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A $100k job in New York City is the same as a $25k job in Kansas- that's how different the prices really are.

Based on incredibly rough guesstimation using HomeFair's Salary Calculator, that $100K job would be about $81,708 in Kansas. That's Wichita.

For $81K, I'd move to Wichita. You can buy a lot of BBQ with that.

I think things like pay, benefits, location, etc. matter far more to the vast majority of techies than merely "working on a prominent website." After all, in today's world, prominent websites come and go in a matter of months.

Damned, it must be cheap to live in Columbia, MD. I live in Fayetteville, AR and there is only a 2.4x multiplier. Then again, land prices around here ARE really starting to skyrocket. I made more hypothetical wealth last year on a 25 acre piece of land my grandfather left me than I did at my job and I have a pretty decent job and the land is pretty far away from any development. My house appraises for almost twice what I paid for it just four years ago.

http://www.homefair.com/homefair/servlet/ActionSer vlet?pid=200&tool=salarycalculator&previousPage=11 6&cid=homefair&fromState=AR&toState=CA&salary=1000 00&fromCity=0523290&toCity=0606000&ownrent=own

If I move from Columbia, MD on the East Coast out to Berkeley, CA in the Bay Area, I apparently need an 8x increase in salary.

Sounds good to me, I wouldn't mind 360k a year!

- One-time relocation expense reimbursement
- Bump in salary if new location is more expensive than old location (salary calculator)
- Assistance with finding a house or apartment

More important is how this will affect your family. Being single will make the decision easier, but being hitched with kids will make this truly a life-changing event.

i recently went through this drill in searching for my first job after graduate school. i did an extensive amount of research in the process, based on which i can state the following (general--YMMV) observations:

a) average pay for a person with given qualifications can vary widely (>20%), even within a given industry.

b) average pay can, and does, vary widely between industries (e.g. aerospace vs. electrical engineering).

c) despite how they may act upon initial contact, HR people are not your friends. their job is to make you feel like they're your buddy, and to create the appearance of "it's you and me against The Man," where "The Man" is the company in question, early on in the negotiation process.

d) after getting the go-ahead from the hiring manager, HR's job is to get you on board for the lowest possible amount of money. if you think about it, doing things significantly differently would be financially irresponsible from the company's standpoint in most cases.

e) do your homework. that way you can counter glib and/or arbitrary assertions from the HR person about salary with tangible facts. even then they will likely not concede an inch verbally, but it does make a difference.

f) in case it is not clear from points b) through e) above, HR people are weasels. i was incredibly lucky to receive seven offers from seven interviews. with one small exception, this was the case in all of them.

g) whoever names a number first during the negotiation process generally loses.

although the title makes it sound very much like a huckster's manual, jack chapman's book is actually pretty decent and worth a look. some of its advice may be inapplicable or unworkable for you, but it's a good place to start. you can find it at most big bookstores for about $10. (no, i have no affiliation whatsoever with him.)

some universities' career offices publish historical starting salaries for their graduates online. if this isn't your first job, these numbers may not be directly relevant to you, but it's another piece of information. stanford MIT.

other salary links: the wall street journal published two surveys in the november 5, 2004 issue, one showing average salary by location, another by degree/education, for computer engineers. my two links are both dead, but if you have access to a library or a subscription to the WSJ archives, those are worth a look.

cost-of-living calculators one, two, three, four, five. that last one is a general link to the ACCRA index. it is not published for free on the web AFAIK, but if you google around you may find snapshots posted in various places.)

finally, general salary negotiation advice links: one, two, three.

be prepared, and good luck! /CF

There's a reason people are willing to work in their tech group for the low wages - it's because they learn a LOT.

My sister-in-law works in Wal-Mart's fashion design department and lives quite comfortably on $35,000/year while her husband goes to grad school. She actually likes her job, contrary to what many people may assume. If you're in the home office, it really isn't too bad.

It's always fashionable to slam Wal-Mart, but people really miss some of the decent things they do. For example, since I started there in 1998, the Waltons have donated no less than $563 million to the University of Arkansas. They basically paid for the new honors college. The Waltons may have anti-competitive business practices, frown on unions, and do many other unsettling things, but you can't argue that they aren't trying to make up for it by giving away large amounts of money. I won't forget that their contributions to university scholarships paid for my (and my wife's) education.

That said, I still shop at Target, until they actually open at least a third of those 40-some-odd checkout lanes. :)

so what you are saying is if someone working in California should be paid more money than someone working in West Virginia doing the same job, because its cheaper to live in WV??

Actually, this is exactly the case. Houses in California cost $500,000 (or more!) for something that would cost $200,000 (or less!) in Rochester, NY (never mind West Virginia). That's also why we have Cost of Living calculators, to better compare our current salary to what we'd need to live equivalently elsewhere (due to food, gas, rent, mortgage, dining...); for example if you earn $50,000 in Bluefield, WV, you would need to make $134,050 in Menlo Park, CA to have an equivalant lifestyle.

This isn't a "new era" of "geo-discrimination," this has always been the case (though it has gotten worse as the housing bubble gets larger).

$75,000 a year in the Bay Area? Hope you can find a good deal on ramen noodles. That's equivalent to about $35,000 in Pittsburgh dollars according to one salary calculator, and Pittsburgh tech jobs pay easily more than that. You do have to buy your own wheatgrass juice though.

I just checked here and found that my salary would be equivalent to $167,364 in San Jose, CA. I would need to double my salary to live in San Jose as I live now.

Just using this Salary Calculator here are some examples of what you would need to make if you were to move from Queens where you made $100K:

Little Rock - $73,660
Albuquerque - $83,996
Durham, NC - $86,865
New Orleans - $88,257
Billings, MT - $71,391

They come up with these by measureing five categories: housing costs (33%), utilities (8%), consumables (16%), transportation (10%), and other services (33%). Most of the savings you see are because of housing cost differences. I did rent for these comparisons because most people living in a large city like New York and don't own.

Where are you living? If you're not in a city, you're probably still above the average when you factor in cost of living. Quick Googling for a salary comparison, $100k in my home town of Centreville, Va is equal to $150k in San Diego, Ca. Oddly enough, DC (which is essentially where I work) has a comparison of $100k to $83k in SD. Huh.

--trb

Exactly... My guess is that that "40% less" is not 40% less than all states... just the ones that pay a lot, like California.

Try using the International Salary Calculator, it's handy. According to that, if you made $80,000 USD in San Francisco, you'd need to make just over $60,000 USD in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (a.k.a. "Silicon Valley North") to enjoy the same standard of living. Also, Ottawa is one of the top 5 most expensive places to live in Canada.

The biggest difference, of course, is that housing is cheaper in Canada, and so is food. You save a LOT on your medical expenses, since Americans spend on average $5400 USD per year on medical expenses, and Canadians only spend about $3500 on average, (if I remember correctly), but get better care than the average American, though I suppose not as nice as the richest.

Also, depending on the province you live in, you can save a lot of money if they have non-profit government run auto insurance. As well, automobiles themselves are cheaper, even ones built on the same assembly line. If you want to check, go to gm.com and do a "build your own vehicle", then do the same exact thing on gmcanada.com, and compare the final MSRPs. You have to do the conversion for the exchange, but it's much cheaper in Canada, even with the higher tax rate.

Gas is more expensive in Canada (about 25% higher, depending) due to taxes, but the cities are smaller, so you tend to spend less time commuting. Other things taxed more are alcohol and cigarettes, but that's supposed to help pay for the health care. Might as well be the drinkers and smokers that carry the burden there, eh? :-)

Food is cheaper in Canada, but clothing is more expensive. Electronics are more expensive, but you can always get a buddy to pick something up for you in the U.S. at cheaper prices.

Broadband internet access is generally wider spread in Canada, and cheaper, because Canadians are more urban than our American counterparts.

Income tax itself isn't that much different anymore, though it used to be. I know for certain, since I have to file both. I'm a computer engineer, and I find that I would pay the same in either country, within a couple hundred dollars. Sales tax, of course, is higher in Canada.

If you're right leaning, you can always move to Alberta, which is a booming wild west place. If you'd prefer the government pay your way, there's always the east coast, and if you're a greenpeace member, there's always the west coast. If you're an accountant, then you'll be at home in Ontario, but Quebec's always close by for those big let-your-hair-down parties. In particular, if you can't shovel snow, Toronto's the place for you, because if it ever snows more than 3 cm, they'll declare a state of emergency and call the army in to shovel your driveway for you.

Just to be fair... Manitoba's population density is 1.9 people per square kilometre and if your dog runs away there, you can still see him running 3 days later, and Saskatchewan is a cooler version of Arizona (dog thing also applies, but the dog will probably be eaten alive by grasshoppers by the 3rd day).

Check out this wizzy cost of living calculator to compare costs between cities all over the world.

For example, if you are making $100k a year in San Francisco, you need to be making around $76K a year in Vancouver to have a similar standard of living.

Move to Regina, and you only need to make around $47K a year.

I think the most important distinction job-wise is that most Canucks I know work 45 hours or LESS a week. None of this 70-hour-a-week crap I hear about in the US.

On those Standard of Living costs, I was thinking throughout this discussion that I am underpaid in my level 1 programming position at $28K, though I love my job. I plugged my Vermont location and compared it to San Francisco (where I was hunting for jobs a few years ago) in The Salary Calculator and came up with an equivalent of $45K in CA. Not terribly high, but more reasonable than I was thinking.

Buying power can be a big factor when comparing salary/location combinations, heres a neat tool to give you a general idea of the differences between 2 locations.
Cost of Living Calculator

Also, for goverment jobs, there the additional benefit of almost absolute job security, kinda nice.

Pick somewhere that the cost of living is low, say North or South Dakota, start your own outsourcing firm and start contracting with companies. According to this salary calculator, a $60,000 salary in San Francisco is equivilant to $23,778 in Fargo, ND. I'm sure a lot of companies might prefer to outsource an employee at $30,000 vs. someone in a different culture/language/timezone. In fact, your outsourcing firm could be based anywhere, and your employees could be anywhere, as long as they have fast connection.

P.S. San Francisco to Columbus Ohio, that $60,000 is equivilant to $41,000.

Well, for that matter, why don't they just move out of California. They can pay a programmer half as much if he lives on the other end of the country. A quiick peek at The Salary Calculator reveals that making $100K in Palo Alto, CA is the same as making $47 K here in (relatively affluent, close in DC suburb) Vienna, VA. And it only gets cheaper as one gets further out from downtown. Out where AOL is (What I would call Ashburn) the number is $37K. I'm sure if you looked at more undeveloped locations that number would be lower still. Moral is, they should be relocating OUT OF CALIFORNIA, where taxes are absurd, and land values are worse. They used to say, for people moving out there, half the house for twice the price. Seems to be only a slight exaggeration.

One of the big points made in the book is that the incredible overhead of venture capitalists can, and often does, sink a startup company.

The book covers Arnold Kling's attempt to start homefair.com (an online real estate service) way before anybody had a clue about what the Internet could do for real estate. It's funny/frustrating to read how many clueless bankers and real estate agents blew him off.

Actually, the cost of living in many parts of India is higher than it is in most of the US. See for yourself.

You hit the nail on the head. If companies are smart enough to relocate operations where operating costs are lower, then individuals should respond by relocating labour supply to where the cost of providing that labour is lowest.

The first step is getting out of the cities. If software can be remotely produced in India, then it can just as easily be produced in Idaho. Programmers in the rural developed world might not be able to live off as little as programmers in the developing world, but they will certainly have a lower cost of living than those in the major economic centres.

The second step is working for a standard of living rather than a a meaningless numerical amount. The value of labour and land in India is small enough that you might be able to afford servants and a mansion in India with the same income as you'd be spending on your trailer home and TV dinners in the US. Here, go play with this.

Living in America does not make you special, just expensive.

BTW, I hear you on the unemployment phone issue. I had to do that a few years back, and it sucked BIG rocks... for an $83 a week check.

BTW, I hear you on the unemployment phone issue. I had to do that a few years back, and it sucked BIG rocks... for an $83 a week check.

In any case, since sales taxes are the same for every purchaser, and the poorer sections of the population must spend a larger fraction of their money than the richer sections of the population, sales taxes typically hurt the poor to a greater extent than the rich, when compared to an income tax. Yes the taxes on a yatch can be a lot of money, but presumably that is less of a necessity than the items being taxed that the poor need to buy.

Of course whether or not you favour one system over the other would be influenced in how fair you feel it is to tax different people different amounts of money and how fair you feel it is to tax people different rates.

Here's a neat tool that let's you compare what your income would have to be elsewhere in order to have the same lifestyle.

$100,000 in Oklahoma City compares to $279,000 in Menlo Park.

I saw it on the Internet, so it must be true.

Have you ever really been to Iowa? The cost of living isn't that low. Comparing any place to NYC or the Bay Area is going to skew the results because those places are so friggen expensive. Go to a Salary calculator and compare some of the cities in Iowa to any other city. Most of the time, the cost of living is lower, but not by that much. Sometimes it's more expensive (comparing Buffalo, NY to Des Moines or Phoenix to Iowa City for example).

Wansu wrote:
> 36 years old and only making 110k a year?

You'd be surprised at how many good system programmers over 40 make less than $100k a year. It depends on what part of the country too. $100k isn't that high a figure in California but it is in North Carolina.

Indeed, since cost of living differs a lot. The Salary Calculator shows that a $110K salary in San Jose is the equivalent of a mere $67K in Durham, whereas a $110K job in Durham would have to become a whopping $170K job in San Jose to meet the same quality of life.

And a lot of people living in North Carolina would probably argue that you couldn't pay them twice that because the quality of life measured in non-dollar terms is much higher there. Never underestimate the nontangibles, like a nice home, more time with family, and so forth.

Another factor to consider is that with a slightly lower salary, often, comes a considerably greater sense of job security. If you're just earning for yourself, hey, go for the gold. But if you have a family, you prefer the steady work, the health insurance, the 401(k) that come with a settled job. Those, too, can be worth a lot more than their simple dollar value.

Anyway, I'm opposed to any snot snidely and snarkily commenting on 36-year-olds who "don't have their shit together", whatever that means. Not everybody follows the same path, and what should matter is how applicable your particular technical skills are. I couldn't stand helping end-users once I got past 30, so I boosted my skills. But this industry is full of round pegs and square holes [cubicles]. If he hasn't learned that by now ....
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it can be found at here . Unfortunately, they no longer calculate salary for other countries... I'm pretty sure they used to have it... but you can find the equivalent of your current salary in just about any major US metro area.

The author did mention looking for someplace with a low cost of living. He didn't say where he is living now, but the Toronto area isn't particularly cheap.
According to Homefair's Salary Calculator, Toronto is a smidgen cheaper than Philadelphia, and a good deal more expensive than Atlanta, Pittsburgh, and Sacramento, for instance.
Toronto is, however, quite a bit cheaper than San Jose or San Diego.

What do you consider to be an ureasonably large salary? Are you talking about the $70k they (ARSDigita) pay their entry level programmers? Let's think about that for a minute. $70k for 70 hours per week, that would be $40k for for a 40 hour per week job. Mmmm, not looking so good now, but wait, there's more. Let's consider the location of the job, Mass. What's the cost of living there compared to your current location (hint: its pretty high). According to this site $40k in cambridge is equal to about $24k where I live. That just plain sucks. Remember, big numbers don't always mean big quality of life!

They'd be able to buy/build newer, better ones, and still have some money left over due to the lower cost of living.

Bzzzt, wrong answer, thanks for playing Slashdot!

According to the handy-dandy salary calculator located at Homefair, a person making $100,000 a year and owning his own home moving from Redmond, WA to Vancouver, BC, would need to make $121,261 (US) to break even on cost of living.

That's 21% HIGHER, Malc; not lower.

It's much closer if you rent; $103,424. Canada still loses.

Hmm, I wonder what it looks like if you plug Bill's numbers in there. :-)

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They'd be able to buy/build newer, better ones, and still have some money left over due to the lower cost of living.

Bzzzt, wrong answer, thanks for playing Slashdot!

According to the handy-dandy salary calculator located at Homefair, a person making $100,000 a year and owning his own home moving from Redmond, WA to Vancouver, BC, would need to make $121,261 (US) to break even on cost of living.

That's 21% HIGHER, Malc; not lower.

It's much closer if you rent; $103,424. Canada still loses.

Hmm, I wonder what it looks like if you plug Bill's numbers in there. :-)

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This is the one I have bookmarked.

According to it, I'd have to go from 50K to 106K to live the same lifestyle.
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Check these sites out to investigate variations in COS (Cost of Living). I work in expensive Boulder, CO and I still need to make $4400 more to live in Pasadena, CA. Ouch!

Salary Calculator (includes foreign countries)
Versus Year
Various Sources
Compare cities side-by-side
A short article with a cost of living index list



~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"

This is the Salary Calculator that Money magazine links to in their tools section. It works pretty well. Helps to compute the "real" dollar amount of that large salary offer with relo is worth....

Caveat: I've found that it

1. Underestimates the cost of living in CT.
2. Typically doesn't take into account major differences in state taxes (eg. no income tax in TX or WA).
3. Can't predict intangibles (like generally not needing a car if you live in Boston, NY, or Chicago).

So, YMMV. But at least it's a start :)

This is my opinion and my opinion only. Incidentally, IANAL.