I looked at some tech jobs in Wellington and shocked at how little they pay compared to SF. The cost of living in cheaper, but not that much cheaper.
Despite my comment I like life here. I wasn't really trying to give more than a data point from another part of the world.
My personal view is that a strong enough economy should be able to provide most people with a better than minimum wage job. But if you bump the minimum wage too high you simply raise the price of everything.
When you compare SF tech salaries to NZ tech salaries it's just ridiculous though. I would say SF TC is 4x or more than NZ salaries (Stock grants are not common) for similar positions.
I am actually surprised SF did not lower salaries exactly for this because there's nowhere else to go if you want to at least keep your SF salary.
From https://www.payscale.com/research/NZ/Job=Software_Engineer/S...