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Luciano Jung -
dev.to staff -
Paulo Henrique -
dev.to staff -
Top comments (6)
Should workers be paid different based on gender, race or sexual orientation?
There's your answer then.
I don't know if it's quite as simple as that, as the cost of living can vary depending on where you live.
For example, I work in small midwestern town that has a much lower cost of living than somewhere like LA or Seattle. So I personally think that it would be unfair if I were paid as much as developers there are.
Though I do agree that the value of work should not change if you are remote vs in-office, which may have been what the original question was implying.
Then how about this: Should you be paid less if you don't have any expensive hobbies? Should you be paid less if you happen to eat very cheap?
Or, to generalize, should you be paid less, just because you live very cheap?
I think it's a very, VERY clear no. If you live in a cheap place, that's you saving money, just as much as if you were to cancel your netflix subscription, walk to work to save gas or do repairs on your own car instead of hiring someone.
A persons spending habits should not, in any way, play a role in their pay. People should get paid based on the work they do, and that is independent from what car they drive, where they go shopping and where they live.
Otherwise you're not getting paid, you're getting an allowance.
I see what you mean, and you have a good point that personal spending habits shouldn't effect pay.
However, I think you may have misinterpreted my argument. I was talking mostly about minimum wage, which can vary between regions (specifically in the US, dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/...).
Of course you may feel that cost of living shouldn't effect income, and pay should be set based on work, which is a valid opinion.
I'm not exactly sure that your equivalency works here. The attributes you mentioned should definitely NOT be used to determine wage as they are things a person cannot control (nor do they have any bearing on their skillset), but money has different values based on geographical location. This is especially true in larger countries (based on area, not necessarily population) like the U.S.
For example, where I live, my salary probably goes a lot further (due to a lower cost of living) than it would in San Francisco. But, you also cannot base it on cost-of-living because what happens if you're paying a remote employee and they move to a location where the cost of living is lower than where they moved from? You can't lower their salary simply because they moved. But, if they move to a location with a higher cost of living, do you give them a compensatory raise?
Basically, there are no real easy answers to this one. That's why I don't employ anyone other than myself 😀.
Good points