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Comment by Dirlewanger | Hacker News Reader

If a company is going to use the lazy COL argument, they're going to do so no matter what.

Take 2 people of equal skill, experience, and negotiating prowess. One lives in SF, another in Kansas City. Both apply to the same remote position for a SF-based company. The company will always take the one in KC. I don't see how negotiation skill has a role in this. Unless there are people out there who have successfully negotiated a SF-level salary while living somewhere like Kansas, but I haven't heard about it.

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Besides the obvious point made by another commenter that two completely equivalent people won't exist, it's not just negotiating skill it's more about negotiating leverage.

A real example that I've seen: two workers work for the same employer and have been given offers from other companies located in a different State. The single mother in the group had significantly less leverage because she (and presumably her employer) knew she couldn't move without potentially affecting the custody of her kids. She didn't get a raise.

Or to extend your example, someone living in KC has less leverage because they cannot use the COL argument to justify higher pay. If I'm being courted by an employer to move, you better believe I'm building COL considerations into my overall salary ask.

Right, and employers are going to exploit these leverage imbalances in any way possible. It's why I don't think we'll ever see "equal work for equal pay" as seen in the article. You're just not going to get high COL wages while living in a low COL area.

Not to mention that the original intent of "equal work for equal pay" was about gender disparities. The importance being: gender (technically, 'sex') is a protected class, low-COL-resident is not.

> Take 2 people of equal skill, experience, and negotiating prowess.

This just doesn't exist, not even in a hand-wavy rhetorical sense.

lulz @ "...not even in a hand-wavy rhetorical sense..."

High end companies doesn't work like that. For example Google first decides that they want you, then they pay you their market rate no matter where you live. You can choose to work in SF for a high pay or in India for a low pay, up to you, they still want you. In fact the high pay in SF is actually the easiest position to get, the lower wage positions in other areas are more competitive since they have fewer spots.

That is just not true.

Are they paying 250k base in London? They weren't a few years back, and therefore they pay based on the market.

The London thing is even funnier because they claim to want top talent, but refuse to benchmark against actual top-talent companies in London (i.e. finance).

It's just nonsense, and if some of this gets disrupted by remote work then I (as someone getting screwed by the current system) will be all for it.

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