Comment by parasense | Hacker News Reader

Comment by parasense | Hacker News Reader

If for example the high range is ~200k in the SF bay area, but the low range is ~80k in Denver.... that isn't about gender inequity, it's about geographic cost-of-living inequity.

Let's be for real here, cut the crap.

This is not about gender equity issues as the labor law purports, it's about people wanting to earn that FAT silicon valley salary, but live somewhere cheap(er) like Denver. I totally get it, and to be fair we all probably would like for that to happen to ourselves. My modest home in Dallas area would be worth Millions in the Bay area, so I totally understand why people in that area are paid more, and yet still get less quality of living by comparison.

I dunno, I want to be polite... but honestly I feel like my spidey-senses detect a level or willful ignorance, or intellectual dishonesty with people advocating for this kind of thing. If Colorado actually catches an employer paying women less as a result of this law, that's awesome! But I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that press release from CO labor dept. What I think is actually happening is Colorado wants to support it's remote workforce by forcing higher salary jobs from the Coastal cities.

The only issue I have with the law, is the compelled speech. It seems that the idea of this law is that job posting are not normal speech, but I guess "commercial speech" and therefor regulated outside the 1st amendment. ehh

Netflix doesn't cost any less in Colorado than California then an engineer with exact same qualities should be paid exactly the same.

The government doesn't agree with your assessment: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...

A couple years ago:

"Its not about [the cost of living, inflation, your personal life circumstances], but the value you bring to the company!"

Today:

"It costs you less to live there so we will pay you less!"

Salaries are weird. If you want to be paid for value delivered, do consulting and charge by the hour. Salaries are a market rate; just like you are probably gonna make more if you apply to Bay Area jobs, you’ll probably make less in Colorado. Negotiating a market rate in one place then moving to another is basically a loophole.

> but the value you bring to the company!

I hear you! But the value brought to the company is still relative to the cost of doing business, and that ultimately becomes calculous on where the business & employee are located.

This is the whole idea with outsourcing. I'm sure cheap labor in less developed places like Mexico, India, or China... provides huge value for the foreign companies. In those other economies the workers can be paid a huge amount of money compared to the local average, and yet still be significantly lower than equivalent people living in the developed world.

The concept is not limited to other counties, it makes perfect sense here in the USA and around Europe. People earning 100k in a place like Alabama or Mississippi are high earners in their area. Take that same person, same amount of pya, but put them in San Jose... now they are effectively in poverty.

What is 100k worth to somebody in China, Mexico, or India? Just because that's the cost of somebody somewhere else, doesn't mean the same applies to people located elsewhere. Likewise, same applies to people in Colorado.

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