If that value is going to be captured by anyone, I would much MUCH rather it be captured by Google shareholders, many of whom are employees and are at least partly responsible for the company's incredible success, than lazy and parasitic SFBA landlords who profit from their own NIMBYism and regulatory predation.
If you're working remotely for 100k, and paying 1.7k a month in rent, you're capturing ~80k as well. That means more capital is going to the employers(who saves 40k) at the expense of the landlords (who lose out on that 40k).
I honestly think I'd rather have the capital go to the employers because a) it improves my value in relation to them (I now can argue that I should get paid more, because I bring in 40k a year more value than I did in SV) AND I have a financial interest in the company doing well (with options/RSUs/bonuses/etc).
The money going to the landlords starts to become very literally "rent seeking" where they will capture the capital without providing any productivity gains in return. You could argue that their value in "provide a location for people to live so they can collaborate more effectively" is decreasing with remote work, and they will have to charge less because the value they provide is decreasing.
It most certainly is, if at the same time you're hanging out at city council meetings protesting construction and housing development. The cost of housing in SFBA isn't really the cost of land - its the cost of regulation. It's the marginal cost of building new housing.
Additionally, labor has a say in what they're paid as well and knowledge of what the average pay is for a given job in their country, region, or city. They can also talk to their fellow employees when they're hired and then push for a hire wage when they find out they're making less then everyone else doing the same job. Just because someone lives in Wisconsin doesn't mean they just accept any offer at a discount simply because HR has a bar chart says they should be paid 35% less then someone else.
1. Americans need to buy and hold equities. Period. When Google cuts costs or makes more money, I benefit as a shareholder (or you can hold total market indexes and the like).
2. Maybe the money will go to new hires, capabilities, expenditures, etc. ?
3. Sure, but this is certainly a good arguing point against immigration, population growth and H1-B visa programs and the like.
4. Increase taxes on the wealthy, etc.
One arguing point I'd like to make though is that if this doesn't result in wealth redistribution (companies will pay less and this is fine) should we all begin moving to a few cities?
Not to mention, the top companies would still hire top talent in a competitive market.
The truth is, no matter where you are, talent knows what talent is worth. We price accordingly and in the end the market is stable at a certain price level.
We’ve been seeing this over the last decade in major US cities competing for SF-level talent. Tech is one of the highest paid professions. Remote or otherwise. To say companies will just go hire someone cheaper assumes they can find someone cheaper.
In the end I think the real winners are rural America (or Europe or where ever you live). Having a lifeblood of capital come back to small towns and the like will decentralize our cities, improve our quality of life, reinforce the need for infrastructure, and allow innovation to solve those problems.
Exciting times.
This is a pipe dream and quite conceited. Talent is worth what the market will pay for it. No escaping supply and demand. If you no longer need to be in the office, the labor pool is immensely expanded. Unless you think that all the smart people in the world were already working for SF employers.
And I don't think it's SV -> Rural America exclusively. Many of these jobs will filter back into medium to large sized metros across the country. Places like Columbus, Indianapolis, St Louis, Atlanta, Nashville, etc. . There are scores of talented developers in these areas that would be open to remote work, but not relocation to the major metro areas.
From what I can tell, people are actually mostly moving to other tech hubs (but lower priced) and to high end vacation areas. Think Austin, Denver, Park City Utah, Lake Tahoe, etc... The underlying dynamics are still at play (even tech but to a lesser extent).
It makes me uncomfortable to think tech population from Ca descending onto unsuspecting laid back mid western towns. Integration should be gentle and respectful and with consent.
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoUtoqeEw8U
you can excuse the resentment
I don’t have a comment or solution to this problem (is it even a problem?) otherwise I’d suggest something. I’m just observing like others, but I will admit to browsing Zillow for a farm if remote work has staying power. I think being able to provide some stimulus economically from this will help those smaller rural businesses. I don’t know. I’m not qualified in economics to predict the outcome, only some hope and some fear of possibilities.
You can hire competent Thai or Vietnamese programmers for $20K/year on Upwork, which is a princely sum in their countries. If all you want is someone to implement a spec, they'll do the job just as good or better than any American. Why would you pay $100K/year?
Most markets bifurcate into a commoditized low-end that makes all the volume and a differentiated high-end that makes all the profits. Think Android/iPhone, Windows/Mac, TSMC/Intel, Volkswagon/Porsche, etc. The commodity low-end programmer isn't the guy in Missouri, it's the guy in Minsk or Bangkok. You're either the one making up the specs (which will probably still be in Silicon Valley, because that requires communication and trust more than coding ability), or the one implementing the specs (which can be anywhere, with commensurate wages).
So it would follow that overpriced talent in high-demand markets would see a decrease, where underpriced talent in low-demand markets would see an increase.
This would be the same concerns with offshoring as well, but that hasn't led to massive salary drops. Because there's still a big cost to switching people. If you could fire all your SF SWEs today and replace them with identical, knowledgable, fully-ramped, culture-carried SWEs in $secondary_market for half price, you would. You can't, so you threaten and you try to convince your SF SWE that you could just enough to keep their expectations low, but not so much that they actually quit.
I see a lot of companies still trying the "CoLA trick" on employees moving to secondary markets. "We can hire your position in $market for cheaper," so the argument goes. The best move there is to call their bluff: "go do it then". Most people won't do it because a) conflict is hard and b) finding a new job on top of moving is annoying. So they'll take it on the chin and just resign 6-12 months later after they're settled.
[1] In the old world, there's still a premium to convince talent to relocate. So companies in high-demand markets (e.g., SF) either have to pay +x% to tap non-local talent and get them to move to the high-demand market (where they become local talent).
Even in the new world, non-local talent isn't going to sit by and let themselves be underpaid. "I'm doing the exact same thing, delivering the exact same value, but someone is getting paid 30% more to sit in the office? Oh, and you don't even pay for my home office?"
Anyone working for a Silicon Valley company as an engineer is almost certainly considered "the wealthy" by most of America.
Depending on your definition of wealthy, "anyone working" full stop. A large number of americans do not work (too young/old etc). Others are sick. Many at the top of society don't earn much income (tax voodoo). And automation is coming. If we define "wealthy" as the top 25/15/10% of wage earners, how soon before that is basically just anyone with a fulltime job?
In 2020, $121,411 was the median household net worth in the United States. This is up from $97,225.55 in 2017.
The average household net worth in 2020 was $746,821. It was $692,100 in 2017.
The disparity between these two numbers is itself a major problem, but not the point. If you have a net work of $120k you aren't wealthy, even if you earnt that all in the last month.
The way you get from having no wealth to having an average amount is by working harder and earning more. However the tax system is built to punish people who earn more money from work, and reward people who gain more wealth through things like capital gains -- you pay more tax if you increase your wealth by a dollar from working than from the side-effect of being already wealthy and seeing your assets gain value. You're also far more likely to have higher outgoings if you're working (higher cost to live near a high paying job, commuting costs etc)
If you are on the median ohio wage on 37k a year, so $30,427.47 net, and spending 37k to live, your wealth doesn't increase.
If you work an extra 1k, you take home $31,202.47 -- $775, 22.5% tax.
If you make 1k in capital gains, you keep $971, 3% tax.
Look at twice median wage of 74k a year. Take home 57,439.49. Extra $1k will give you 58,109.69, an extra $670 - 33% tax.
Make 1k in capital gains and you pay 18% tax.
Earn 10 times the median wage at $370k and you keep 239,713.20, 42% tax.
Get 1k in capital gains and you keep $764, 24% tax.
https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-net-worth-percentiles/
https://www.thebalance.com/breakdown-of-average-monthly-hous...
https://goodcalculators.com/us-salary-tax-calculator/ohio/
https://smartasset.com/investing/capital-gains-tax-calculato...
When you consider just how low US individual income tax rates are by global standards, it’s obvious that disparities in net worth have a lot to do with the fact that a large share of Americans, regardless of their income, effectively choose to live from paycheck to paycheck on the brink of personal insolvency.
But often these arguments don't present a full picture - because it only discusses the end result of the dollar received and compare the tax rates.
What about the risk? A job-income is 100% guaranteed to be received if one worked. Even if the business paying the said wage doesn't make a profit, they still have to pay the wage. The owner cops the loss.
Therefore, to encourage investments, the taxes are lowered on the profits of such type of investment (which is what capital gains are). The person trying to make capital gains income has to take on a risk that a wage earner doesn't, because the capital gains aren't guaranteed.
If capital gains are taxed the same, you will find that there will be less investments, which leads to less jobs and less wealth overall.
So you're saying people don't work because they are taxed at a higher rate than capital gains?
Higher capital gains tax discourages investment. If income tax is higher, it indeed does stop people from working (as much). But we are talking about raising capital gains tax, not raising income tax.
The person risking "billions" in capital is taking "billions" in monetary risk (the weighting depending on what the investment is - bonds are less risky than shares, for example).
Over the last 50 years the values of investments have far far outpaced growth in earnings. If a millionaire doesn't invest and make captial gains, what does he do with his money? Keep it in a box under the bed?
And a lawyer gets paid $200/hr. What are you comparing? I'm not talking about whether it's "fair" that someone can be earning so little when there exists billionairs. That's for the philosophers and social commentators to endless debate.
But someone working for $20/hr earns that money, with zero risk of not receiving it after services rendered. Someone investing money is not guaranteed a return.
> If a millionaire doesn't invest and make captial gains, what does he do with his money?
So you're saying that because said millionaire has "no choice", he would be forced to invest and thus, society could leech more off him?
Same principle with a lawyer being paid $200 an hour, or an actor on $2000 an hour.
Morally I'd say that the millionaire who is rent seeking should be taxed more than those working, but parity would be a start
You make investing seem like gambling. Seems that the IRS treat gambling as earned income, not unearned income.
Yes, but it is not good that your "compensation" will be coming from something that isn't tied to your job performance. Wages at least have some tenuous connection to how well you perform at work.
> 2. Maybe the money will go to new hires, capabilities, expenditures, etc. ?
Based on recent trends, this will not happen.
> 3. Sure, but this is certainly a good arguing point against immigration, population growth and H1-B visa programs and the like.
Yes, definitely.
> 4. Increase taxes on the wealthy, etc.
Yes, or nationalize the banks.
It also doesn't account for the fact that these equities can lose substantial value, or may be over-valued.
> Yes, or nationalize the banks.
Re-implement the Glass-Steagall Act, or similar. Nationalization leaves the levers of power in the hands of the wrong people. Keeping commercial and investment banking separate while implementing strong consumer protections was shown to work well in the past. Also, it has shown that the repeal massively reduced the amount of banks (killing competition) so it stands to reason that trend could be reversed and improve the consumer banking experience over time.
This won’t work. When the tech exodus begins, it’s going to cause CA to buckle at its knees because the wealthy has been subsidizing more than 80% of the population. It is not sustainable or healthy at all to suckle at the teat of the wealthy.
We should abolish all taxes and only retain taxes based on consumption. And a flat modest capital gains tax. With dedications gone, this might actually bring in more public money.
Public spending will also decrease if we figure a way out of unfunded pension liabilities. This is huge. Don’t know how it can be resolved.
CA does not tax wealth, they tax (predominately) income, and I wouldn't be so quick to equate the 2. Prop 13, for example, can mean that wealthy land owners pay almost nothing in tax if they've owned their property for a long time.
https://www.taxfairnessproject.org/ generally the wealthier you are the bigger your tax cut.
At the moment that may be true but increasing the pool of potential labor rarely results in wealth distribution. I think companies will pay less. That money won't go to other hires as tech companies limit hiring for other reasons than money. The money will go to bottom lines, to stockholders: the opposite of wealth distribution.