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> How much one employee is paid is often less important to him than how his pay compares with that of other employees.

Is this actually true of most people?

There is evidence of jealousy behaviors in our closest cousins, the chimpanzees. You can imagine how much that feeling is amplified within humans.

I don't think it's as much jealousy in this instance as it is a dislike of unfairness.

My tech lead earns more money than me. This is absolutely acceptable to me because I am aware they are better at programming and they have more responsibilities than me.

If I found out a coworker at the same level as me was earning more than me I would be upset with that situation.

Somewhat. It's not a binary. At the lower end you absolutely need a minimum level of pay just to survive. As you get higher up the earnings tree it becomes more and more about status and less and less about actual spending.

In the middle you get people on mid-six figures complaining about the cost of housing and school fees - which is an interesting mix of humble status bragging and genuine concern about limited disposable income.

By the time you get to billionaires it's a childish status pissing contest with numbers that are almost meaningless in real terms.

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