And who would measure it?
Assuming that additional government bureaucracy would be created for this (noble) purpose, what guarantee would we have that their decisions would be any more "rational" or "efficient" than the so-called "free market" system that currently exists in the US for determining salaries?
This is not a criticism of the author's underlying arguments, just a question about how he would implement the proposed remedy.
Lines of code? That was shown to be a total failure years ago. Jira tickets closed? Some tickets are much harder than others. Hours of butt in seat? Well, sadly that still seems to be a bit in vongue, but is thankfully dying out.
Vlue collar jobs are easier to put a number one, but a lot of white collar jobs don't, and the USA is rapidly shifting to white collar work.
salary
Number of colleagues performing the same function
Percentage of revenue due to a department
But still very far from easy. The standard story here involves a shoe factory in a communist country of your choice, who met their quota by making only left-foot size-3 shoes... You can plug any particular hole, but the general problem remains.