One great takeaway regarding local variances for the people who are fortunate enough to be able to benefit from it: If you're able to work remotely, you can do work for companies in the ~130% areas (e.g. San Francisco, New York, D.C.) and make those wages while living in an area where most people can get by on ~90% of the national average.
I fully agree with the principle, but note that these numbers indicate the market rate for salary, not necessarily cost of living. The two are correlated but not the same. Here is a table that lists cost of living as calculated by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics:
For example, note that Honolulu has a salary coefficient of 92, but it's actually one of the most expensive places in the country to live. It has a cost of living coefficent of 171.
Another thing is that in addition to cost of living, one must consider state taxes, which you can calculate here:
Not always. Most employers will likely realize the differences in cost of living and try to get you relative to your local market. One of the benefits of remote employees for an employer is around being more cost effective.
I've also been in the situation working for a remote employee who tried to pay comparable CA wages (wasn't in the Bay Area), but didn't understand the true cost of living differences. Also been on the flip side, in office in SF and looking for people in cheaper markets.
I have a limited perspective (I guess as all of us do) but I find that the coefficients listed for offsetting the wages by city are not very on-par with the average wages that I know of in the expensive cities (SF/NYC). They are not drastically off but I've found the wage swings to be more moderate when going to a place with a much higher cost of living. In all honesty, in some of the most expensive spots the average wages should be double the national average to be fair but Im still waiting for that day to come :)
