That sounds like a tautology to me.

Most people do not define worth based on monetary cost; you are using a very narrow economic definition. If you can't get past that word, then please substitute "value", or "usefulness", or some other equivalent above.

If you ask someone if it was worth it to have a plumber fix a pipe, or a moving company to move their furniture, you would be comparing how much someone is getting paid versus you doing it yourself. An employer paying an employee is a business transaction, there is no other meaning than where the supply curve meets the demand curve, in a business activity, whether it be selling an item or buying labor.

Now, it should be noted that this only works when there are a multitude of buyers and sellers, but that problem is a different problem and should be recognized as such, instead of suggesting employers pay more than market rate, maybe we should be focusing our efforts on the real problem of monopsonies. Or if people are inherently "worth" something just for being, then I think it's more accurate to refer to that as "What are people entitled to" rather than "what are people worth" to avoid muddying up definitions.

If anything, this implies the opposite of your definition.

If you ask someone if it was worth it to have a plumber fix a pipe, and they say 'no', what they're telling you is whether or not their time is worth more than the price of paying a plumber. If it's possible for someone to believe they are getting more value out of a transaction then they are paying into it, than how can value be defined by what they pay?

If market prices actually determined something's value, then you would never ask if hiring a plumber was 'worth it', because by definition the answer would be yes. After all, by definition the plumber is worth what you pay them.

But you do ask, because most people recognize that when they define 'value', they are referring to something external which the market can provide them. Winning or losing in a transaction only works if you believe the value of what you get can be different than what you pay.

I dislike tautological definitions because they're not useful and they don't provide any new information. The claim that OP was trying to make was "what most people think of as value (for example, 'how much money an employee makes a company') does not correlate to pay." That's an interesting claim because by default people who are operating under principles of fairness might assume otherwise.

To say 'everyone is payed what they're worth by definition because what they're worth is what we pay them' supplies no information to anyone and is not an interesting claim to make. It's technically self-consistent, but brings nothing new to the discussion.

No, that is the definition of price. Worth / value is subjective.

In the context of an employer paying an employee, worth/cost/price/value are all interchangeable. What did it cost to have that pipe fixed? Was it worth it to use contractor A versus contractor B (implied is was the price for A better than price for B given output)?

I feel you could value something more than what you pay for it. It's a >= if you pay for it. It's < if you don't.

Value is always subjective. That's why both the seller and buyer gain in voluntary transactions. Eg. If you sell your used car for 2000, it means that you value 2000 in cash more than the old car. The buyer thinks the old car is better than holding 2000 in cash. Thus the exchange benefits both. Adding value to both. The price is the same, but there are no losers. The same logic applies to voluntary job contracts ( non slavery). You don't have to like the salary, but that's your least worst option. economics has a term for it called 'substitute'. We all prefer to use the better substitute among choices in front of us. Doesn't mean the choice is the perfect one or a dream job.or even a living wage, just that that's the least worst option. also wages aren't determined by the capitalist plutocrats, it's determined by among others, competition between workers and their opportunity costs

I disagree, most things that are worth anything are priceless.