted to that market economics yet, so in this time of transition people talk about location-based pay as a stopgap measure. Software development doesn't benefit from a centralized location, so in the future developers won't naturally live in big expensive cities and employers won't pay them wages that permit them to do so. To be honest, I think the best thing would be for SW Devs to have a guild that aids in collective bargaining. Otherwise, the power balance will gradually tilt too far towards employers. Other professional jobs (e.g. medicine, law) have similar arrangements, and that's the only reason why pay can remain high in them.
- runarberg 6y ago
  > guild that aids in collective bargaining Sort of like a worker’s union?

motohagiography 6y ago

I don't have a boat, my friends who do have one bill based on what it costs to maintain it. Do they tell the HR person or clients "I have a boat I need to maintain," never, as that just gives away leverage, but they only seek out roles that facilitate their life. The language itself, "should I get paid" assumes a parental allowance relationship and we should get out of the habit of using it. "Get paid" is a day-labourers colloquialism. The form of the phrase itself defines you as the passive subject. Bill for work, draw a salary, agree to compensation, accept consideration, negotiate a package, earn bonuses, settle invoices, sell services (not time), sell equity - do not "get paid" by anyone. It's a psychological impediment that keeps people poor.

cantankerous 6y ago
Structural impediments keep people poor. Not internal monologues.
- K0balt 6y ago
  Internal monolouges enable structural inequalities and broken paradigmes. Memetic constructs form the basis for all societal constructs, so I think maybe you are under selling the importance of thoughts in this case.
  - syops 6y ago
    Your first sentence is quite a claim. Do you have evidence that this is what enables structural inequalities and broken paradigms? Maybe it would be more reasonable to say such internal monologues help perpetuate these things. It seems to me that the structural inequality comes from first.
- GavinMcG 6y ago
  Internal monologues absolutely keep people poor. Failure to effectively negotiate is nearly 100% about internal monologues, particularly once the time has come for negotiation.
- anaerobicover 6y ago

lotsofpulp 6y ago

>The idea that your employer should be able to look at your expenses and judge which ones are valid and which ones aren't, and then adjust your pay "appropriately" is offensive on a deep level. No one making these decisions actually has this idea. It's just more acceptable PR than "we're going to lower your pay because we think you will accept it because we think that you won't or you think you won't have better options."

adkadskhj 6y ago

> I have a family with children. Should I get paid more than an employee who lives alone? - I have a big house that has a large mortgage. Should I get paid more than an employee who lives in a cheap apartment? - I have purchased a yacht that requires maintenance. Should I get paid more than an employee who hasn't? Should you? No. Do you have to? Yes. If you have a family of four, a yacht and a mortgage maybe you need to make - say - $200k/y. Cool. But what about some single guy with none of those things, he can work for $100k/y and make the same profit as you. Are you saying he shouldn't use his competitive advantage over you to get hired? This isn't about the employer. It's about the employee, and what their life allows them to work for.

enumjorge 6y ago
> It's about the employee, and what their life allows them to work for. So rather than compete in the job market based on your skill set and what value they bring to a company, you should instead focus on not starting a family and living as cheaply as possible in order to make yourself attractive to companies. I'm sure employers would love for you to center your life around making yourself as cheap to hire as possible, but from the point of view of the employee it sounds extremely unhealthy.
- adkadskhj 6y ago
  > So rather than compete in the job market based on your skill set and what value they bring to a company, you should instead focus on not starting a family and living as cheaply as possible in order to make yourself attractive to companies. I'm sure employers would love for you to center your life around making yourself as cheap to hire as possible, but from the point of view of the employee it sounds extremely unhealthy. Maybe. I got into this market because i was able to apply at a much cheaper position, beating out other more skilled employees. I levered my lower pay to offset my lack of history in the market. Were there more skilled people applying? Definitely. Did they apply at a higher rate? Definitely. Sure if you wanted to go to extremes you should live as cheaply as possible. But you could say that about anything. Instead, live how you want to live and expect to deal with that cost of living. You said it yourself, "skill set and what value they bring". What value you bring to a company is relative to what they pay you. If you cost $500k/y but your skillset is that of a junior engineer, do you honestly think your value is the same of a similar junior engineer working for $100k/y? Unlikely. If you want to live in a city you are simply required to make more money than someone living in a rural environment. If i have a huge mortgage i can't work at walmart. I need to make more. These are all relative values based on COL, how much you spend, etc. This shouldn't be a controversial statement, in my view. Mind you i'm very liberal. I believe in worker rights. But forcing everyone to be paid for insanely high COL SF rates seems bonkers. Absolute bonkers.

GekkePrutser 6y ago

The reason they look at cost of living is because they won't fill the jobs otherwise. You can pay a Bangalore wage for a developer in San Francisco but it'd be less than a local janitor makes. So obviously they have to take this into account.