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As software engineers we are wage inequality. What steps have you taken to reduce your wages towards the median? Obviously you would not make the world an even

As software engineers we are wage inequality. What steps have you taken to reduce your wages towards the median? Obviously you would not make the world an even more unequal place by accepting a raise, right? Just for some context, the median personal income is $36k, while the median software engineer makes $110k. There are about 1.8 million of us. So by each sending back (to our employers or the Treasury) $74k, we could reduce wage inequality by $133 billion. Not too shabby!

mjcohen 5y ago
Better to send it to low wage workers.
aaomidi 5y ago
The difference is that we don't own the means of production either. We're still workers.
- vba616 5y ago
  Anyone who is a software engineer on HN surely is accumulating capital to retire some day and will likely succeed.
  - pjerem 5y ago
    > Anyone who is a software engineer on HN In the US.
    - vba616 5y ago
      I think there is such a thing as retirement outside the US. I thought that pensions are more common, as a matter of fact. You almost have to be a government employee to have a pension these days, in the US.
- rightbyte 5y ago
  But we do own the means of production. Unless you have no personal computer or think the Jira instance we all are forced to use is necessary for coding. =)
vba616 5y ago
>we could reduce wage inequality by $133 billion. Not too shabby! There are about 130 million full time workers in the US. Multiplying that by $36K, which is obviously wrong, but I believe gives an order of magnitude at least, is nearly $5 trillion. $133 billion would then be a couple or three percent. Which would be good for one year's cost of living increase. Better than nothing. I'm not endorsing your math, just taking it as given, and please don't take mine too seriously.
tluyben2 5y ago
Sending it back to your employer would result in getting the people who usually truly do nothing (shareholders, board members etc) to get more money. I cannot really see how this type of action can work out. It has to start from a government or a large company doing it first. In the EU we have this more or less gov controlled and it works ok. But of course software engineers cry they make too little as they compare to the US.
jevoten 5y ago
> What steps have you taken to reduce your wages towards the median? The way to reign in employer exploitation is by improving the bargaining position and political power of workers (via laws and unions). Taking a voluntary pay cut is as effective as voluntarily paying a higher tax rate if you believe taxes are too low. Here's an example of how to improve working conditions - see if it includes any workers taking a voluntary pay cut to reduce inequality: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28603398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28603398
brundolf 5y ago
That's an absurd and bad-faith reframing of what it means to take issue with inequality. Voluntarily taking a salary cut with no other stipulation would not help lower-income workers; the surplus would go straight into shareholders' pockets. Unless you're the CEO, and have the authority (and the will) to actually redistribute those funds, it would be comically pointless martyrdom (and I think you know that). So no, I don't take steps to "reduce my wages" towards the median. But I do make donations to people who are trying to improve the status quo, and I do support unions and other efforts at real power-rebalancing, even if they mean a pay cut for myself one day, because that would be for the sake of an actual positive impact.
- closeparen 5y ago
  Working class people need healthcare. You need healthcare according to how sick you are, not according to how large the professional-managerial class is or how its incomes are trending. Inequality is a very weird frame for the well-being of a society or its less fortunate. The absurdity of sending back your paycheck being an “improvement” is just one element. We can have rising living standards across the board & call it a catastrophe because those at the top are rising faster. Or we can have a collapse, and say that your schadenfreude at your neighbor’s demise makes you whole. The whole model is absurd. Not to mention the carelessness between income and wealth. Moving income from high wage earners to the portfolios of shareholders is actually good for income and wage equality. It amplifies wealth inequality, but that gets a lot less play since we mainly tax wages.
  - brundolf 5y ago
    What you're missing is that wealth - particularly extreme wealth - isn't just about quality of living, it's about power. That's (a major reason) why relative wealth matters in a society: the extremely wealthy can reshape not just their personal lives, but the entire society around them, to suit their preferences. The extremely wealthy don't have to care if a new public policy is bad for the commons (any given commons; the natural environment, public education, civil freedoms, etc), because they can always just buy their way out of the consequences. Nearly the entire society underneath them can be left to rot, and as long as there's enough of a husk left that their wealth still matters, they don't have to care. They can even make it decay on purpose if it serves to deepen their moat of power.
moritonal 5y ago
This feels so much like a pointy haired boss wrote this. "See, if you simply choose to send back half your salary to me there'll be less income-inequality between you and the janitor! Please ignore my golden throne."
trabant00 5y ago
This plays right into the class warfare between low and middle class that the hides the real problem - tax avoidance by the ultra rich individuals and corporations.
broken8ball 5y ago
I’ll do ya one even better: how about we raise the median wage instead? Call me crazy.

mjcohen 5y ago

Better to send it to low wage workers.

aaomidi 5y ago

The difference is that we don't own the means of production either. We're still workers.

vba616 5y ago
Anyone who is a software engineer on HN surely is accumulating capital to retire some day and will likely succeed.
- pjerem 5y ago
  > Anyone who is a software engineer on HN In the US.
  - vba616 5y ago
    I think there is such a thing as retirement outside the US. I thought that pensions are more common, as a matter of fact. You almost have to be a government employee to have a pension these days, in the US.
rightbyte 5y ago
But we do own the means of production. Unless you have no personal computer or think the Jira instance we all are forced to use is necessary for coding. =)

vba616 5y ago

>we could reduce wage inequality by $133 billion. Not too shabby! There are about 130 million full time workers in the US. Multiplying that by $36K, which is obviously wrong, but I believe gives an order of magnitude at least, is nearly $5 trillion. $133 billion would then be a couple or three percent. Which would be good for one year's cost of living increase. Better than nothing. I'm not endorsing your math, just taking it as given, and please don't take mine too seriously.

tluyben2 5y ago

Sending it back to your employer would result in getting the people who usually truly do nothing (shareholders, board members etc) to get more money. I cannot really see how this type of action can work out. It has to start from a government or a large company doing it first. In the EU we have this more or less gov controlled and it works ok. But of course software engineers cry they make too little as they compare to the US.

jevoten 5y ago

> What steps have you taken to reduce your wages towards the median? The way to reign in employer exploitation is by improving the bargaining position and political power of workers (via laws and unions). Taking a voluntary pay cut is as effective as voluntarily paying a higher tax rate if you believe taxes are too low. Here's an example of how to improve working conditions - see if it includes any workers taking a voluntary pay cut to reduce inequality: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28603398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28603398

brundolf 5y ago

That's an absurd and bad-faith reframing of what it means to take issue with inequality. Voluntarily taking a salary cut with no other stipulation would not help lower-income workers; the surplus would go straight into shareholders' pockets. Unless you're the CEO, and have the authority (and the will) to actually redistribute those funds, it would be comically pointless martyrdom (and I think you know that). So no, I don't take steps to "reduce my wages" towards the median. But I do make donations to people who are trying to improve the status quo, and I do support unions and other efforts at real power-rebalancing, even if they mean a pay cut for myself one day, because that would be for the sake of an actual positive impact.

closeparen 5y ago
Working class people need healthcare. You need healthcare according to how sick you are, not according to how large the professional-managerial class is or how its incomes are trending. Inequality is a very weird frame for the well-being of a society or its less fortunate. The absurdity of sending back your paycheck being an “improvement” is just one element. We can have rising living standards across the board & call it a catastrophe because those at the top are rising faster. Or we can have a collapse, and say that your schadenfreude at your neighbor’s demise makes you whole. The whole model is absurd. Not to mention the carelessness between income and wealth. Moving income from high wage earners to the portfolios of shareholders is actually good for income and wage equality. It amplifies wealth inequality, but that gets a lot less play since we mainly tax wages.
- brundolf 5y ago
  What you're missing is that wealth - particularly extreme wealth - isn't just about quality of living, it's about power. That's (a major reason) why relative wealth matters in a society: the extremely wealthy can reshape not just their personal lives, but the entire society around them, to suit their preferences. The extremely wealthy don't have to care if a new public policy is bad for the commons (any given commons; the natural environment, public education, civil freedoms, etc), because they can always just buy their way out of the consequences. Nearly the entire society underneath them can be left to rot, and as long as there's enough of a husk left that their wealth still matters, they don't have to care. They can even make it decay on purpose if it serves to deepen their moat of power.

moritonal 5y ago

This feels so much like a pointy haired boss wrote this. "See, if you simply choose to send back half your salary to me there'll be less income-inequality between you and the janitor! Please ignore my golden throne."

trabant00 5y ago

This plays right into the class warfare between low and middle class that the hides the real problem - tax avoidance by the ultra rich individuals and corporations.

broken8ball 5y ago

I’ll do ya one even better: how about we raise the median wage instead? Call me crazy.