It's all based off the CoL in county of your primary residence. Has nothing to do with the proximity to an office.
It's slightly more true that it's based on the local cost of labor, but even more so that it's just based on the state, with carveouts for MSAs (which are defined based on county) surrounding certain offices commanding higher salaries.
You'd make just as much working remotely in Matamoras, PA as you would working out of the NYC office in Manhattan.
E.g. I live in a low-CoL area, but I pay you, someone living a high-CoL area, $100 to nominally be your "flatmate".
If company can pick arbitrary locations around the world to be their HQ, or Trump can use Mar-a-Lago as his residence, then so too can every other citizen following the law and paying their taxes.
> every other citizen following the law
For criminal fraud to happen, there has to be a defrauded party. If I follow my local tax laws and negotiate a better salary with a corporation based on Location A, while potentially living elsewhere at Location B/C/D for prolong periods of time with lower costs of living, that is not fraud.
Two parties entered a contract with the understand you would live in location A if you don't that's fraud objectively.
https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/what-is-contr...
https://www.findlaw.com/smallbusiness/business-laws-and-regu...
https://www.upcounsel.com/intent-to-deceive-contract-law#:~:....
If you follow whatever local and state laws apply to your situation, you're perfectly in your right.
The topic is whether a global corporation with access to a global workforce should be allowed arbitrary salary negation privileges because of the circumstances of a candidates geographical circumstances, while robbing the candidate of the same privilege.
Just sounds like another way to exploit labor at a time of record profit windfalls for corporations.
Someday if most employers switch to remote-first, this won’t matter and salaries will be equal everywhere (a lot lower than we’ve seen in tight labor markets, and probably the first world in general).
A company telling me my worth is based on where I live at that exact moment definitely feels like wrongful deception intended for financial gain.
A company can be registered in a tax haven but have its main office in the US.
I used to drink with a bunch of fireman who lived about 300 miles away - they had to live in the city or adjacent county. They’d have a flophouse in the hood shared by like 20 guys and crash there once in awhile when they pulled overtime as well as get mail.
Travel scams are similar too. If a company will reimburse travel if you’re 50 miles from home, people will “move” so they can bill the mileage tolls.
It works great until it doesn’t. If you want to give up your cushy Google gig for a few thousand bucks, good luck.
That ship has sailed, and it’s got a nice tail wind as well.