The “location pay” or “location adjustment” when it exists is indeed based on where you work rather than where you live. But I’ve never seen or heard of such an adjustment given in a 100% remote, “live anywhere you want in a state where we do business” job." Those adjustments are given when you will be in the office enough often enough that it will restrict where you can live. It’s not a matter of "it is now based on where you live rather than where you work " - it’s a matter of where you live is also where you work. Nobody is talking about cutting pay for someone who lives in Pennsylvania and commutes to NYC every day or even two/three days a week - it’s about cutting the pay for the person who rarely or never comes to NYC.
We actually have jobs where you don’t know what you are getting paid until after you get hired.
It’s murky ground to argue that employees should be paid less based on lower living costs at all, though - it does open the door to employees being paid less if they have no student loans.
I don’t think employers having employees living “anywhere in the world” is as simple as it sounds, legally. Otherwise all the jobs being done remotely now would already be being done by people in places like India; some are, obviously, especially call centres, but not all of them. There must be legal reasons companies aren’t utilising that more.
Fair enough. But IMO it would be reasonable to give employees notice that their unexpected remote working, if they choose to continue it, now means that they will be getting a pay cut. It’s not quite the same situation as one individual choosing to move somewhere cheaper and getting permission to work from there instead.
I think there might be some talking past each other here- when location pay is set based on the “cost of living” , that “cost of living” is not based on any one individual’s living cost. What matters is that housing costs X% more in NYC than it does in Rochester and it takes Y income in NYC to pay for the same standard of living you could get for Z income in Rochester - but the fact that my personal situation means I could live rent-free in NYC and therefore Rochester would be more expensive for me doesn’t matter.
That’s what the company mentioned in the article in the OP did. I haven’t heard of companies just instantly cutting pay with no warning- usually, there’s an announcement that they expect people to return to the office at some specific point in the future and they are sometimes given the option of staying 100% remote and taking a paycut based on the location where they will now be working. Or they may just be told to return to the office or resign - which is actually what lots of companies are doing. A relative of mine living in NYC was hired for a Seattle based job, and as long as everyone was 100% remote, the company was fine with him staying in NYC. But they expect to return to in-office in December, so he will have to move to Seattle at that point or find a new job.
Thanks Doreen. The link wouldn’t open for me, but I tried again after deleting cookies and it opened.
Getting the pay deduction next year doesn’t sound as bad, in many ways. But then the article says “Now that she lived in an inexpensive city, Redfin asked, would she be willing to accept a pay cut?” Nothing about where she was working, exactly, but where she was living.
You’d probably have to know that Rochester is a six hour drive from NYC to know that she couldn’t live in Rochester and work in Brooklyn.
Most of this is stuff that would have been worked out as companies started naturally moving to a more work from home situation.
The pandemic made a bunch of chaos, and everyone is still trying to figure out how to move forward.
I looked it up. But I know people who choose to live that far away and commute to city jobs for a day or two a week, renting a room or staying with friends. And that’s pre-pandemic.
What makes me not feel sorry for her at all is that she chose to buy a house in Rochester, knowing that the pandemic was still going on and her job situation in flux. Further, her husband’s job situation was still in flux.
I think it is pretty unrealistic to move six hours away from your job and somehow demand that they continue your employment at current pay unless you had worked out those details firmly and ahead of time.
Everything I ever learned about human resources I learned from Darth Vader. “I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.” An employer is generally free to change the conditions of employment (pay, benefits, policies, etc., etc.) at any time. I mean they can’t just tell you the day before you’re being paid that they cut your salary by 20%. But they can say, “Oh, by the way, starting next pay period we’re going to cut salaries by 20%.” Practically speaking, such changes would likely be detrimental to the company as disgruntled employees sought work elsewhere.
That’s not true everywhere though.
TBF, now I’ve been able to read the article, it doesn’t sound like she’s asking people to feel sorry for her:
She’s resigned to the trade-off, at least for now. “So much in the world is not how I thought it would be,” she says.
She’s just being used as an example of someone whose work life has changed - there’s no appeal for sympathy.
But on the flip side, the employee is able to do that as well. Give me a 20% raise or else I am quitting. It works both ways in an at-will employment scenario is that each party can end the relationship for any reason or no reason except an illegal reason.
IIRC, in Europe you cannot just walk away from a job. You must give a month or more of notice.
Of course it’s not true everywhere. Most of this thread revolves around the United States with such varied locations as San Francisco, Rochester, Dubuque, and Kansas City being used in examples. Based on that context, I didn’t feel it was necessary to add, “In the United States,” to my statement. Generally speaking, in the United States, employers are free to alter the conditions of employment at any time.
Yes, but Darth Vader doesn’t live in the US either 
And the pandemic doesn’t just affect the US, which also isn’t the only country that has location-based wages. I genuinely thought this was a general topic, not just for US residents.
You sounded like you were speaking a universal truth that cannot be changed. It isn’t universal, though. It probably never will be changed in the US (just like many other things won’t be changed in the UK), but not because it’s as automatic as gravity.
Do you think giving a month’s notice sounds onerous compared to your employer being able to fire you at will?
In the UK - I can’t speak for all of Europe, which has multiple different laws in different countries - it can be a day, a week, a month, three months, etc - it depends on your contract, which you will have. And in reality employers don’t always insist on the full notice period being served anyway.
So do I , as well as people who work five days a week in NYC and “go home” on weekends* - but it appears that Redfin is only lowering salaries for those who are working full-time from other places. If she was willing to go into the NYC office a few days a week (and I don’t know if they mean “2” or “4” by a few) it doesn’t seem that they would lower her salary at all.
* Lots of them -many of whom arrange their schedules to have 4 consecutive days off ( Fri-Sat off week 1 and then Sun-Mon off week 2 for example)
Absolutely. The ability to tell your boss to shove it is amazing. I’ve quit once on zero notice and the look on their face is totally worth the zero stress I’ve ever had about being fired with no notice. I would bet the ratio is at least 2:1 on people quitting with no notice vs being fired on the spot.