Understand and negotiate based off the value you provide, and what you can bring to the business. Chances are, your local cost of living has very little to do with that.
No, I'm just saying sometimes employers can reasonably take employee costs into account - health care, maternity leave, day care, etc. Not here, I agree employers should not consider this. But I think saying employers should never take variable employee costs into account is an argument that's wrong, so making that absolutist argument won't help the case.
It’s all negotiations. If you think it’s worth taking a $10k paycut for a $5k (for the business)/$12k (as an individual) health plan, then it’s win-win.
If you take a $10k paycheck because you live in Nebraska (and nothing else), and the Company is in SF? That’s just bad negotiating.
If the company is in Nebraska and only pays $10k less and can get plenty of takers locally - then they won’t get many people from SF, and they’re probably fine with that.
Just about all benefits offered by employers, from maternity leave to health care, function as allowances for particular purposes. They pay a variable amount based on the varying needs of a workforce.
One could even relabel the location-based-pay as a "rent supplement". If everyone get the same pay but those paying crazy high rents get extra to ameliorate this, it sound better.
Which still isn't saying I like this idea. I don't think pay should be able to be easily translated to benefits and I think only things that are unalterably unequal, like health care and maternity leave, should be doled out as benefits.
But I don't think one can make the argument that "allowance" type pay is inherently offensive. I mean, one allowance thing that's totally reasonable is when employees have to go to conferences for a work and the employer gives them an allowance for the incidental expenses they're incur.