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Comment by megaman8 | Hacker News Reader

I know i'm in a minority opinion here, but to be honest I think it would be totally fair for an employer to pay everyone the same regardless of location in the US (as long as their not forcing you to move to a more expensive city - if they force you to be in a more expensive city, then they need to pay up), if it's a remote company. I know it may sound harsh to some. But, think of it this way, it will encourage more companies to become remote, thus opening more doors for people and allowing more people to work remotely. After all, a low salary in a low cost of living city is usually better than a high salary in palo alto, considering the enormous delta in living costs and taxes.

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There is the "fairness" argue for this ("it doesn't matter where the employee is, they create the same clause for the company") however with taxes etc. being different it isn't equal on that level, and whether it is really fair that people in different locations get different value is a complex philosophical question :)

Low salary in a cheap city is almost never better. Your expenses will look very different but at the end of the day, engineers in Palo Alto are left with likely 5x the cash in their pocket than those in a cheaper city. I think the value of the leverage you earn with that larger savings is underestimated by many people.

The whole idea is extremely tone-deaf. If programmer a in SF gets to save 10% of their salary per month, and programmer b in wherever gets to save 10% of their salary... well... it's a huge savings and wealth disparity. I get it, your rent is high, but why does that mean you deserve to save 10 times as much as someone elsewhere? And everything you buy on Amazon still costs the same price. Your cars cost the same. Etc.

That only works if you are single, and live in 200 sq ft studio (which by the way will run you 24K per year after tax dollars). Then you can save and get ahead.

If you have a family of four you will almost ALWAYS be significantly worse off in palo alto. Even if you rent, The average 4 bedroom in palo alto is about 7k per month if your lucky which comes out to 84k which is about 130k in pretax dollars. Day care for 2 kids is about 60k per year. You'll need at least 225K just to scrape by, with no eating out, no vacations, etc..

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