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Comment by adamsmith143 | Hacker News Reader

>More taxes are a result of earning more and not really from working more although they are usually related

Even the mythical 10x engineer is not really getting paid 10x more than their same level peers so no not really.

So this even furthers the argument. Why bother having 10x the output if you only see a smidge of that productivity as increased income?

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We're not talking about being more productive in the same number of hours. If you earn $2000 you pay more taxes than if you earn $1000, even if you work double the hours to earn $2000. So you still get rewarded for your extra time.

That's not how most jobs work, you get paid a salary, some people still work 60hr weeks and do not get paid more than their peers.

I refer you to my GP comment, where this is covered.

I disagree that earning more and working more are usually related. It can be related, but I don't think it's the norm. I think the norm is working more than you're getting paid for, and that pay not differing from those who are working less than you. Just look at people wringing themselves out in the hospitality and services industries, they're not getting paid more than everyone else.

The important part is earning more leads to paying more taxes. If you work the same job you'll earn more money while working 40hrs than working 20hrs. Where 40hrs is the standard, so in a general sense people working normal hours will pay more taxes than people working reduced hours.

Ah, I think we were just talking past eachother then. That makes sense to me. I was imagining the situations where the same two employees are paid 40hrs/week but one works 40 and one works 60. It sounds like you were thinking of people working part time versus people working full time, in which case definitely, the latter correlates to more income and more taxes.

It's not that uncommon for one software engineer to outearn another by 10x, assuming a little job hopping.

I agree but I think it's more relevant to compare the same levels at the same org. I would be pretty shocked to hear that there is any 10x delta in total comp across L5s at Google lets say.

The 10x delta exists. You just have to compare the L5 engineer from the lowest paying region with the L5 from the highest paying one. And for the same effort and output.

I don't think that counts as all else being equal. L5 in India vs L5 in SFBay Area isn't an interesting comparison.

A 10x difference between 2 L5 engineers in Mountain View is what I really meant.

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