[nanis]

The price of everything is always between the value placed on it by the buyer and the cost to the seller. Not a revelation.

At the margin, they are all equal because trade continues until the gains from trade are exhausted.

In many countries and U.S. states, laws guarantee that the cost of an employee to an employer is almost twice as much as what the employee is paid. In those circumstances, the potential gains from bilateral trade are not exhausted and people engage in that trade outside of the dominion of the state.

[andrejserafim]

That's it. I believe, like in any market the top earners, who are hard to get and hurt when they go will continue to get high pay. Since even if you include the world (and most jobs don't, they include some timezones, jurisdictions only) the market is still rather small.

But if you're just the average developer, like most of us really are - the higher competition will surely make it harder to negotiate higher pay.

[emidln]

> In many countries and U.S. states, laws guarantee that the cost of an employee to an employer is almost twice as much as what the employee is paid.

This might be true at the lower end close to minimum wage, but payroll taxes are a specific % (usually around 15% at the federal level, and the employee pays about half that) and insurance and other benefits are typically a fixed cost per head (15k to 30k per year at most of the places I've worked). The only thing that might be variable are things like 401k match. Once you get to six figure salaries, the fully loaded cost per employee is 120-130% of their salary.

[lotsofpulp]

It’s the opposite at the very low end, since many near minimum wage jobs don’t even offer benefits.