
Ask HN: Why should a programmer be paid less for being outside America - kushan2020
Assume that a programmer “X” from a third world country delivers the same output as a programmer “Y” from a developed country.<p>Why is it that the programmer X is paid 10 times less than programmer Y.
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tedmiston
Tl;dr - Looking at the raw numbers outside of the context that supports them
and the expenses that come with them is a bit misleading.

First, I think it's an oversimplification of the U.S. to overlook that
salaries vary widely here as well. Someone in NYC or SF may make 2–3x that of
a person in a similar role in a small city. And a very senior person on the
coasts can make 5–10x what a junior dev would in a small city.

Usually when authors compare figures in articles they attach to the coastal
numbers instead of giving more honest comparisons by city or state.

Another factor is cost of living. $150k in SF sounds like a lot of money but
roughly half of that covers rent, transportation, taxes, etc. Healthcare is
very expensive here too. In SF or NYC, food is expensive as well. In some
countries, $15 covers enough food for the day or more, in SF that might cover
lunch.

One more is that the demand for good experienced programmers in the U.S.
outweighs the supply for various reasons. We have the biggest tech companies
in the world, so Google for instance can afford to pay hundreds of thousands
of dollars per year to retain the best talent since they make roughly $1M in
revenue per employee.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/revenue-per-employee-at-
apple...](http://www.businessinsider.com/revenue-per-employee-at-apple-
facebook-google-others-2016-2)

