Hacker News Reader

Comment by NovemberWhiskey | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure that's internally consistent from a logical perspective. Forget the require bit. Say it's an option.

You're employed with a salary of $X at location Y.

Your employer wants you to move to location Z with higher cost-of-living. You can either stay at location Y or move to location Z. You feel it's right that your employer increase your salary because of the higher cost of living if you move to Z.

The company is asking you to make a concession: do the same work, but in a different location.

When you ask to move to a lower-cost area, aren't you asking for the same concession? Why is that concession expected to be gratuitous vs the same concession from the company which is expected to be compensated?

View on HN

The way I see it, if the company wants you to do something you would not do if not for their asking (i.e. moving) it makes sense to ask for compensation, and the compensation should be commensurate to how onerous what they want is. I would expect a relocation bonus even if moving from a high cost of living area to a low cost of living area, if moving was requested by the company.

On the other hand, if I want to do something because it is convenient for me but does not affect my work in any way (i.e. change where I work from) I would not expect my compensation to change.

If an employer asks an employee to move to a higher cost-of-living area then they're asking the employee to take on extra expense for the benefit of the employer. It's only reasonable that the employer would offer some form of compensation if they want the employee to grant that request.

If an remote-work employee wants to move to a lower cost-of-living area it should make no difference to the employer. They're still getting the same work as before, at the same cost. If the work output was worth that much before then it's still worth that much when performed from a different location.

If an employee chooses to move to a more expensive location, on their own initiative, then that is more like the second scenario than the first, and there is no reason to expect the employer to offer higher compensation to offset the cost-of-living in the new location when there is no particular benefit to the company from the move.

EDIT: fix typo

This is all true, but it's based on the assumption that one already works for a company. I don't know if the same is true for new hires.

New hires generally have their existing compensation as part of their negotiation. So if I'm already living in SF and am negotiating with a new employer for salary, my current high CoL salary gives me leverage to expect higher pay regardless if I'm working remotely. Remote work allows for flexibility but it doesn't erase CoL concerns.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com