The point is what other options they have unless they are willing to immigrate. I don’t think these $72k developers are American expats but Ukrainians that for

The point is what other options they have unless they are willing to immigrate. I don’t think these $72k developers are American expats but Ukrainians that for whatever reason don’t want or can’t leave their home country. And there are much more flagrant instances of borders determining your salary than that - when I was studying in Vienna I had a friend who studied with me and after school went back to his hometown in Poland. We both started our first jobs at the same time, with the same education and same title/job, and I was earning 3x his salary simply because I stayed in Vienna (Poland isn’t that far from Germany and Austria).